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Breaking Down the Concept of "4:33"

10K views 181 replies 46 participants last post by  Pugg 
#1 · (Edited)
Sitting in silence in a group is the equivalent or meditating in a Temple of place of choice. I think that can be a very powerful thing to achieve, but you don't need to pay money to see an Orchestra sitting in front of you doing nothing, just go to a Temple (or place of choice with some friends) and achieve the same thing!
 
#19 ·
Agree entirely. There is nothing particularly profound about the concept behind 4'33" either.
 
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#37 ·
Who needs profound? After 250 years of allegedly 'profound' from the Classicists and Romantics, "thoughtful" might be sufficient.

I wasn't there (and nor were you) at the time he came up with the concept, so I don't know whether it was received as 'new' or 'original' or 'profound'...but someone else here who has better knowledge might be able to shed light for us both.
 
#20 ·
At the temple? But ... if the orchestra isn't there, how can the experience "achieve the same thing"?

So much has been written about 4'33", and much of it is worth reading, and contemplating, especially for those truly interested in art. The following article may prove of interest as a start: http://rosewhitemusic.com/piano/writings/silence-taught-john-cage/
 
#28 ·
I've been reading Philip Glass's autobiography and he offers this useful commentary about 4' 33":

Take John's famous piece 4' 33". John, or anyone, sits at the piano for four minutes thirty-three seconds and during that time, whatever you hear is the piece ... The idea was that John simply took this space and this prescribed period of time and by framing it, announced, "This is what you're going to pay attention to. What you see and what you hear is the art." When he got up, it ended.
... The important point is that a work of art has no independent existence. It has a conventional identity and a conventional reality and it comes into being through an interdependence of other events with people.
... The accepted idea when I was growing up was that the late Beethoven quartets or The Art of the Fugue or any of the great masterpieces had a platonic identity - that they had an actual, independent existence. What Cage was saying is that there is no such thing as an independent existence. The music exists between you - the listener - and the object that you're listening to. The transaction of it coming into being happens through the effort you make in the presence of that work. The cognitive activity is the content of the work, This is the root of postmodernism, really, and John was wonderful at not only articulating it, but demonstrating it in his work and his life.
As an aside, I also like this anecdote:
John Cage liked me personally, but sometimes we would have conversations in which he would shake his head and say, "Philip, too many notes, too many notes, too many notes."
I would laugh, and reply, "John, I'm one of your children, whether you like it or not."
 
#32 ·
I've been reading Philip Glass's autobiography and he offers this useful commentary about 4' 33":

As an aside, I also like this anecdote:
Thanks for sharing. I find Cage's idea interesting, as it was something I was contemplating, but I feel it is wrong now, especially with Glass's explanation. How does a work of music not exist independently? There is the concept of entropy. How is chaos music? Even Varese, one in influenced Cage thought music is organized sound. But Glass is correct that Cage's idea is the root of postmodernism. It applies in other arts.
 
#29 ·
It's interesting to know Glass's thoughts on 4'33" and that he thinks he is one of Cage children. I got curious about what Reich thought about 4'33" (and Cage) and checked out his writings.

In Notes on music and dance (1973), Reich associates 4'33" ("any sound is music") with the 1960's avant garde dance trend ("any movement is dance"), regarding it rather negatively, and emphasizes the importance of getting back to the basic, that is, regular rhythmic movement done to music.

In another essay, he distinguishes what he was doing around 1960s from either the European serialism or Cage's chance operation. Reich thinks Cage's early percussion & prepared piano pieces will survive best, though they didn't influence his musical works. (John Cage, 1992)
 
#39 ·
Postmodern has been casting doubt on very rudimentary accepted things. I heard an interesting rebuttal against it in a poetry site with an illustration. According to Plato, a chair is a form. So people sit on it. But the postmodernist would say, there is a broken tyoe of chair, a stable kind, every chair is different, etc. You basically wouldn't be able to assume the chair you sit on is not going to break apart. So a postmodernist like Cage should be checking every chair before he sits on it. There is a kind of hypocrisy in the life of a postmodernist. Another example the writer used is how would a postmodernist appreciate someone saying his bank account no longer exists or the account balance is something different than yesterday. The bank teller could tell the postmodernist, the balance you remembered was yesterday, today is another day! :lol:
 
#42 · (Edited)
Postmodern has been casting doubt on very rudimentary accepted things. I heard an interesting rebuttal against it in a poetry site with an illustration. According to Plato, a chair is a form. So people sit on it. But the postmodernist would say, there is a broken tyoe of chair, a stable kind, every chair is different, etc. You basically wouldn't be able to assume the chair you sit on is not going to break apart. So a postmodernist like Cage should be checking every chair before he sits on it.
Cage is absolutely not a Postmodernist. The point of "4:33" is that it IS music (you can of course disagree with the point, but that's the point). The Postmodernist would say music is a social construct, so NOTHING inherently IS music

There is a kind of hypocrisy in the life of a postmodernist.
Maybe, maybe not, but they won the late 20th century either way
 
#44 · (Edited)
It's not "everything is music" and "nothing is music." It's (Cage, Modernist) "This IS what music is whether you like it or not, because it's objectively so" versus (Postmodernist) "This IS what music is AS FAR AS YOU'RE CONCERNED, whether you like it or not, because your society says so"

(By the way, Cage's position isn't that everything is music , but rather that the "production of sound" is music.)
 
#45 ·
If all sound is music, then there is no need for the word "music," as we already have "sound." The effect is the same, as there is no distinct thing that can be called "music." The fact that we can abuse the word, and willfully misapply it as a demonstration of how o' so clever we are, is evidence of nothing particularly useful.
 
#65 · (Edited)
4'33'' is part conceptual, but I see it primarily as a piece of performative art. It can be listened to at home too, and I think it works really well as part of a playlist, but, in my view, it works the best when listened to in group and in an official setting. If you are wondering why people pay to listen to it in concerts, remember: it's 4'33''. Almost no concert lasts for only 4'33'', which means people are going to listen to several other pieces in the concert as well. What is the harm in setting 4'33'' apart to pause, pay attention to the natural sounds from the environment and reflect? Cage did not intend it to be listened to in isolation, nor did he mean it as an attack to other music.
 
#66 ·
For those who despise 433 I recommend the following threads that are still open (some have been closed):

http://www.talkclassical.com/44746-what-do-you-hate.html

http://www.talkclassical.com/42451-composers-you-couldnt-care.html

http://www.talkclassical.com/31317-rant-horrible-music-composers.html (The OP is a real good one)

http://www.talkclassical.com/40488-classical-composers-you-hate.html

Or better yet start an I hate 433 thread.

At least leave those of us who are trying to understand the work alone.
 
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