Silent 'Song'

[MrWhy]

I think I remember recently reading a thread about a "song" that was just silence, but I'm not sure.

I can't find anything using search. Can anybody tell me the name of the song and the artist who "recorded" it?

Or am I remembering incorrectly?

[Gilligan]

You might be thinking of John Cage's 4'33", a work that has the performer not do anything for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. I've seen it mentioned on the board recently.

[lissener]

Cage's 4'33", IIRC, is not simply instructions not to do anything for for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. IIRC, it's a piece for piano, and the score includes only rests instead of notes. The pianist comes out, opens the score, and counts the beats--turning the pages where appropriate--until the piece is over.

The piano produces only silence, of course, but the audience (in theory) hears the turning of the pages, the breathing or moving of other audience members, a passing truck, etc. This is the "music" that Cage intended for the piece; I take it as a communal moment of silence and appreciation.

[Cabbage]

Can you download it from Napster?

[Gilligan]

You're right, I forgot to add that, lissener, it isn't silence but the whatever sounds the audience hears. I looked up a bit more to see that it is for any number of performers and instruments (although typically performed on the piano) and contains three movements. Here is a good page (http://www.azstarnet.com/~solo/4min33se.htm) about the work.

[Chronos]

Nice to know that Cage is working so hard for his money. Another of his pieces is performed by a group of "musicians" randomly turning the dials on a bunch of radios onstage. Incidentally, 4'33" is titled such because the playing time, at the proper rhythm, is 4 minutes and 33 seconds.

I remember hearing of a classical composer who also did the silence thing, but don't remember his name.

Cabbage, I don't know about Napster, but I once made a .wav recording of it for an IRC channel.

[screech-owl]

Originally posted by Gilligan
You might be thinking of John Cage's 4'33", a work that has the performer not do anything for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. I've seen it mentioned on the board recently.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=37723 (Gimme a composer! or Look, I'm a college student!)

IIRC from music history class, I believe he also wrote a symphony involving car horns - different makes and models chosen for the diferent horns. Everyone would toot, honk or blare the horn, depending on how long he (as conductor) pointed at them. Interesting piece.

Then again, I prefer Phillip Glass.

[Olentzero]

The second I saw this thread's title I knew the answer had to be Cage's 4'33". I should have known better than to think I'd be the only one who knew about this piece!

"What's fun", he said, blatantly hijacking the thread since it's been answered, "is to call out the name of the piece to any musician who happens to ask the audience for requests. The dirty look from those musicians who know what you're talking about is priceless." :D

[screech-owl]

Originally posted by Olentzero
"What's fun", he said, blatantly hijacking the thread since it's been answered, "is to call out the name of the piece to any musician who happens to ask the audience for requests. The dirty look from those musicians who know what you're talking about is priceless." :D

ROTFLMAO at 6:30 in the aofm. I'll have to remember that one. So, should we make 4'33" the official theme song of the SDMB-GQ?

I still prefer Phillip Glass. I still prefer Phillip Glass. I still prefer Phillip Glass. I still prefer Phillip Glass. I still prefer Phillip Glass. I still prefer Phillip Glass. I still prefer Phillip Glass. I still prefer Phillip Glass. I still prefer Phillip Glass. I still prefer Phillip Glass. [etc.]

[hawthorne]

I have an addition, courtesy of Q Magazine. One of the two extra tracks from The Bloodhound Gang's Hooray for Boobies is called "The Ten Coolest Things about New Jersey" and consists of 10 seconds of silence.

picmr

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Is this piece written out in 4/4, or 2/4, or what? Did John Cage play around with different ways of representing a
bar of rests?

I suppose he even could have varied the composition of each
phrase, used legato/staccato marks, etc.

[screech-owl]

IIRC, it is a page marked

I. Tacet
II. Tacet
III. Tacet

No meter, no chromatics.
And easy to memorize.

[KeithB]

NPR included it in their "Top 100 of the century," the most influential pieces from the 1900's. If you go to their website, http:\\www.npr.org you can probably listen to the story with realaudio.

I can understand playing it *once*, but they just had a special version in the venue it premiered at where it was played *again*, though this time the audience *liked* it.

[astorian]

I'd go so far as to say 4'33" is by far the best thing John Cage ever wrote. I'm only sorry he EVER felt the need to write actual music with actual notes!

[lissener]

Originally posted by Chronos
. . . I remember hearing of a classical composer who also did the silence thing, but don't remember his name. . . .FWIW, Cage is considered a "classical" composer, as vague as that term can sometimes be. You may be thinking of someone else in the first place; John Cage is probably the classical composer you're thinking of who "also [sic*]" did it.

*sic because I'm not sure if anyone else has done it, except of course in the sense that I'm doing it right now.

[Sofa King]

I believe Ozzy Osbourne did a cover of that song in 1986 at Merriweather Post, when the mainboard blew up.

[Junior Spaceman]

There's also a cover version (!) of 'Silence' by Andy Warhol on a record called 'East Village Other - Hiroshima Day'. The silence is the run off groove of the record, and it is copyrighted 1932 to John Cage. The other curious thing about this record is that it contains the Velvet Underground's first released recording - 1:43 of 'Noise', which is the band tuning up.

HenrySpencer

[astorian]

Incidentally, though my current Guinness Book of Records doesn't list it, I definitely recall an older version saying there used to be SEVERAL "silent" .45 records available, and they sold fairly well.

NOT that anyone ever went into a record store and said, "Gimme a record that doesn't play anything," but jukebox manufacturers regularly bought them and included them for free.

That way, if someone in a bar or nightclub had a headache, and wanted some peace and quiet, he could feed the jukebox a dollar's worth of quarters and get 12 minutes of silence.

[rowrrbazzle]

I once saw a published joke choral piece called "Resting." It included crescendos, decrescendos, changes in key, tempo, and time signatures. But no notes. All rests.

I also have to mention the discussion of "Punkt Contrapunkt," a lampoon of atonal music, from the Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festival (a 1950's British production of which PDQ Bach is a pale reflection):...Three bars of silence. The first is in 7/8, the third is also in 7/8, but the second bar of silence is in 3/4. And this gives to the whole work a quasi-Viennese flavor. But what makes this middle bar of silence so important is that the silence makes a crescendo, because it is the only moment in the whole piece when every instrument in the orchestra has the mute off.

But there is yet more of a climax. The violas have a bottom B flat in this spot, marked tremolando ma quasi pensato. They must not play this note, only think it. In fact, they can only think it because this bottom B flat is not on the instrument...

[KeithB]

I just took a quick look, and it was not too easy to find. The real audio version is here:
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20000508.atc.08.rmm

Unlike the other "Top 100", they do not include an exerpt of the song. hmm.

If you want to see the other top 100 songs, go to the main sight and select "All Things Considered" from the list of programs. That page has a link to the "Top 100"

[HalberMensch242]

Einsturzende Neubauten uses silence quite well in there newest work..Silence Is Sexy. A couple of the song, can't recall the names at the moment, have perfectly paced gaps of silence...it's fantastic.