I heard a story that talked about 4:33 today. Someone claimed it was a turning point…Cage drawing the line between recorded music and ambient sound. (that’s my take anyway).
I think I’m pretty aware of the sounds around me. I don’t need Cage to remind me of the whoosh of traffic, the rustle of leaves, or the hum or the refrigerator. I think that Cage DID draw the line, though. We’re so saturated by media-generated sound today that we seldom get to appreciate it’s absence.
As a musician, my opinion of 4’33" is: tain’t nuthin’ to it.
As a self-appointed cultural critic, I feel the same about it as I do about Duchamp’s urinal: meh. Cute once, but the point’s been well made.
But that’s the entire point, that it was simply making a point. And yes the point’s been made.
In any case, I wouldn’t call it either genius or garbage, but it’s a powerful point that was definitely worth making, and has definitely had a rippling influence.
I feel that 4’33" is something that is interesting to think about, and I’m glad it was created because of the discussion it’s caused, but I don’t feel the need to actually experience the performance (though that could be rash-- some simple-sounding ideas are utterly transformative in practice).
Cool idea, but once you know what’s going to happen…
This post is art too
Interesting old GQ thread: How large a file is a 128 kbps MP3 of John Cage’s 4’33"?
The verses and chorus are OK, but the bridge sucks.
Some musicians I’ve heard, I’d be glad if all they ever played was 4:33 over and over.
I remember someone performed it on American Idol, it ran about 1’30".
You can’t appreciate listening to 4’33" without first turning your amp up to 11.
I think the point is to see how many people remember the lesson of “The Emperor’s NEw Clothes.”
What cage was attempting to do with 4’33" was to make the listener not only accept the sounds of their environment but to also disarm the listener, and make them not pas judgment sound/music. which is something a lot of us get caught up in. Accept each sound it for what it is and move on from it. I think its a fantastic point and something we can all learn from.
Well, no, that’s exactly the point: you never know what you’re going to hear. If you ever get a chance to see this performed, you should. It’s fascinating. You sit there only hearing silence at first, and then you start to notice the sounds of people rustling, breathing, whispering, etc. You hear the pianist turning the pages as he counts through the rests. I heard a couple of trucks go by outside. You find yourself really concentrating on what’s going on around you.
And *that’s *the point of 4’33".
Thanks for your replies on this. I wonder: would a “tribute” CD, consisting of cover versions of 4’33", be the most boring album ever? Or maybe the most interesting?
May hijack my own thread here? How did “apostrophe/quotation mark” come to represent both minutes/seconds AND feet/inches?
I actually have seen a tribute album to 4’33" - I never considered buying the thing. I can’t find a cite for it, though.
The title track of Whitehouse’s first album, Birthdeath Experience, is a silent track, and on the CD version it goes for exactly 3’33. On their message board, there’s an interesting discussion about different ‘versions’ of silence, which unfortunately I can’t link to because you have to be a member to read it. However, they did point out a couple of interesting links:
Article on copyrighting ‘silence’
A ‘performance’ of 4’33" 
Eh, it depends on who’s performing it. I’m currently listening to a performance of it by Mozart, Beethoven, and Elvis Presley. Plus, for an added touch of multiculturalism, there’s not a traditional African drummer accompianing, too.
Look, if it wasn’t an important work, we wouldn’t have been having all these posts about it. It would have been forgotten as a gimmick. It if truly was a gimmick, then this thread would have died after the OP.
You may not like it, but that merely proves how powerful it is. If you’re upset about a work that’s decades old, then Cage must be doing something right.
It was a trailblazer, and deserves credit for that.
Hell, you could say the same thing about Paris Hilton. Plenty of threads about her; she must be an important person, huh? Not at all gimmicky.
This is simply the very zenith of circular reasoning.
