Imagine the royalties he (or his estate) must be getting.
No worries. 
By that primary definition, anything is art if you wait long enough.
That it is still argued about doesn’t imply greatness or genius - just that some people think it is great or genius. And logically if you accept that all of us who think it’s not all that good can be wrong, your side could equally be incorrect.
I would point out also that when people talk about it, they just as often seem to be talking about things that are not it; to take this thread as an example, they’re talking about the ambient sounds they can hear, not the silence itself.
And this post is the Andy Warhol version.
ftr I’ve never have attended a performance of 4:33.
I would lean towards the genius side of the genius/garbage scale.
It is a little like Jazz. It’s made up as it goes. Also, a rest is equal to a note. A composer writes rests, just as well as they write notes. The rests count. This is just a work or all rests. The question to me would be: Is 4:33 the proper ammount of rests?
Of course it’s composed of something. If you watch the peformance of the piece, everyone has sheet music, the conductor turns the pages, and there are instructions for all the musicians (including, presumably, a time signature), just like any other composition. The only difference is that there are rests. A lot of them.
The only recorded work I own performed by Frank Zappa is this piece.
I’ve always wanted to walk to the information desk at a library and scream at the top of my lungs: I’M AS BIG A JOHN CAGE FAN AS ANYBODY BUT CAN YOU PLEASE TURN THE MUSIC DOWN I CAN BARELY HEAR MYSELF THINK!
On the contrary: Somebody is saying that when I turn off the TV, what I’m hearing is 4’33". I’m saying it.
And if we’re going to define great art based on how well it endures, and how much later people are talking about it, then that graffiti they found in the ruins of Pompeii is about five times as great a work of art as the Mona Lisa. It’s not art unless there’s some sort of communication of emotion from the artist to the audience. Now, a person attending a “performance” of 4’33" may experience an emotional response, but it’s not something that came from Cage; it’s something that came from the birds singing, or the other audience members fidgeting in their seats, or from the semi that drove past. In such a case, the truck driver has a better claim to being an artist than John Cage does.
If it weren’t for Cage, you wouldn’t be paying attention to any of that.
Says who? If all the musicians just got up and walked off stage, without any sort of announcement, for 4’33", leaving the concert-goers to fidget in their seats, how would that be a different experience? How about if the musicians just sat there with a stopwatch instead of a metronome, thereby obviating the need to turn pages or count rests?
they do sit there with a stop watch…I really think your missing the point, which has been spelt out twice already in this thread.
Well, no. It does not necessarily have to be performed that way. It could be performed without sheet music (just as all music can be performed without sheet music) simply by having the conductor time it from his watch. It could be performed by a guitarist using a clock. It could be performed by a vocalist with a stopwatch. It could be perfomed by a cellist with a very good sense of timing. It could be performed by the Rolling Stones using an egg timer.
What you are describing is certainly a form of performance art - it’s a wordless theatre, I guess - but it’s not music, and the performance as such is composed entirely by the performers.
My boss plays violin in a string quartet (and in larger ensembles as well). I poked my head into her office today:
Me: “Hey, have you ever performed 4’33?”
Her: “I’m not familiar with that title.”
Me: “It’s by Cage…”
Her: “I HATE John Cage!!!”
Me: “It’s four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silene.”
Her: “Oh! One of his better compositions, then!”
It’s just about the only jazz composition I can even listen to.
Yes, as I mentioned before, this is a key feature of many of Cage’s works.* See this score, for example. Introducing elements of indeterminacy - elements that would be by their very nature beyond the composer’s direct control - was one of Cage’s favorite ideas. ETA: in the class I mentioned, we performed an “indeterminate” piece composed by my teacher - it was extremely cool.
I get the sense that many of you think Cage is something of a one-trick pony, but I find that the deeper you dig into him, the more fascinating he becomes. There’s quite a lot of real substance there, in my opinion. I’d recommend this book as a good starting point for learning about him. I do recall that it can get a little technical music-wise, which was beyond me personally, but is also perfectly interesting and informative if you skim those parts.
*Being “composed” by the performers, that is, not being not-music
This question, “is it music or is it performance?” along with its mother: “is it art?” is strictly semantic in nature and rather pointless. We learn nothing by arguing about it because in the end all we’ve done is provide a definition for a term. The time we spent doing so would have been time better spent actually talking about the value of the object in question.
You miss the point if you believe the performance as such is composed entirely by the performers. The performer is necessary only as a signal to the audience: get into music listening mode. It was particularly relevant at the premiere, the pianist was David Tudor, who specialised in contemporary repertoire. Because of this the audience was expecting just about anything, and that’s what they got. If there had not been a performer, people probably would not have listenened as they did. However, the performer’s action is not the piece, it is not what is put up for appreciation; the object is everything that will inevitably happen.
Is it music? Is it a gimmick? Is it art? Will your life be richer for asking youself these questions?
From John Cage’s Music Lovers’ Field Companion, published in Silence.
I’d draw the parallel with Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures. What makes them is not the solid item, but the holes, the absences of material. They are not only made of wood or metal, but also of empty space.
With sculpture, one cannot continue this as far as the entire object consisting of the absence of material, because it ceases to exists. With 4’33", Cage used the framework of a traditional concert presentation (as noted already), which enabled him to do with music (not ‘with sound’) that which could not be done with marble.
One additional note (ha!) urging people not to judge the piece without experiencing it: the only thing it will not be is silent. If very few other sounds are heard, the sound of one’s own blood passing through the ears, and even one’s pulse, becomes evident. One cannot experience true silence.
Hee hee: the publishers list it under the following catagories:
http://www.edition-peters.com/php/stock_info.php?section=music&pno=EP6777
Cage (who did have a wicked sense of humour) would have approved, I’m sure.
I admire their nerve in charging $5.50 for the sheet music. I’m sure Cage’s estate approve of that, too. 
During the legal wrangle a few years ago with Mike Batt, they reduced it to a special discount price - $4.33.
Maybe this thread should be called “Fluxus: get it or not?”