Blog #3 - 4"33'

4”3’ has been John Cage’s most famous and controversial composition. So, it is only fitting that we performed that piece for his 100^th birthday.  4”33’ is the epitome of John Cage’s definition of music as “any sound heard.” You may ask though, how can 4”33’ be considered music if it is essentially 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence? As John Cage said in the premier of 4”33’ at Woodstock, New York, “They missed the point. There’s no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.” 4”33’ is a musical performance that includes all of the sounds of the environment. In the absence of instrumental sound, we encounter the ambient sounds that are typically ignored in daily life. Not only is it an opportunity to subject our senses to the environment, it is a chance to meditate. John Cage has explicitly expressed his belief that the purpose of music is “to quiet the mind thus making it susceptible to divine influences.”

In my personal experience of performing 4”3’ I was able to focus on both aspects mentioned above. I experienced the sounds of the environment such as the birds singing, the traffic nearby, and the shuffling of my classmates next to me. I particularly enjoyed the birds’ singing. This performance gave me the time to experience a tranquil moment, which in my busy life, I do not experience often. I almost forgot where I was; I began to think and meditate on things, unaware that I was among a large group of people and a person standing right in front of me with a recording device. After performing 4”3’’ I better understand now John Cage’s ideas and the importance of 4”33’.