4'33 By John Cage

**Casey** · 03-30-2005, 06:25 AM

Anyone ever download the mp3?

I cant hear anything.

To those who dont know.

John Cage's most famous musical composition is called 4'33".

It consists of the pianist going to the piano, and not hitting any keys for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. (He uses a stopwatch to time this.) In other words, the entire piece consists of silences -- silences of different lengths, they say.

On the one hand, as a musical piece, 4'33" leaves almost no room for the pianist's interpretation: as long as he watches the stopwatch, he can't play it too fast or too slow; he can't hit the wrong keys; he can't play it too loud, or too melodramatically, or too subduedly.

On the other hand, what you hear when you listen to 4'33" is more a matter of chance than with any other piece of music -- nothing of what you hear is anything the composer wrote.

http://interglacial.com/~sburke/stuff/cage_433.html

Learnt about it in piano class. I heard the guy locked himself in a room that absorbs sound, and you cant hear anything but your heart beating and the life going on inside your body.

You learn somthing new everyday. So whenever someone asks you if you know how to play anything on the Piano and you dont know, just say 4'33 by John Cage.

**krissy** · 03-30-2005, 06:45 AM

cool thnx

**Big D** · 03-30-2005, 07:46 AM

Last year, some artist released a song that included a pause - one minute's silence. The John Cage foundation sued him for plagiarism

John Cage was responsible for some pretty creative stuff with the piano, though.

**nik0tine** · 03-30-2005, 07:51 AM

My Music Theory teacher played that song for the class once.

Cage is pretty damn interesting though. Have you heard the "TIME!" song?

**krissy** · 03-31-2005, 04:56 AM

what's that one song that's like a 100 years long.
they got some organ set up to play a note and it's been playing that note for like months now.

**eestlinc** · 03-31-2005, 05:03 AM

The purpose of 4'33" is to make you aware of the sound of your surroundings. Similarly, the last song on Boards of Canada's album Geogaddi is two minutes of silence, and every time I listen to that album I hear something new during that final song.

Cage was a very interesting musician, artist, and thinker. Some of his last works from the late 80s and early 90s (he died in August 1992) are absolutely breathtaking.

**fire_of_avalon** · 03-31-2005, 05:14 AM

Originally Posted by eestlinc

The purpose of 4'33" is to make you aware of the sound of your surroundings. Similarly, the last song on Boards of Canada's album Geogaddi is two minutes of silence, and every time I listen to that album I hear something new during that final song.

Cage was a very interesting musician, artist, and thinker. Some of his last works from the late 80s and early 90s (he died in August 1992) are absolutely breathtaking.

Three summers ago, I went to a half hour seminar about Cage, where they performed 4'33" and the piece I refer to as the garbage song (I can't remember the real title, I just know the entire piece is arranged on pieces of refuse; cardboard, garbage cans and the like).

Most of the people I went with were just like "that's nuts" but I liked it. They say human beings can pick up on rhythmic sounds in things like breathing (obviously), walking, and stomach gurgling, and when I finally understood the point of 4'33", it was neat to listen to the different rhythms squeaky chairs and annoyed sighs make.

**eestlinc** · 03-31-2005, 05:45 AM

Originally Posted by fire_of_avalon

it was neat to listen to the different rhythms squeaky chairs and annoyed sighs make.

yes! or depending on the venue, the sounds of traffic, or if you are lucky, rain.

I remember in my AP US History class (so many years ago) we had to do a project on something "uniquely American" and I did mine on John Cage. That was certainly a change of pace from some of the other presentations.

**-N-** · 03-31-2005, 06:18 AM

Cage is the Western Joshu.

(I like him and I like his stuff.)

**IGN64skanker** · 03-31-2005, 08:41 AM

I had a music professor last year (David Cope!) who said he had to perform 4'33" a few years back in front of a large audience, and that it was actually an incredibly difficult thing to do. Weird, but I definitely believe it.

Also... weird side note... that guy was one of my favorite professors ever, and he was way insane. He was actually clinically dead at one point, and right before he "died" on the gurney as they were putting them into an ambulance, his wife was holding his hand, he looked into her eyes and his last words to her were, "I love... classical music." She was pretty mad about that after they got his heart started again. Crazy music nuts.

**nik0tine** · 03-31-2005, 08:47 AM

My god... That guy is AWESOME!

**Samuraid** · 03-31-2005, 09:13 AM

http://www.eyesonff.com/samuraid/433.mp3

The classical version...

**Endless** · 03-31-2005, 04:32 PM

If you can get Sonic Youth's SYR4 double disc, they and some other artists (Dj Olive, William Winant, Christian Wolff, Christian Marclay, O'Rourke, Takehisa Kosugi, Wharton Tiers) played several of Cage's pieces: SIX (two different takes) and FOUR6. Some other pieces played on it are worth checking aswell.

**DMKA** · 04-04-2005, 08:20 PM

I thought this thread was about Mortal Kombat.

**-N-** · 04-04-2005, 09:08 PM

Originally Posted by IGN64skanker

I had a music professor last year (David Cope!) who said he had to perform 4'33" a few years back in front of a large audience, and that it was actually an incredibly difficult thing to do. Weird, but I definitely believe it.

Also... weird side note... that guy was one of my favorite professors ever, and he was way insane. He was actually clinically dead at one point, and right before he "died" on the gurney as they were putting them into an ambulance, his wife was holding his hand, he looked into her eyes and his last words to her were, "I love... classical music." She was pretty mad about that after they got his heart started again. Crazy music nuts.

You must go to UC Santa Cruz. I attended a lecture by Cope (he guest lectured for our Computer Science department here) where he discussed quantifying certain attributes of musical phrases a composer uses, and using a database and a simple processing program to create works in the style of a composer. He used it to finish several "unfinished" works by composers in addition to having it compose more. I hear he's now using a neural-net-based program to accomplish the same in addition to learning new styles.

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