# Someguy's post on 4'33" (Why is 4'33" disparaged...)



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Funny.

We've gone over this ground before, numerous times, but it's as if no one has ever said anything about 4'33" before this thread, because all the usual canards come rushing in, fresh as daisies, as if no one had ever said anything about what the piece really is.

Of course, I know why.

Anyway, not that it will do any good: _4'33" was something John had been thinking about for around ten years before he finally wrote it. Although you can find quotes where he also refers to it as the "silent" piece, it is not about silence at all but about intention. It is not a piece with no sounds; it is a piece that consists entirely of sounds that the composer did not intend. It is very much a piece about sound. It's just that in 4'33", the sounds are not under the control of the composer. That's called indeterminacy, and there are lots of pieces, by lots of different composers, both before and after 4'33", that are indeterminate.

While the actual sounds that occur in any given performance--I have seen this live several times, and there are definitely good performances and bad ones--are not caused by Mr. Cage in the same way that the sounds in a Beethoven piece are caused by Herr van Beethoven,* the framework is very much a thing that Cage has made. And it is a musical piece. It has three movements, with precise timings. It is a piece for performers. It has musical instructions.

It can be seen as the musical equivalent of the framing one does when taking a picture. Funny that no one seems to mind if people take photos or if some of those photos are displayed on museum walls as art. But so many people get really bent out of shape if Cage frames some environmental sounds and calls the result music.

It also very obviously includes the audience in a way no other piece had done before. This is not a piece where the composer arranges a bunch of notes in a particular order for a musician to perform for you. This is a piece where both composer and performer step aside and invite you to make this into music. You know that one result of this piece has been a thing called the sound walk. They're very popular; you may have heard of them. They all come from the idea that music is about listening. In a traditional concert, the sounds you hear have been organized for you. In a sound walk, or at a performance of 4'33", you do that work.

You may not like it. You may not like what it says or seems to be saying. But claiming that it is not a piece of music is kinda silly. And all this talk about it's being only conceptual is so much special pleading. Name me a piece of music by anyone from any age that is not conceptual._


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