Thelonious Monkey

I'm curious. Do you enjoy listening to silence? I think somebody asked this already, but I can't remember the reply.

Frownland

There's no such thing as silence. I do often find myself enjoying ambient noise though.

__________________

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Thelonious Monkey

I'm out.

Frownland

Read the edit.

__________________

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Ninetales

hi!! I just came out from writing my essay on 4'33" and why it is definitely music.

so we all agree that 4'33" incorporates, at the very least, sounds, right? it is most certainly not silence.

Chula Vista

If it were "played" in an anechoic chamber there'd be nothing. Nada. Zilch. Silence.

No sound whatsoever.

Case closed.

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Zhanteimi

Well, if somebody wanked out an essay about it, then that's canon!

Rowan Weaver

I've always gone with the idea that if any sounds are pointed at and called music, they are music. 4'33'' is kind of exactly that. It's pointing at the sounds around it and saying "that is music" and I don't see why I would disagree.


No, to be played there would still have to be the "instruments", and while normally I would say that that would be the audience, as that is what is listened for, it is at least stated to be a "piano piece", meaning piano and pianist. If it were performed in an anechoic chamber, sure the echos wouldn't be there making it near inaudible, but the original sounds made simply by the pianist breathing, shifting weights, etc would still be there.
And if you played any music in space through an mp3 player and speakers, there would be no sound. And I'm pretty sure the speakers' diaphragms wouldn't work right anyway... but that's not the point.

Your argument seems to be that the music is dictated by the instructions given, which can exist without the need for sound, but oftentimes music isn't appreciated for technical merit, rather temperament or texture, which could not exist as concepts without sound. Yes music can exist without any apparent thought towards the actual sound and still be exceptional (Conlon Nancarrow), but the opposite can be true as well (Merzbow I think. I don't listen much. Not since I missed a fire alarm because I thought it was part of the song...).
And to say that, simply because 4'33'' is reliant totally on sound to profess its philosophy, rather than expressing itself through current post-Pythagorean equivalencies, dismisses a lot of what sets music apart from other media.

I'd never heard of the anechoic chamber though. That thing's cool.



I dunno, what's sexier than the sounds of sex? *Plays loud amateur porn videos converted to FLAC in bed*

Oriphiel

You know what I've learned from this topic? The 4'33" is the perfect way to turn any musical discussion into a boring and drawn-out debate.

Rowan Weaver

I guess that's cause it's the debate in and of itself. What it is is a profession on what it believes to be music, so it's just the perfect analogue for either side of the discussion. *shrug*