4"33" by John Cage

YouTube has opened up many great musical and audio-visual experiences that have previously been denied to my generation, for instance watching Sugar Ray Robinson box or listening to Charlie Chaplin talk in The Great Dictator. Very often something will be mentioned in conversation with friends and I will take a mental note to check it out on YouTube later on. John Cage’s 4”33” has been a running joke with my friend Alan, thus I found myself watching an orchestra play this controversial composition late at night after a few ciders. The premise is that the orchestra, or musician, sits still for 4 minutes and 33 seconds without playing a single note on any instrument and the music is the noise created in the vacant environment of the silent performing venue. On one hand there is something ridiculous and almost comical about the whole thing, on the other it is a strangely profound experience of minimalism and conceptual art. The audience are focused intensely on the orchestra and the orchestra focus intensely on the blank sheets of a paper in front of them. There is an intensity, you can cut the atmosphere with a knife. There is no music being played but something is actually happening. The ironic thing is that anybody can play this. Just sit at a piano or hold a guitar and then time yourself for 4 minutes 33 seconds. But to see an entire orchestra sitting still and serious for that length of time is an extraordinary sight. The million dollar question is: should this be taken seriously? Or did John Cage take conceptualism just a bit too far. There is the same tension in the visual art between conceptual art and traditional painting and sculpture. Artists who have spent years honing their painting or sculpting skills are entitled to get cheesed off when somebody wins a prize for a bulb flashing on and off in an empty room. But ideas are important. Marry them with skill and you have great art. There is no skill in 4”33” except the ability to count time, but idea is so bold and unique and there is something of value in the experience of silence and random noises. Silence is a valuable commodity and something that is greatly undervalued in this world polluted with brash and superfluous noise. There is certainly something to admire in Cage’s vision to contemplate the relationship between silence and noise and the human person. The drawback with 4”33” is that it is the end of the line, you can’t take it any further, not unless you compose a piece called 8”47” and simply extend the time of silence. If that is the case then Buddhist monks must be creating silent masterpieces on a daily basis.