Please stop referencing 4'33" by John Cage

That's not just a guy, that's The Music Man!

http://www.greatstreets.org/MusicMan/MusicManImages/MakingTheMovie/04RobertPreston.JPG

(let me rhyme C on your T)

Ha, I work with a guy who's 4'33". He wouldn't know who John Cage was even if the composer put his teeth on his buttocks and pretended to bite.

cf also "the sounds of your body are part of this record"

Ambient.

(xpost)

You make it sound really good.

i think there was a distant thunderstorm during the first ever perf (david tudor on piano as per nath's pic)

(several xposts)

the piece has three movements though, so in pop-sensibility terms it shd be compared w.three singles not one!

Why worst? They could be the best. Or, in fact, would be no better or worse than any other circumstances.

We're all listening to 4'33 all the time, if we just bother to listen. :)

There's stuff about it in Cage's book Silence. And also in Michael Nyman's book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond

anyway rauschenberg white canvases were part of the "happenings" (anachronistic word alert) that cage staged at black mountain college, and the the overall "whatever happens is part of the piece" open ambience aesthetic def applied there

(tho cage did not like the audience staging their own disruptions, interestingly enough) (not that this started hapnin till the late 60s)

good thing he didn't make it several lifetimes long.

its title is the totality of the playing instructions

xpost

Hahahaha!

Ah, you're no doubt right about that, yes. I've only seen them in the NY Guggenheim, under harsh fluourescent lighting, and this just never occured to me, but yep, of course, makes lots of sense.

jim ru sure the LENGTH-determined-by-chance is in nyman and silence?

Um...those were the places where I thought I'd read it, and seem the most likely sources. You're making me doubt myself slightly now, but I'd definitely seen this explanation before, and it wasn't at wikipedia. I'll check when I get home tonight.

There is no such thing as absolute silence. If you have your record player off, your room and the world are still filled with noise. However, 4'33" is not a composition, it's a field recording. The only element of composition is the choice to do nothing, but even Cage himself admits that the sound of the audience is the focus of the piece. I am happy to accept 4'33" as a field recording, but so long as people insist that it is a composition, I will continue to make jokes about it. Thx, bye.

(i think it is closer to the erased drawings, with its non nihillist implications of negation)

references of schrodinger's cat seem to have slowed down, that was a big one for a while

basically i'm trying to turn this thread into the ZOMBIES/BACON thread but for people who are trying to sound smart instead of trying to sound rAnDoM

imo, Cage was just playing second fiddle to Duchamp and unimaginatively at that.

i went to see a student of Cage's give a talk and at the end of it a performance of this song which was yeah just as exciting as an art gallery full of people trying not to cough could possibly be.

the whole time i was wondering wouldn't it be cool to just start singing "Dust in the Wind" or "Freebird" or whatever and keep it going for the duration. the whole conceit of 4'33" being that IT'S WHATVER SOUNDS U HEAR MAN would probably be hard to square w a loudmouth belting out an AOR classic.

https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=Schrodinger%20Philip&src=typed_query

What was on the b-side?

Overrated pap

aimless wrong about everything as always

Oof

Been getting really into the prepared piano pieces, and the album of Gamelan interpretations that's out there. Like anything in the classical world (apparently), there so many recordings and versions out there. Can anyone recommend some definitive recordings for Cage's prepared piano pieces (and anything in a similar realm for him)?

When kids stop blasting it every fucking night when I'm trying to sleep, I'll stop referencing it.

I'm saying nothing

wow I was annoying

Sorry for the revive, but it's unfortunate that "John Cage" became so synonymous with 4'33, because I never actually checked out his work that involved notes until the past year

Jeffrey Pierce is pretty good.

xpost Have you ever read any of his books? I highly recommend Silence.

.

that was the post equivalent of 4' 33"

funnier in 2005 imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-3iLnXV90s

who needs an MPC?

I'm a sucker for Indeterminacy, Jordan; try that.
also dig the toy/prepared piano stuff.

We have this thread about his music fwiw: John Cage: Classic or Dud? Search and Destroy

wow I was annoying

― na (NA), Thursday, July 2, 2020 5:38 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i always assumed your username meant Not Applicable

wow I was annoying

― na (NA), Thursday, July 2, 2020 2:38 PM (eight hours ago)

new board description?

no one has actually watched "salo" but everyone keeps it in their back pocket for easy edgy responses to tweets like "what movie do you wish they would make into a theme park ride?"

na otm, I was struck this summer by how many Twitter "personalities" were suddenly left with no choice but to demonstratively tweet about being "forced" to watch Salo on exterior projection screens.

I mean, maybe it wasn't a bunch of people, but I distinctly remember at least three incidents where people were tweeting about how embarrassing it was that their "film clubs" just happened to have already picked Salo for a screening but, "oops pandemic" and they just had to screen it outdoors, "haha how transgressive!".

we watched a bootleg VHS dub of salo in film school back in the day, the prof was very proud & titillated to have sourced an uncut copy, and afterwards was absolutely absolutely with me when i wouldnt concede my view that we probably could have just read about it instead of actually being made to sit through it

"abosultely furious" with me, that is. (getting flustered recalling all the transgressive depravity.)

A friend of mine watched Salo in film class. Reaching for his lunch, he was dismayed to find it contained chocolate pudding.

I put a performance of 4’33” on my “is this music?” playlist for discussion in class and one of my students brought it up today. She was like “what’s the deal with the one where the people just sit there??” And we talked about it. No regrets for bringing it up bc it illustrated a useful concept for me: “humor” in music that’s not verbal humor. Good discussion!!

Also now if anyone ever references it, they’ll understand.