4′33″ | Experimental Music, Avant-Garde, Silence (2024)

FAQs

Is 4 33 just silence? ›

4′33″, musical composition by John Cage created in 1952 and first performed on August 29 of that year. It quickly became one of the most controversial musical works of the 20th century because it consisted of silence or, more precisely, ambient sound—what Cage called “the absence of intended sounds.”

In fact, Cage intended 4'33" to be experimental—to test the audience's attitude to silence and prove that any auditory experience may constitute music, seeing that absolute silence cannot exist.

The piece "Four Minutes Thirty-Three Seconds" by John Cage was controversial because the musician did not play anything for four minutes and thirty-three seconds.

Tudor called it 'one of the most intense listening experiences you can have'. Arguably, that remains as true now as it was in 1952 – and the piece remains just as enigmatic, brimming with questions still pertinent today.

Whole rest or semibreve rest

Whole rests are equivalent to whole notes in duration. In a 4/4 time signature, like the whole note, the whole rest spans four beats.

How does John Cage's 4'33" challenge the definition of music. He said that everything we do is music. If a sound was made by accident, or by choice, it didn't matter. Any sound was music. 4'33" was him sitting at the piano and doing nothing but listening to the audience breathe and whisper.

As Cage's 4' 33'' offered a found sounsdcape, and potentially changed the listeners' relationships to the 'noise' they heard after the performance, these participatory events blurred the line between what was life and what was art, what was an everyday movement and what was a performance.

John Cage has been lauded as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4”²33”³, which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title.

While the silence itself is not music, it can be used to punctuate/emphasize the sound that comes before or after it. A great master of "silence" in music is Sibelius. There are parts in his music where playing completely stops and then we hear nothing.

four minutes thirty-three seconds. This is Cage's famous silent piece. Although composed in 1952, he had already thought about it as early as 1948, where he mentions it as 'Silent Prayer' in his article “A Composer's Confessions”. In the work, no intentional sounds are made during its duration.

What is the longest piece ever? ›

The piece, called “As Slow As Possible” by the late US composer John Cage, won't finish until the year 2640. The next chord change is in 2 years. When something happens exceedingly rarely, we often say “once in a blue moon.” But we might as well say “once in a chord change on John Cage's Organ2/ASLSP”.

4'33'' is a very happy song by John Cage with a tempo of 54 BPM. It can also be used double-time at 108 BPM. The track runs 4 minutes and 33 seconds long with a F key and a major mode.

Listening is a conscious activity based on three basic skills: attitude, attention, and adjustment. These skills are known collectively as triple-A listening. Maintain a constructive Attitude: A positive attitude paves the way for open-mindedness.

During this concert he premiered a new work by composer John Cage. For this performance, Tudor sat at the piano with the lid closed, keys covered for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, split into 3 movements. The results of this performance are still controversial to this day.

The pinnacle of listening, empathetic listening, is where one aims to fully understand the speaker's intent and feelings. It requires a lot of emotional and mental energy. This deep level of listening allows us to see from the other person's perspective and respond in a way that truly resonates with them.

Silence is the absence of ambient audible sound, the emission of sounds of such low intensity that they do not draw attention to themselves, or the state of having ceased to produce sounds; this latter sense can be extended to apply to the cessation or absence of any form of communication, whether through speech or ...

That is an interesting question. In scientific terms silence is the absence of sound.

"There's at least one thing that we hear that isn't a sound, and that's the silence that happens when sounds go away," said co-author Ian Phillips, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Psychological and Brain Sciences.