Hello (again) as a suite to my last mail I have to add that I doubt about the relevance about the implicit comparison that is made (stillness is to movement what silence is to music) because even a corpse is moving. (the process of being eaten by worms lead to a certain movement of the body parts). Cage's 4' 33" is not a silence piece. The score says that there's no intentional sound produced by tha musician, but I have a CD (authorized by Cage) with a version of the composition that has a persistent unmodulated electronic sound. Cage's intent is to prove that there's no silence possible. His experience in the anechoic chamber proves it. Same thing with movement: in zen meditation you don't have to move, but you do (and also you breathe). Even a standing person has an arrested movement because he's avoiding to fall. And it is true what peter says that stillness captures perception a lot, that's because stillness is also oriented (inside, outside, bottom-uo or top-down) so, tha lack of content issue seems strange to me because there's always a tension between a body and an environnement that takes the audience (in any condition and circumstance) to a perceptual categorization, to a meaning statement and interpretation I supose. >I would hesitate to say that Cage was "explicitly" political with 4'33" or >really any other piece. There were/are political implications from these >works to be sure, but for Cage, 4'33" was the result of a highly refined and >closely followed compositional process in which he was attempting to >distance himself and his ego from the choices made. I must obviously agree >that political statements were made, however. 4'33" certainly forever >changed the music world, and also touched on many other issues in art and >culture (see Jonathan Katz's "John Cage's Queer Silence"). Too often though, >Cage's political/philosophical contributions overshadow the fact that his >compositional process is what led him to these pieces. Furthermore the >pieces themselves have great musical value that is sometimes overlooked. > >A couple of other points that might be thrown into the mix: It was >Rauschenberg's white paintings that finally led Cage to 4'33", as Cage >discusses in his book, Silence (interestingly enough, just before the >Lecture on Nothing section.) Also, 4'33" was successful because of the >attention it was given in composition and performance. It is a very >structured work in three movements, and was premiered by Cage's long-time >collaborator, pianist David Tudor, who took the work very seriously. > >Lastly, since our ears hear sound from all angles around us, I would argue >that our ability to attend to "other" sounds in a performance space is >greater than our ability to attend to other (off-stage) visual stimuli. A >performer on stage is in such control of an audience's attention, that it >seems a bit difficult to imagine that performer's stillness allowing the >audience to attend all other stimuli in the space, as they could perhaps do >with sound. Stillness on stage often (for me, at least) demands even more >focused visual attention of the audience. Of course, this presupposes an >on-stage performance, and these issues would be different for site-specific >work. > >Anyway, I have nothing to say and I am saying it... > > >Best, > >Peter -- ___________ Armando
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