I was honestly really confused when I listened to this 4’33 seconds “song”. At first, I had to turn my speakers to the maximum volume (which would normally blast my eardrums out of my beautiful head) to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. Then I finally realized what was going on. The song was just pure silence, for the most part. It made me laugh and I don’t really know why. I felt as though this was some kind of cruel joke, and not an actual assignment. Then I read the “Top Comments” on the video and the second most liked comment said: “Like if you think Justin Bieber should do a cover of this song.” This just made me laugh even harder.
I began doing more research on this John Cage fellow and I was quite amazed. He explained sound in a way that I would never even think of. To him it seems like another language. As though eve sound represents hundreds of words that can’t really explained by the mind and mouth, but only the ears. I’m not usually someone who appreciates silence, at all. 80% of the time I love the music blaring in my ears. Even as I type, the music is blasting, but I’m starting to comprehend why silence is so golden. Not just for the purpose of silence alone, for the cornucopia of sounds that come with it. I read that His teachers included Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage’s major influences lay in various Eastern cultures. From my reading, it expresses that Cage drew a lot of his inspiration from Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism. It seems pretty reasonable to me because when I think about Buddhism and Hinduism (assuming by Indian philosophy he meant Hindu culture as well), I think about a lot of praying and meditation, which incorporates a lot of silence in my eyes.
I’ve started to understand why we do these “exercises” in writers craft now. The sitting in silence and all. There are so many things to hear, I guess. In everyday life, it seems as though everybody talks and everybody listens, but very few truly hear. All in all, John Cage seems like a pretty interesting man.
Sites used : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E
stefanduncan 