John Cage's 4'33" is probably one of the best jokes in music.
I personally learned about 4'33" in a music class, where it was performed live -- basically it was 4'33" of ambient noise, but there was a lot of tension if you didn't know what to expect. During the final exam for the class, the professor would play some recording and we were supposed to identify the music, and all of us would start writing "John Cage's 4 minutes 33 seconds" when the professor was too slow to start the next song.
There was also an incident where apparently Mike Batt copied 4'33" and named his song "A One Minute Silence", which resulted in an 6-figure court settlement[1], although later news said it was just £1000[2]. I also heard a version of the story that they didn't settle at all, because John Cage's publishers couldn't prove which minute out of the 4'33" was copied.
Is there a test of originality for copyright? I wouldn’t call myself vehemently anti copyright but when the idea of “let’s just not play and the ambient sound of the orchestra sitting there is music instead” is the basis for the copyright it does make me question the validity of it. When someone who has done XYZ drug of choice and can come up with that idea in their drug addled state of mind as a pretty good first pass (if I were to to smoke marijuana and you asked me of a clever avant garde music idea, the concept of 4’33’’ is probably be one of the top three I would just list right off the bat not knowing of Cage) I really do question whether you should be able to copyright that idea. It’s even a bit of a hippie meme “what if the music is everything around us? Har har”
By the way I love 4’33” and don’t denigrate it - the way Cage executed the idea is flawless - which is one of the reasons it’s so timeless. I just don’t think it’s something you can copyright. And indeed, the stories you linked indicate that, though rather than point out the ridiculousness of the situation they simply used it as a money and publicity making opportunity.
> I also heard a version of the story that they didn't settle at all, because John Cage's publishers couldn't prove which minute out of the 4'33" was copied.
This seems wrong on its face; If I steal the chorus out of a song where it's repeated multiple times and release it as my own, the artist might not be able to prove which instance of the chorus I used.
You jest but there is still something to be heard if it's actually recorded (and not just generated as zeroes), be it in a studio or live. The settings of any performance are themselves part of the performance.
I immediately think of the A Perfect Circle recording done at Red Rocks where the acoustics off the rock formations give an extra depth to the noise. Still one of my favorite live albums of all time.
I thought the point was that they would intentionally seed the audience with one or a couple of people who would storm out in (apparent) anger (if none of the actual audience members got to it first), and thus the music is the experience of the audience reaction to the piece.
I watched a performance of it on YouTube. The performance is the little coughs and sighs and creaks etc that we don't normally hear. I don't think it has a theatral component which needs people to storm out.
The orbits of the Galilean moons form a perfectly-tuned triple octave, plus a slightly flat minor tenth (1:2:4:9.4). After a slight glissando, they will likely settle in a quadruple octave (1:2:4:8) and stop there, in about 1.5 Gyr. It's a cross-cutting phenomenon that the natural universe likes to self-arrange itself into chords [4]
Its fascinating how the interest and energy around a project like this manages to be self-reinforcing. The idea on the face of it is quite nonsensical: building a machine to make continuous droning sounds for years at a time. How likely is it that the song actually would play to completion? The fascination is that it is not impossible that the effort will succeed, and its already gone far enough to be quite amazing in the attempt. And in the process its achieved a completely new way to experience music. That last part is both shallow (its a pretty boring way to experience music, and its hard to call it music at that time scale) and deep (with this performance, a chord change is opportunity for ceremony and news releases: its an event!).
How is that clickbaity? It's playing a 639-year-long piece. You could change chords on a million year long piece (that started 30 seconds ago), but no one would care. This has been playing for 23 years.
Precisely. It doesn't matter how long it is intended to play for. What matters is how long it has been playing. A non clickbait title would have focused on the latter.
One quip: this piece is not "as slow as possible". One could write a piece of "music" that is one note to be played at the heat death of the universe, or a piece that is silence forever. It's fun to play with the definition of "music" like John Cage did his whole career, but the title of his piece is technically incorrect, the worst kind of incorrect.
You're misinterpreting it. It's not a descriptive title at all. It's a tempo indication and like all such is meant as an instruction to the player, also being a play on "as fast as possible" which is a perfectly legitimate tempo marking. Referring to a piece of music by its tempo marking is common.
It does depend on the definition of "music". A constant tone of infinite duration might not be considered music to all. In my opinion (just rendered now), music must have 20 BPM < tempo < 1000 BPM.
I mean, you could play his piece at a speed designed to spread it out evenly from the present until the (predicted) moment when the universe can no longer support the mechanism used to play it. That would literally be "as slow as possible", and seems technically fine.
If you check the Wikipedia article for the piece itself[0], it explains:
> Musicians and philosophers discussed Cage's instruction to play "as slow as possible" at a conference in 1997, because a properly maintained pipe organ could sound indefinitely. The John Cage Organ Foundation Halberstadt decided to play the piece for 639 years, to mark the time between the first documented permanent organ installation in Halberstadt Cathedral, in 1361, and the originally proposed start date of 2000.
"Some people reportedly booked tickets years in advance to experience Monday's chord change"
Clearly they're attention seekers—their rustling about in seats or asleep and snoring from boredom would be far more entertaining than the actual performance.
One has to wonder what kind of people are drawn to a musical event where if it were compared with say Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue BWV 582 then the latter's performance would be seen as a prestissimo running at relativistic speeds. Perhaps social scientists have insights into such strange behavior.
Of course, it's those who've booked tickets who are the center of attention here, such antics have always been expected of Cage.
Total eclipses have no equal—on earth anyway. I've had the great privilege of having seen three over the course of my lifetime. They're not normal experiences, they're something else again.
It's like they're all afraid of admitting the obvious, because some "famous guy" will tell them they're wrong. If that's not a textbook example of the sin of human respect, I don't know what is.
When I first found a routine that would slow music down without any of the pitches changing, I spent hours slowing down favorite songs to see for how long they'd still be recognizable.
Readit News
This is even better played back from a digital recording. You need those gold audio cables to truly appreciate the silence.
I personally learned about 4'33" in a music class, where it was performed live -- basically it was 4'33" of ambient noise, but there was a lot of tension if you didn't know what to expect. During the final exam for the class, the professor would play some recording and we were supposed to identify the music, and all of us would start writing "John Cage's 4 minutes 33 seconds" when the professor was too slow to start the next song.
There was also an incident where apparently Mike Batt copied 4'33" and named his song "A One Minute Silence", which resulted in an 6-figure court settlement[1], although later news said it was just £1000[2]. I also heard a version of the story that they didn't settle at all, because John Cage's publishers couldn't prove which minute out of the 4'33" was copied.
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/23/uk.silence/
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-11964995
By the way I love 4’33” and don’t denigrate it - the way Cage executed the idea is flawless - which is one of the reasons it’s so timeless. I just don’t think it’s something you can copyright. And indeed, the stories you linked indicate that, though rather than point out the ridiculousness of the situation they simply used it as a money and publicity making opportunity.
This seems wrong on its face; If I steal the chorus out of a song where it's repeated multiple times and release it as my own, the artist might not be able to prove which instance of the chorus I used.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.01106 ("Long-term evolution of the Galilean satellites: the capture of Callisto into resonance")
via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilean_moons#Origin_and_evol...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musica_universalis
A little clickbaity. I could change chords on a million year long piece (that started 30 seconds ago).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings
If you check the Wikipedia article for the piece itself[0], it explains:
> Musicians and philosophers discussed Cage's instruction to play "as slow as possible" at a conference in 1997, because a properly maintained pipe organ could sound indefinitely. The John Cage Organ Foundation Halberstadt decided to play the piece for 639 years, to mark the time between the first documented permanent organ installation in Halberstadt Cathedral, in 1361, and the originally proposed start date of 2000.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Slow_as_Possible
Clearly they're attention seekers—their rustling about in seats or asleep and snoring from boredom would be far more entertaining than the actual performance.
One has to wonder what kind of people are drawn to a musical event where if it were compared with say Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue BWV 582 then the latter's performance would be seen as a prestissimo running at relativistic speeds. Perhaps social scientists have insights into such strange behavior.
Of course, it's those who've booked tickets who are the center of attention here, such antics have always been expected of Cage.
I don't think everyone is being performative or doing it for attention (what attention)
Foolishness 1, Reason 0.
A variation on the Emperor's new clothes methinks.