Please stop referencing 4'33" by John Cage

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This is just a polite request that everyone please stop referencing 4'33" by John Cage. Thanks.

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:11 (twenty years ago)

why?

― Jay-Kid (Jay-Kid), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:12 (twenty years ago)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:12 (twenty years ago)

Lead by example.

― Huk-L, Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:13 (twenty years ago)

OK.

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:13 (twenty years ago)

http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/reviews/velez/Images/velez4-2-7.jpg

shit, i forgot the notes.

― stevie nixed (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:15 (twenty years ago)

i ask again: why?

― Jay-Kid (Jay-Kid), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:22 (twenty years ago)

Because I asked nicely.

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:23 (twenty years ago)

I agree. It's the "To be or not to be" of avant garde music.

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:25 (twenty years ago)

http://www.mozg.art.pl/obrazki/cage1.gif
"Oooh ZING...you FUCKER!"

― known vaginatarian (nickalicious), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:25 (twenty years ago)

Can we refeence the 9'06" where it's played from beginning to finish and then backwards?

― Michael White (Hereward), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:25 (twenty years ago)

your argument is not impressing me, so far.

― Jay-Kid (Jay-Kid), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:26 (twenty years ago)

because it's too common a reference when someone wants to talk about conceptual art, maybe? because there are probably other, better examples of what you're talking about?

I'm just guessing nick's intention.

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:26 (twenty years ago)

It's a case of Use Other Signifiers innit. I'm sure the Daily Mail still uses Carl Andre's firebricks as an example of silly-highbrow-art-that-fools-waste-our-public-money-on.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

John Cage looks like the guy who played Centauri in The Last Starfighter.

― known vaginatarian (nickalicious), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

Most of the time, it's just used as an easy joke. If anybody mentions silence, then out comes the 4'33" reference, despite the fact that 4'33" is not silent. It's boring and misinformed, the equivalent of a Michael Jackson child molestation joke for people who like to think of themselves as cultured.

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:32 (twenty years ago)

But mostly it's just dull.

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:33 (twenty years ago)

But I understand that we're stuck in our ways, and so that's why I'm asking nicely. Thank you for your time.

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:34 (twenty years ago)

You speak for the benefit of more than just yourself. Thank you.

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:36 (twenty years ago)

the guy who played Centauri in The Last Starfighter

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

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

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:36 (twenty years ago)

Centauri starts with C, and that rhymes with T and that stands for TROUBLE!

(let me rhyme C on your T)

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:40 (twenty years ago)

You should write a song about it.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:42 (twenty years ago)

I actually told Kenan and jaymc a couple of weeks ago that I was going to record a conceptual piece made up of the sounds of people referencing 4'33".

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:50 (twenty years ago)

i miss mortal kombat.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:53 (twenty years ago)

i'll stop mentioning cage if everyone else stops referencing proust smelling his precious fuckin' cookies in every essay/review i read. Hey, I read the first five fuckin' pages of Swann's Way too! Where's my fuckin' medal!!

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:55 (twenty years ago)

Pecan butter-balls usually make me thinking of the Monkees' "Day Dream Believer" that we owned on a red and white 45 when I was a kid.

― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

wait - 4'33'' isnt silent? what is it, exactly?

― peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:57 (twenty years ago)

4'33" = Four feet, thirty-three inches?

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.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

I have never heard this recording. Didn't Yoko Ono do something similar?

― hobart paving (hobart paving), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

I wish she always did it.

― Michael White (Hereward), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:59 (twenty years ago)

it is a piece where the performer doesn't topuch his instrument for four and a half mins - it is as noisy as it is noisy

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

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

Peter: It's supposed to be whatever sounds happen to occur in the room during the time that the piano isn't being played. I performed it a couple months ago at this variety show I host, and during the first minute, there was some predictable tittering, and then about halfway through the heating system went on in a marvelous groan. That's the piece.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

wait - 4'33'' isnt silent? what is it, exactly?

Ambient.

(xpost)

― JimD (JimD), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:01 (twenty years ago)

mmm... marvelous groans.

You make it sound really good.

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:01 (twenty years ago)

it doesn't have to be a piano - the score doesn't specify the instrument

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

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:02 (twenty years ago)

awesome - i guess i had never heard it explained.

― peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

Hm... I wonder what the worst possible circumstances would be for the performance of this piece. Car race? Prison riot?

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:04 (twenty years ago)

It shows how little pop sensibility Cage had. 4 minutes is just too long.

― Michael White (Hereward), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, Mark S. is right about the instrument not being specified. Piano seems to be most popular, though, especially because you can make a show of lifting the lid of the piano to signal that the piece has begun.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:06 (twenty years ago)

wikipaedia says cage "chose the length of the famous first premiere performance by chance methods, and later joked that it just as easily could have been any other length"

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:08 (twenty years ago)

But yeah. I agree with Nick, and for me the reason it's annoying that it gets over-referenced is that in most cases, the people referring to it are assuming it's something it isn't. This general misconception seems to be that it had the same purpose as Rauschenberg's white canvas, that it was about the negation of a space, or a form of situationist satire on the perception of a performance. And in fact, I think it was just about the "all noise is music" argument, and was intended to encourage a shift in styles of listening. A way of indicating to an audience the extent to which they filter out 'noise' without realising it, by instead forcing them to focus on that noise.

(several xposts)

― JimD (JimD), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:09 (twenty years ago)

i only say "wikpaedia says" bcz i don't ever remember coming across this explanation of the length before, though it makes sense in cage-terms, obv

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

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:10 (twenty years ago)

I wonder what the worst possible circumstances would be for the performance of this piece. Car race? Prison riot?

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. :)

― JimD (JimD), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:10 (twenty years ago)

(xpost) Yes, that's another good reason for it to be "played" on a piano, because you can turn the page of the score to indicate the transition between movements. (Although I guess in any orchestral setting, you'd be using a score with a music stand, at least.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:12 (twenty years ago)

it might be confusing to listen to an aerosmith song at the same time as 4'33''.

― peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:13 (twenty years ago)

i only say "wikpaedia says" bcz i don't ever remember coming across this explanation of the length before, though it makes sense in cage-terms, obv

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

― JimD (JimD), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:13 (twenty years ago)

― Michael White (Hereward), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:13 (twenty years ago)

actually i'm not sure it IS (totally) difft to the rauschenberg white canvas stuff (where the shadows falling across the picture are part of the picture)

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)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:14 (twenty years ago)

it just as easily could have been any other length

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

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:16 (twenty years ago)

jim ru sure the LENGTH-determined-by-chance is in nyman and silence? (it might be: i'm just surprised i don't remember it)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 17:16 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 147 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

one of the acts was this guy (actually the drummer in jaymc's band) reading an essay he wrote about noise and music, and yes, he referenced 4'33".

Mea culpa.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 16:17 (twenty years ago)

You should have pulled him aside: "Listen, there's a guy in the audience tonight that hates it when people reference 4'33", so could you tone it down on the Cage a bit?"

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 16:23 (twenty years ago)

Haha.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

I would like to point out that there is a wonderful essay called "The Sounds of Silence. John Cage and 4'33"", written by Larry J Solomon, that is very enlightening. You can find it here.

― Björn Magnusson, Wednesday, 16 February 2005 18:16 (twenty years ago)

That disc with Concert for Piano and Orchestra and Atlas Eclipticalis, the one on Wergo, is pretty great.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 20:44 (twenty years ago)

i don't see what abba has to do with john cage, jaymc

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 20:47 (twenty years ago)

three years pass...

riygar3 (5 days ago) +1 Reply
Could you imagine if all musicians did this , and just sat around listening to just sounds, whether its acoustic or whatever. Nothing would ever get done! It would be like watching a black screen when you went to the movie theater and just heard some sounds and talking every now and then, I mean it might be good for shits and giggles, but come on man, the whole idea of making music is using some form of action on the persons behalf to create a certain energy, vibration,etc with the body.

― I know, right?, Sunday, 24 August 2008 17:04 (seventeen years ago)

OK that's funny. The pic in the 4th post down is a piece on of my classmates from grad school did.

― Sparkle Motion, Sunday, 24 August 2008 17:08 (seventeen years ago)

Have you heard the one about the Quaker choir?

Their repertoire is pretty small, all they ever seem to play is 4'33"!

― Masonic Boom, Sunday, 24 August 2008 17:19 (seventeen years ago)

it might be confusing to listen to an aerosmith song at the same time as 4'33''.

-- peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, February 15, 2005 12:13 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

this made me lol

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Sunday, 24 August 2008 17:23 (seventeen years ago)

I was watching the youtube vid that comment comes from whilst listening to music

― I know, right?, Sunday, 24 August 2008 17:27 (seventeen years ago)

― libcrypt, Sunday, 24 August 2008 17:42 (seventeen years ago)

two years pass...

Been reading 'silence' for about ten years now and I don't think I'll ever get bored of it. Every now and then something just really hits me. Always find myself smiling when im reading it. Gonna pop to the Hayward this Friday, they're showing some if his stuff there.

― Crackle Box, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 18:25 (fourteen years ago)

Man, thread title otm for real tho

― Erin Go! Bwaaaah!!! (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 20:39 (fourteen years ago)

not a day goes by...

― Crackle Box, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 21:14 (fourteen years ago)

those illipses were referencing 4'33

― owenf, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 22:45 (fourteen years ago)

four months pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQa4DL17Aug

― meisenfek, Friday, 13 January 2012 02:46 (thirteen years ago)

six years pass...

stop referencing the overton window

― na (NA), Monday, 16 July 2018 17:20 (seven years ago)

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

― na (NA), Monday, 16 July 2018 17:20 (seven years ago)

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

― na (NA), Monday, 16 July 2018 17:21 (seven years ago)

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

― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 16 July 2018 17:29 (seven years ago)

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.

― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 16 July 2018 17:48 (seven years ago)

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

― Centipedes? In this economy? (wins), Friday, 20 July 2018 15:55 (seven years ago)

What was on the b-side?

― Mark G, Monday, 23 July 2018 11:55 (seven years ago)

Overrated pap

― No angel came (Ross), Monday, 23 July 2018 12:33 (seven years ago)

aimless wrong about everything as always

― mark s, Monday, 23 July 2018 12:41 (seven years ago)

Oof

― No angel came (Ross), Monday, 23 July 2018 12:43 (seven years ago)

one year passes...

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)?

― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 2 July 2020 21:27 (five years ago)

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

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 2 July 2020 21:33 (five years ago)

I'm saying nothing

― Mark G, Thursday, 2 July 2020 21:36 (five years ago)

wow I was annoying

― na (NA), Thursday, 2 July 2020 21:38 (five years ago)

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

― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 2 July 2020 21:42 (five years ago)

Jeffrey Pierce is pretty good.

― Boring, Maryland, Thursday, 2 July 2020 21:51 (five years ago)

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

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 2 July 2020 21:53 (five years ago)

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 2 July 2020 22:36 (five years ago)

that was the post equivalent of 4' 33"

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 2 July 2020 22:36 (five years ago)

funnier in 2005 imo

― mark s, Thursday, 2 July 2020 22:39 (five years ago)

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

who needs an MPC?

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Thursday, 2 July 2020 23:00 (five years ago)

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

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Friday, 3 July 2020 01:48 (five years ago)

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

― Feel a million filaments (Sund4r), Friday, 3 July 2020 02:06 (five years ago)

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

― ℺ ☽ ⋠ ⏎ (✖), Friday, 3 July 2020 03:09 (five years ago)

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

new board description?

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, 3 July 2020 05:59 (five years ago)

three months pass...

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 (NA), Tuesday, 20 October 2020 18:20 (four years ago)

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.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 20 October 2020 18:25 (four years ago)

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!".

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 20 October 2020 18:30 (four years ago)

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

― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 20 October 2020 18:58 (four years ago)

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

― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 20 October 2020 18:59 (four years ago)

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

― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 19:04 (four years ago)

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!!

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, 22 October 2020 23:57 (four years ago)

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

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, 22 October 2020 23:58 (four years ago)

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