take this moment to think about s p a c e ...
humans have a tendency to push everything closer together as we overpopulate certain parts of the globe. nyc vs. north dakota. in fact... space can become such an issue that people in urban areas can fear space. while some cityfolk may love going out to the country and being surrounded by space, others hate it. others can't sleep at night because there isn't enough sound taking up their space. they grow used to car horns, loud trucks, sirens... sound fills their space 24/7.
and space and silence are in the same field. what happens when all of a sudden a pianist stops performing on stage? the crowd claps automatically. what happens if a band stops playing in the middle of a song? the crowd cheers, eggs them on. what would happen if a musician simply stopped playing in the middle of a piece? wouldn't there be silence? absolutely not in this country. in so many ways, silence is impossible. for this very reason so many people cannot appreciate the works of John Cage. just listen to his "Four Walls" solo piano piece, where at times there is 60 seconds of silence that are almost startling. When absorbed in the music, this silence offers a completely different idea from the normal program of music performance. within this time there is a sort of peace, a state of meditative self-absorption. it's marvelous and astonishing.
so is space, silence? John Cage didn't think so. he wrote "4'33" with the intention of his four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence providing all the sound necessary. the crowd would provide it, because they couldn't sit there for four minutes without making noise. there was booing, hissing, laughing, talking... the noise was all there because silence could never survive in an audience of people in the united states. whereas it could in eastern culture, as meditation is such a way of life there...
just a thought...
q: can silence be a loud statement?
humans have a tendency to push everything closer together as we overpopulate certain parts of the globe. nyc vs. north dakota. in fact... space can become such an issue that people in urban areas can fear space. while some cityfolk may love going out to the country and being surrounded by space, others hate it. others can't sleep at night because there isn't enough sound taking up their space. they grow used to car horns, loud trucks, sirens... sound fills their space 24/7.
and space and silence are in the same field. what happens when all of a sudden a pianist stops performing on stage? the crowd claps automatically. what happens if a band stops playing in the middle of a song? the crowd cheers, eggs them on. what would happen if a musician simply stopped playing in the middle of a piece? wouldn't there be silence? absolutely not in this country. in so many ways, silence is impossible. for this very reason so many people cannot appreciate the works of John Cage. just listen to his "Four Walls" solo piano piece, where at times there is 60 seconds of silence that are almost startling. When absorbed in the music, this silence offers a completely different idea from the normal program of music performance. within this time there is a sort of peace, a state of meditative self-absorption. it's marvelous and astonishing.
so is space, silence? John Cage didn't think so. he wrote "4'33" with the intention of his four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence providing all the sound necessary. the crowd would provide it, because they couldn't sit there for four minutes without making noise. there was booing, hissing, laughing, talking... the noise was all there because silence could never survive in an audience of people in the united states. whereas it could in eastern culture, as meditation is such a way of life there...
just a thought...
q: can silence be a loud statement?