'Silence' by John Cage

"As the unchallenged father figure of American experimental music, Mr. Cage wields an influence that extends far beyond sound alone....Indeed, the entire American avant-garde would be unthinkable without Mr. Cage's music, writings, and genially patriarchical personality."

From what I understand, this nigga did more than anyone else to free sound to be -just- sound. I'm not that far into the book yet, but even already his ideas impress me in their profundity.

It is the sheer pleasure of hearing sound that is at the crux of all his ideas. To Cage, experimental music is merely a method to release sound to be sound. Chance operations, improvisation, and undefined variables all function in the same way - to produce a new and unique listening experience every time. Part of his framework that allows for this is the division of composition, performance, and listening into seperate and distinct activities, so much so that he laughs, "What do they have to do with each other at all?" What happens then is unrestricted freedom in creativity: a composer may make a piece last 639 years, or have a pianist play nothing for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Cage calls it "meaningless play", but the focus is clearly on the act of creation. It's a new product of sound every performance, but most importantly, it's also unique for the composer. He's definitely an artist's artist.

In the activity of listening, Cage contends that there is always something to hear, you just have to open your ears. Using an anecdote relating his experience in a room designed to be completely silent, Cage theorizes that there isn't really silence at all. As he sat in this room that was desigend to be silent, he heard two tones, one low and one high. He was informed that the low was his circulation system and that the high was his nervous system. "Try as we may to make a silence, we cannot." It's a bit philosophical I think - it's really about changing your definition of what constitutes sound, or maybe even more broadly, about being receptive to the world around you.

How I think his Zen buddhism figures into that:
Zen makes use of koans, anecdotes that are paradoxical or seemingly nonsensical, but are stepping stones to enlightment. They shut you up and make you go 'Whuh?'. A moment of perplexion follows, and rational thought ceases. Then, your mind is free. Cage's compositional methods function similar to koans. They slap you upside the head and make you go 'Whuh?'. But then you listen. Then, you are in a state of 'be here now'. You begin to hear sounds unencumbered by your notion of what music is or should be. You just hear. It's really a kind of a beautiful and life-affirming approach: take in the world as it is, rather than what you think it is.

Here's a story that he tells that I like. It may be predictable, but it illustrates his thoughts on sound perfectly:

Several men, three as a matter of fact, were out walking one day, and as they were walking along and talking one of them noticed another man standing on a hill ahead of them. He turned to his friends and said, "Why do you think that man is standing up there on that hill?" One said, "He must be up there because it's cooler there and he's enjoying the breeze." He turned to another and repeeated the question, "Why do you think that man's standing up there on that hill?" The second said, "Since the hill is elevated above the rest of the land, he must be up there in order to see something in the distance." And the third said, "He must have lost his friend and that is why he is standing there alone on that hill." After some time walking along, the men came up on the hill and the one who had been standing there was still there: standing there. They asked him to say which one was right concerning his reason for standing where he was standing.

"What reasons do you have for my standing here?" he asked. "We have three," they answered. "First, you are standing up here because it's cooler here and you are enjoying the breeze. Second, since the hill is elevated above the rest of the land, you are up here in order to see something in the distance. Third, you have lost your friend and that is why you are standing here alone on this hill. We have walked this way; we never meant to climb this hill; now we want an answer: Which one of us is right?"

The man answered."I just stand."