Jesse James and John Cage Match!

Roger Reynolds, Brian Ferneyhough, and John Cage in Warren Studio A, UCSD. Photograph by Bonnie Harkins.

“You probably know the one about the two monks, but I’ll tell it anyway.” –John Cage, Indeterminacy.

Sunday, September 5th marks the birthday of two legendary Americans: outlaw Jesse James and composer John Cage.

The astonishing range of Cage’s works is just hinted at by the names of the diverse artists he worked with: choreographer Merce Cunningham; pianist David Tudor, on their wonderfully spoken-word and music recording Indeterminacy ; and even avant-garde jazz legend Sun Ra. But Cage’s most famous work, and the one he declared his favorite,  is certainly 4’33″ , which is performed in three movements with no music.  But it is not, as is often assumed, 4’33″ of silence. Cage told John Kobler of the Saturday Evening Post,”

There’s no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement [in the premiere]. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.” [1]

Remember Cage today by playing one of his works for prepared piano, or honor his memory by paying attention to silence, whether that silence is broken by the sound of your neighbor’s dog barking or of wind blowing through the leaves; or the meditative sound of your own breath.  For a more sonorous exercise in musical time, you could follow the example of the internet meme recently mentioned by New Yorker music critic  Alex Ross and create a 4’33″ playlist.  Here’s my list of songs that are four minutes and thirty-three seconds long: