Cage: 4'33"

My friend Bill Vickery recently shared with me an article about Cage's 4'33" from the Wall Street Journal. I teach the piece in my classes and here's part of what I teach about this piece.


The piece is deeply artistic in that it is a multi-layered reflection of musical culture and of the composer's thoughts. Cage made no decisions regarding what sounds would be heard during the performance except that the performers wouldn't play or sing anything. This brings up many philosophical questions regarding traditional ideas about composition and performance:

What should the composer control?

What does a performer do?

What is the role of the audience?

How do these ideas shape our expectations and experience of musical events?


In addition to these philosophical questions about the nature of art, there are also religious issues at play. Cage contemplated some sort of silent piece that could have been called "Prayer" years before he wrote 4'33". Also, Cage was involved with Zen Buddhism. Perhaps 4'33" is a secularized invitation to the meditative experience that he encountered in Eastern religion.


Having performed the work on several occasions for my students, I can confirm that the experience is akin to the entrance into meditation. First there is some awkwardness and discomfort at the unusualness of the situtation. Audience members are focused to take in a performance, but the performance involves little action and no traditional musical sound. This awkward stage may include some giggles and restlessness. Soon these give way to a calmer atmosphere, and listeners become aware of everyday sounds that they usually tune out - the ticking of a clock, the bussing of the lights, a car passing. Little by little, it seems that listeners become more personally focused and become aware of their own breathing and so forth. This self-awareness can be very calming, and we rarely achieve that sort of focus and tranquility as a group in our society.


4'33" presents another quandry.

What's the next step for a composer who has written a piece with no notes in it?

Cage continued down his path by writing aleatoric music - music in which chance procedures replace the composer's choice regarding various musical elements. 4'33" is part of that larger movement, and that larger movement also expresses the Buddhist ideal of removal of one's will from the situations one faces in life.