In declaring 4’ 33” as a musical piece, I think Cage is attempting to redefine art as music. He says, “I think music should be free of the feelings and ideas of the composer” (p. 14). Yet isn’t music, in its primacy, an effort in communication? Music’s power to move all hearing beings, figuratively and literally, is universal and biological. Music’s emotive power has its origins in the feelings and ideas of the composer, its power resides in the shared experience between source and receiver. What Cage is proposing we regard as music, really is the reverse of what music is.
My Question:
“If true silence did not exist in nature, then the silences in a piece of music could be defined simply as as ‘sounds not intended’’ (p. 12). Is Cage claiming that everything and anything that is not “true silence” is music?
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2 comments:
I think Cage seeks to combine all categories into one; life. In this sense art is life, life is art; and I also think Cage is indebted to John Dewey for this essential principle. (See Art as Experience, 1934) I think music possesses all of the attributes you mention; but are they necessary conditions for music to exist?
I think perhaps combine all categories (previous blog)is not right, too harsh; I think Cage sought to relax the boundaries between categories, and illuminate that abrupt distintions are not always what they seem to be.
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