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This concept is particularly evident
in Cage’s Imaginary Landscape
No.4 for 12 radios (1951), in which
the “performers” manipulate short-
wave radios and so require no
proficiency in an instrument.
Cage remains the composer, as
the various frequencies that the
operators must find are detailed in
the score, but the sounds received
by the radios depend on when and
where the concert takes place
and are therefore unpredictable.
The result is white noise interrupted
by snatches of speech and music.Musical silence
Cage’s seminal work, 4 ́33 ̋, in
which the performers sit in silence
for the duration (four minutes
and 33 seconds), was inspired
by the idea of silence as a part of
music. Musicians had long used
silence in music—Beethoven is
reputed to have said that the music
was in the silences—but for Cage
this was an engagement with the
Japanese idea of Ma, whichexamines the human perception
and experience of the space
between things as a focus in its
own right. Cage became fascinated
by the idea of silence and went to
Harvard University to experience
its anechoic chamber, in which
all sound is absorbed. Cage was
shocked to find that even there, he
could still hear two sounds—one
high, one low—which turned out
to be the sounds of his own body.
In 4 ́33 ̋, Cage sought to portray
his realization that even in musical
silences, there was no true silence.
While audiences new to 4 ́33 ̋
tend to think the work is absurd,
the experience of hearing the
ambient noises of the concert hall
against which music is usually
played is an enlightening one.
Curiously, the duration of the work,
roughly the length of the 78 rpm
record, was a direct challenge
to the commodification of music,
particularly pop music, which
was a neatly packaged predictable
product. In publishing the scoreINDETERMINACY, ALEATORY MUSIC, AND SILENCE
(which includes instructions for the
performers), and in saying that the
piece “may be performed by any
instrumentalist,” Cage is still allied
to the Classical tradition.Defining music
The first performance of 4 ́33 ̋ in
1952 opened the doors to further
speculation and experimentalism
into what actually constitutes
music. An extreme example was
written by one of Cage’s students,
La Monte Young, whose 1960 Piano
Piece for David Tudor #1 (the
American pianist and composer
David Tudor had also premiered
4 ́33 ̋) gives only the following
instructions: “Bring a bale of hay
and a bucket of water onto the
stage for the piano to eat and drink.
The performer may then feed the
piano or leave it to eat by itself.
If the former, the piece is over after
the piano has been fed. If the latter,
it is over after the piano eats orAn anechoic chamber in Bell
Laboratories, New Jersey, in the 1950s,
is lined with wedge-shaped pieces of
fibre-glass, which was commonly used
in such chambers to absorb echoes.The first question I
ask myself when something
doesn’t seem to be beautiful
is why do I think it’s
not beautiful. And very
shortly you discover
that there is no reason.
John CageUS_302-305_Cage.indd 304 26/03/18 1:01 PM