christi denton
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biography
c.v. english (pdf)
see also chaikana.org |
I have been thinking about John Cage's 4'33" lately. I think, but am not sure, that the point of 4'33" is to listen. Not to listen to the surroundings, but to listen to the space. I have been thinking about this in relation to other pieces I have written . . . What is the difference between a piece that has us listen to the space, and another piece that has us listen to the silence?
There is no sound in this piece. But we aren't listening to something. Does this mean that it's not music? If you don't listen to 4'33, does that mean that it is no longer music? If the orchestra does not play and there is no movement, does that make it music?
I assigned a project for myself, last year. The idea was that I would write one piece of music every day, for a year. The only limitation was that the piece was to be written, in words, not musical notation. But now, I am confused about what music is. Am I composing when I am writing these little pieces? Piece number two was meant to be a bridge between Orchestra piece number one, and the audience piece. But, is it still a piece of music? I think that 4'33" should be laid out differently. I think that the first movement is too short, and that the last movement is too long. When I finally decided that it is okay to listen to space, the first movement is over. The last movement seems to last forever. I am always convinced that the performer's stopwatch must be broken. But, since it was composed using the I-Ching (I think?) I can't complain. . . I have trouble working with silence. I have to listen to something, and if I can't hear anything, then I have to listen for something. And I can't listen and study at the same time. Things are rarely silent I don't think that I have ever really heard silence. That's not bad. It just is. Actually, it is bad. This summer, I lived next to a freeway. I didn't live three blocks away from a freeway, or on the other side of the sound wall from a freeway, I lived next to a freeway. And it wasn't just any freeway, it was I-5. Sounds have caused pain before- but mostly loud sounds. Sitting near a trumpet section causes pain, but it is lose of hearing pain. Continuous freeway noise is like Chinese drip water torture. Maybe it has to do with the difference between noise and sound. Sound is good. Sound means everything is OK. Noise brings up negative connotations. Noise is when you are trying to sleep, and your next door neighbor is listening to vanilla ice, or when you are in class, and someone starts mowing the lawn next to the ensemble room. Noise interferes with your life, whereas sound is part of your life. The reverse of this is silence and quiet. I don't like silence. When you are watching a movie, and they get to the part where there is silence, or at least there is no sound put in by the recording engineers, that means that the monster is going to attack. Or they are going to find dead body. Quiet means that the birds are still chirping in the background. People say that they need silence, but I think that they really mean they need quiet. One of Cage's books is called Silence. Which I think means that you are supposed to listen. Which is not silence. When I was in high school, I went to Interlochen music camp, which is nicely located in the woods. One day, I was trying to work on a music composition, but there was a French horn practicing in the practice rooms next to my room. I couldn't concentrate, so I moved- over to the boys dorm. There was a string quartet. They were not as loud as the French horn player, but, I still couldn't think. My practice room, which was never quiet, was not quiet. Empty classrooms, halls, random sections of the woods, the cafeteria . . . someone had gotten there first. I finally gave up. The piece was due soon, but I couldn't work on it because it was too noisy. I went into operetta rehearsal. Every year, Interlochen puts on an operetta. It is the only thing there that you don't have to audition for, and there is also no cap on the number of people in it. Which meant that about 400 people were in the chorus. I walked in during their rehearsal break, and everyone was talking, singing, practicing their lines, screaming . . . And I sat in the audience of the hall, and got a lot of work done, in the midst of all this noise. There was nothing specific to listen to- It was just sound. It was nice, but no one ever understands. When I was a baby, I feel asleep in a fully operating lumber mill. Computer labs make a lot of noise. It is pleasing. It sounds organized and efficient. I actually get work done. I have trouble getting stuff done in the library because no one ever says anything. I think I would have trouble working in an empty computer lab, but I don't know, because I have never seen one on campus. My dorm is very noisy all of time. The pipes make a lot of noise, in the middle of the night. They don't seem to make that much noise in the day- I don't notice it, and I don't think that it's because I am paying attention to other things. I think that someone is specifically out to make sure that no one in my dorm gets any sleep. my next door neighbor came over in the middle of the night the other night. She asked if I could please quiet everyone down that was in my room. I opened the door more to reveal that there was no one in my room, I had been studying by myself. The echo in the dorm make sounds sound from other places. Or the dorm is just haunted.
I think that if I were in the audience of this piece, I would leave at the beginning. But that wouldn't be following the instructions, I think- I wouldn't be tired of waiting, I would merely want to say something about the piece. I would probably be annoyed with the composer if I were in the audience of this piece. I would think "it's already been done- Look at some LaMonte Young's pieces" But I am not sure. I pass a lot of judgment on the graduate students at Mills. I expect them to know more than me, to think ahead of me, to view my ideas as passé, and dated. And if they don't, then I think less of them. They should have had this idea as an undergraduate, I did. I worry about relationships. Bad ones are quieter than good ones. When something is wrong, I listen for things that I think that I'm missing- every little clue, every hint. I stay silent. Which is unfortunate. I think that my silence is what is causing the silence. Once, a friend of mine and I were discussing some of the graduate composition majors at Mills. We noticed that the composers whose work we respected also seemed to be very nice people, and that the composers whose work we disliked seemed very arrogant and inconsiderate. When we first thought about this, two thoughts came to mind: a)we like people, so we like the music that they create, and . . . we dislike people, so we dislike their music or b)We like the music, so we like the people, and the reverse if they composed something that awful, how can we like them? Later, I realized that the composers that we liked wanted to share their music with us, whereas the other ones wanted us to listen to them. And I resent being told to listen.
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