Understanding Eno (part 2) -The John Cage influence...
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You may wonder why I'm having you listen to 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. Perhaps you'll notice the clicking of mice around you as you work, the hum of the AC, your co-worker chewing loudly. I so this to illustrate the rythyms of nature, of the mundane. John Cage actually played (or rather didn't play) this piece in concert. He didn't explain himself, and it lent to great situationalist theater. What are our expectations about music after all. Cage is a modernist post modernist, through and through. Source for this quote is Eric Tamm's book Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound.
"Nevertheless, we must bring about a music which is like furniture - a
music, that is, which will be part of the noises of the environment, will
take them into consideration. I think of it as melodious, softening the
noises of the knives and forks, not dominating them, not imposing it-
self. It would fill up those heavy silences that sometimes fall between
friends dining together. It would spare them the trouble of paying attention
to their own banal remarks. And at the same time it would neutralize
the street noises which so indiscretely enter into the play of
conversation. To make such music would be to respond to a need."
14 Cage, Silence, 54.
Brian Eno is more of a post modernist, his taking Cages lead and is "making furniture" from Cages instructions. Eno may have coined the term "Ambient Music" when he released Music For Airports, but this is some ground breaking stuff, even if it is intentionally breaking that stuff in the background.
Comments (3)
The whole "silence" as a "sound art" concept is always a sticky one. Even Sonic Youth did it as "The Ciccone Youth"
I pose yet another question - what is more challenging to listen to - one of these "silent" pieces - or something like Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music"?
Hmmmmmm
I admidtedly have never heard MMM in it's entirety. It's not that I haven't been interested, it was just unavailable for a long time. I'd give it a listen, but I doubt it would get more than that. I've listened to a lot of "avante garde" compositions, and some is better than others. I like Steve Reich, some Phillip Glass, Merideth Monk, some Terry Riley.
I look at it this way, there's idea guys, and there's workers. You have the Buckminster Fuller's who never actually built a lot (as far as actual working architects go) but they develope a philosophy. I think of Cage like that. He did do lots of pieces, but most straddled the line between music and art theory (I would say they were more in the realm of Art Theory). Cage coincidentally cut his teeth at Black Mountain in North Carolina with Bucky Fuller, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenburg, and other's who are the who's who of post modern art.
new to all of this kind of, but enjoying learing something new