Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Josh Ronsen <>]

I'm enjoying the Kenneth Silverman bio of Cage. It could be twice as long; we 
all know how incredibly active and productive Cage was.

But for a writer who provides a sympathetic, understanding view of the first 
performance of 4'33", Silverman describes its sequel as: 

"Fittingly, Cage dedicated to [Ono and Ichiyanagi] a musical joke he composed 
(?) in Japan, entitled 0'00" (4'33" No. 2). The score is one sentence long: 
'In a situation provided with maximum amplification (no feedback), perform a 
disciplined action.' ... Clearly having fun, Cage had in mind the sort of 
'instruction pieces' Ono had been creating... However much a joke, Cage's 
radically ma title intimates new musical ideas he was beginning to 
contemplate." (pg. 184)

Did Cage mean it as a joke? That doesn't seem right, from a composer 
interested in amplifying the sound of ants walking on grass or the sound of 
spores falling from a mushroom. If you see 0'00" as a joke, I don't see how 
you could not see many other pieces by Cage as jokes (scrap yard percussion! 
star-chart music! the sneeze as a musical action!), which Silverman doesn't 
present as such. Silverman does point out various critics and articles that 
do treat Cage as a joke, but that's not what I get from Silverman.

I see 0'00" as a fitting 4'33" No. 2: 4'33" brings ambient, ignored sounds 
into focus; 0'00" brings another type of ignored sounds into focus, pen 
writing on paper, swallowing (to name two examples of Cage's 0'00" 
performances), although Cage's 0'00" performance with a blender is a 
different type of sound, one that doesn't need to be amplified to be heard by 
an audience, but the amplification of course changes the sound and changes 
the focus of the sound.  

 The joke comment sticks out in my mind.

-Josh Ronsen
http://ronsen.org