The piece that people like to make fun of, when they're bitching about 20th century classical music, is John Cage's 4'33", in which musicians sit onstage, not playing their instruments, for 4 minutes and 33 seconds.

It's easy to make fun of. I won't even detail the reasons. They're obvious.

My old bandmate in the Cosmic Debris, Richard Zvonar, is well known in some circles for his music. (I like the Banff Sessions at that site, but like I said previously about Scott Gibbons' music, this isn't for everyone. It helps to know what you're hearing, which is Robert Black playing acoustic bass live on stage, and RZ capturing the performance, altering it, and layering it back on itself. A drone note was added later in post, and I think there were a couple of small edits, but basically you're hearing a live performance.)

We played together for something like three years. I was the keyboardist; he was the guy who took feeds from everybody else, mangled them electronically, and sent them back out into the mix. The gigs were always more fun for me when he was there, probably because we share a love of the happy accident. In my case, it would happen because I'd hit the wrong button or an unexpected note or something; in his case, sometimes it was his whole methodology: Spin the alpha wheel on the Eventide, see what kind of sound comes out, if you like it, use it. If you don't, spin the wheel again.

(He's also in what's one of the best photos I've ever seen from the 60s. That's his old band, Ill Wind, and some construction workers they met on their lunch break. RZ's the one flashing the peace sign.)

I learn very few new, valid principles as I age, so when I notice one, I like to grab onto it. A lot of art is called "inaccessible." Some mean it derogatorily; others intend it as a compliment. I don't consider it either, but I'd like a key, please.

RZ gave me one. He said to always go in assuming the artist isn't trying to put one over on you. Go in assuming she's genuinely trying to get something across. This may sound dodgy at the outset, but it's probably the single most utilitarian suggestion I've encountered in my adulthood for understanding either "serious, academic" art or "commercial, mainstream" art.

Now, of course, modern art being what it is, sometimes somebody puts one over on me. That's fine. It's a fair price for what I get in return.

Case in point: 4'33". I haven't studied Cage and don't know if he ever talked or wrote about his intentions. What I like about this piece is how it takes the definition of music ("organized sound") and shifts it away from the composer and onto the listener. If you assume, at the beginning of the silence, that there will be something to hear, you'll start hearing it. The person next to you breathing--a performer's chair creaking--maybe someone laughs--maybe the tension in the room increases as the time... counts... down... and maybe you can hear the clock and the increased fidgeting.

And then maybe how they reverberate in this room, how your proximity to a wall has a certain sound, how the radiator shuts off suddenly when you hadn't even noticed it was going in the first place.

Point being, it's not silence. It's the same world of sound that's always there, only you're invited to actually listen. If you allow the possibility that he's genuinely trying to get something across, then there's something there. A new experience: You as composer--because if you listen to any sound as music then it is music. You, the listener, have organized it.

Gained: New way of perceiving things.
Lost: Preconceptions; 4 minutes and 33 seconds
Cost: Willingness to feel stupid sometimes

And you can perform it anywhere yourself, with different results each time. But you have to assume that there's actually music to be heard. Going in skeptical is good for dealing with psychics, but fatal for getting anything out of this piece.

It's nothing more serious than an invitation to pay attention for a change, and the gift of 4 and a half minutes in which to do it. How bad can that be?

You want to bitch about 20th century classical music? Bitch about Babbitt.

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