By Aeron Bergman

Dedicated to Dr. Richard Martin, Rest in Peace.
Former head curator of the Costumes department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, and my modern art teacher at New York University 1998.

To anyone capable of appreciating a thunderstorm, Cage made redundant and unnecessary overdramatic gestures. 4'33" was an important declaration of freedom, albeit one that most people were already fully aware. Early 20th century musicians and traditions from around the world such as Zen already considered environmental sounds and music on a similar level. However, Cage put into mainstream use the essential building blocks for post tonal sound composition that still sound radical today, at least for some people.

The pop music world has fully embraced electronic percussion music. Cage predicted percussion music would be the "contemporary transition from keyboard influenced music to the all-sound music of the future." (Future of Music: Credo. Seattle, 1937) Because any sound is acceptable to the composer, even "noise"as long as it follows rhythm, percussion music at once follows the strict rules of contemporary life, and embraces all lose ends within its clock. "One Nation Under a Beat" is the scary fascist headline to an cover story of the Zurich Love Parade in the Spanish dance music magazine Dance Delux. Next to this headline is a photo of an international looking group of youth, all poised with their heads and bodies in full salute to the same point off the photo -- the DJ booth we assume. Whatever Cage thought would be the "all-sound" music of the future, (he mentioned Oriental and free jazz), aside from a few closed circles and isolated outposts, the world has not moved on from the percussion transition to some sort of freedom.

Is there anything helpful about Cage's overdrama?

Kant's sublime theory states that when a person witnesses a sublime event, such as a starry night, a tremendous battle, or a raging storm, he or she will attempt to enclose the event into a comprehensible and abridged description of it in his or her mind. If the person passes through the moment without harm, the mind of the person goes through a series of processes. First, the mind is frozen with curious terror. Second, after realizing that the event is being observed at a safe distance, the mind relaxes. The mind, in its relaxed and unharmed state, declares a sort of victory over the event. According to Kant the human mind is incapable of comprehending infinity, and so uses its resources to justify its "superiority" over the event.

I believe that musical notation was a device humans used to simplify, and thus comprehend the infinite spectrum of sound in the same way the human mind attempted to simplify and sublimate the sublime event described by Kant. Notation was also an expression of mathematical, humanized harmony, thus beauty, which the Greeks emphasized as essencial for the well being of humanity. That is, in order to achieve harmony with sound, they felt they needed to restrict it. Composers are often called "masters", meaning they have achieved mastery, or dominance, over sound. 4'33" stated the impossibility of humans ever "mastering" sound by denying musical notation altogether, instead calling attention to the infinite space between notes. 4'33" was an attempt by Cage to throw humans out of their illusion and back into the storm.

Thomas Weiskel wrote that the sublime moment supports the illusion that "suppresses the inferiority of our status as listeners." According to Cage, we are neither inferior nor superior to the sublime, we are one and the same. In fact, Cage, and the Buddhism that he quoted so freely, state that there is no separation between humans and nature, calm and storm.

In 4'33", Cage asserted that there is no difference between noise and music either.Music was every tone, pitch, timbre, laugh, car engine, squeal, footstep, and rumble within the range of human hearing. Cage said: "Thoreau and the Indians and I have said all along that the sounds all around us are equivalent to music. In India they say that music is continuous, it only stops when we turn away and stop paying attention."

Edmund Burke in the 1750's":

Section XVII. Sound and Loudness. The eye is not the only organ of sensation, by which a sublime passion may produce. Sounds have a great power in these as in most other passion. The noise of vast cataracts, raging storms, thunder, or artillery, awakes a great and awful sensation in the mind, though we can observe no nicety or artifice in those sorts of music. The shouting of multitudes has a similar effect; and by the sole strength of the sound so amazes and confounds the imagination, that in this staggering, and hurry of the mind, the best established tempers can forbear being borne down and joining in the common cry and common resolution of the crowd.

Burke's statement establishes a connection between "noise" and "music" in 1757. Although he had no intention of proposing a new musical awareness, the idea is present. Burke connects two seemingly contradictory categories of sensation -- noise and music -- by putting them in the same sentence. ("The noise of vast cataracts, raging storms, thunder, or artillery, awakes a great and awful sensation in the mind, though we can observe no nicety or artifice in those sorts of music.")

Another possible reason for western tonal systems is fear of the unknown. Burke wrote, in the same book, Section VIII: "INFINITY": "Infinity has a tendency to till the mind with that sort of delightful horror, which is the most genuine effect, and truest test of the sublime."

Derrida believed that: "the sublime is encountered in art less easily than the beautiful, and more easily in 'raw nature'." Cage in 4'33" attempted to create a situation that framed the sublimity of raw nature, while still by definition music. The "frame" in this case, is the concert hall full of expecting people, the piano, and the pianist David Tudor. Cage chose all the traditional trimmings of a "musical concert" to frame the "silence" within. Silence often means the absence of sound generated by a human being -- but the complete absence of sound is impossible in this world. Even a deaf person has sensations of detecting vibrations. The true Parergon is the capability of human senses.

We are trained since the beginning to follow certain sound rules. Later these rules become associated with our sense of right and wrong. Everyone knows what a "bad" note sounds like compared to a "good" one. These aesthetics come from the family and friends of an individual, thus future encounters with sound have strong past associations.