Silence/Stories
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Silence/Stories WEB CONCEPT, DESIGN : RALPH LICHTENSTEIGER HTTP://WWW.LICHTENSTEIGER.DE/STORIES.HTML “Silence is a word which is not a word, and breath an object which is not an object.” ̶ Georges Bataille “The reason I am less and less interested in music is not only that I find environmen- tal sounds and noises more useful aesthetical- ly than the sounds produced by the world’s musical cultures, but that, when you get right down to it, a composer is simply someone who tells other people what to do. I find this an unattractive way of getting things done.” ̶ John Cage, A Year from Monday “For in this new music nothing takes place but sounds: those that are notated and those that are not. Those that are not notated appear in the written music as silences, opening the doors of the music to the sounds that happen to be in the environment. This openness exists in the fields of modern sculpture and architecture. (...)” ̶ John Cage, Silence, Lectures & Writings Participants | Contributors Miekal And · Yassine Aissaoui · John M. Bennett Anne Bichon · Stephanie Boisset Arthur Chandler · Claude Chuzel Thanos Chrysakis · Lowell Cross · A. P. Crumlish Alvin Curran · Doyle Dean · James Drew Jude D’Souza · Karlheinz Essl Raymond Federman · Jesse Glass Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht · Peter Gutmann Gordon Hempton · Martin Hawes August Highland · Justin Katko · Matthias Kaul George Henry Koehler · Richard Kostelanetz Tamara LaÏ · Fabien Lévy · Ian S. Macdonald Mike Pearson · Harry Polkinhorn Friedhelm Rathjen · Lothar Reitz Mitchell Renner · Terry Rentzepis Kathleen Ruiz · Mike Silverton · Damon Smith Rod Stasick · Beat Streuli · Lun-Yi Tsai Lawrence Upton · Tracy Youell · Dan Waber Louise Waller · Todd Weinstein · John Whiting © 2006 BY MUSIQUE TROUVÉ [email protected] ̶ one ̶ Silence settled again and I walked on. “A couple of years ago I sat listening to John I was almost at the house and the area was becoming Cage’s string quartets as performed by The Arditti more familiar despite the intense dankness. I felt Quartet on Mode records. I had purchased them confident to walk off the path in a direct line to the that afternoon. It was about 1:00 o’clock in the house. Pushing my way through the thick barrier I morning, and I live in a quiet neighborhood. The was suddenly surrounded by very close and very loud configuration of my stereo is such that I can explosions that terrified me through to my soul. I ran not see the CD player or its display while I am but the explosions followed me and were all around. I listening. As a result, in pieces with protracted silences, though I was under attack. I can not, at first listening, be certain when a particular recording has ended. I have no visual clues. I ran and ran back to the party of workmen at record speed. The house was quiet and after a few moments I noticed that I had not heard a violin for a while. Explaining my terror and my sudden return after an As I wasn’t sure the piece was ended, I began hour of walking I was greeted with smirks and gentle listening more intently. Sometimes, after all, John understanding laughter. I had walked into a stand of Cage’s music contains long pauses and it can also native bushes that, in the hottest part of the year, dry be remarkably quiet. Gradually, I became aware out and then explode to spread their seeds. The com- of the sounds of my house: The low hum of the plete silence of the bush served to amplify the sounds refrigerator, the fluorescent kitchen light and then, by contrast and created a sound image that has lasted listening more intently still, the sounds from further me for many years.” away: Highway 36 and, very faintly, the ocean further beyond. It occurred to me that these sounds flowed ̶ Ian S. Macdonald from the music, and creating this expanded awareness of sound in the world was exactly what John Cage intended.” ̶ three ̶ ̶ A. P. Crumlish [http://apc.bendofbay.org] “For some twenty years I had a recording studio in Bloomsbury, central London, built into what had been an eighteenth century wine cellar, still with its original ̶ two ̶ brick vaulting. It was by no means anechoic but it was well isolated and insulated, and fairly nonreflective. I “At the age of fourteen, I was working on my often did paper work there alone and frequently beca- brother’s farm in the mad frenzy to get the har- me conscious of the two sounds that indicated that I vest in. The day had been very hot and very dry in was still alive.” a way that burned the moisture from your body. We had started in the early hours of the morning ̶ John Whiting and now the sun was going down. As a city kid I was not used to working for such a long time and I was very weary. The rest of the workers would go on until the wee small hours of the morning to ̶ four ̶ complete the work. “Before my retirement from The University of Iowa I decided to walk home alone through the low in 2002, I would take the students in my audio cour- scrub of the Australian bush. The cloud cover ses to the University’s large (and excellent) anechoic overhead provided no light to see my way. I knew that chamber, in the basement of the building that houses if I stuck to the wheel rutted track I would eventually the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology. get to the house. These visits occurred at the end of each semester, and I would tell the students in advance about John The country side was covered with a carpet of Cage’s visit to a similar facility at Harvard University dense bushes to a height of little more than two (see Silence, p. 8). metres. It was as black as the sky and it absorbed every sound. After the constant noise of the trac- Many accounts of Cage’s visit to the Harvard tor all day the absence of sound was powerful and anechoic chamber have long since passed into folk- dramatic. How often does one become accusto- lore (Cage: ‘Anybody who knows me knows this med to an environmental sound and only hear it in story,’ A Year from Monday, p. 134), but the crux retrospect when it suddenly ceases? of the issue is that Cage heard two sounds in that presumably ‘silent room’̶one, high, his The absorption of sound by the ear-level bush was ‘nervous system in operation’ [tinnitis], the other, low, so complete that even my steps on the soil made no his ‘blood in circulation’ [heartbeat]. I informed the contribution to disturb the silence. When a distant students that from this discovery, Cage correctly proc- kangaroo moved in the search for food the breaking of laimed that there is no such thing as ‘silence’ within a stick carried above the scrub and sounded very close the range of normal human hearing. despite the actual distance. The sound made the hair on the back of my head stand out in terror. I further informed my students that Cage’s discove- ry, even though that Harvard anechoic chamber event is difficult to pin down regarding exact dates, ̶ five ̶ led him to present his famous Silent Piece also “I grew up in the state of Minnesota, in the United known as 4’33”, during which only the sounds of the States. Minnesota is famous for the number of lakes it environment are heard. Therefore, my students were has, and for how cold its winters are. We spent winter prepared to hear the ‘sounds of silence’ in the anechoic vacations ice fishing. Ice fishing is so important in chamber, even though its purpose is for making audio Minnesota, and it stays so cold for so long, that people measurements without echoes (= anechoic). But it IS set up entire villages out on the ice. Fish shacks that an exceptionally quiet room, in addition to being high- slept four, six, eight or more were clustered around ly absorptive from a sonic standpoint. the lake, general stores were set up, even a make shift post office. We’d spend the whole week or two weeks I limited the enrollment in my classes to eight students, so out on the ice and never need to come off the lake for nine of us would arrive, unlock and open the extreme- anything. ly heavy door, and go in (with the lights turned on). I would then offer an explanation of the chamber and With so many people out there doing so many loud take questions. There was usually a single chair that things (driving snowmobiles and trucks, power-auge- could be placed on a ‘catwalk’ in the center of the ring holes in the ice, and just generally being social) space. I would ask the students if they wished to go in the quiet would never really become complete. one at a time and sit in the chair, alone, in the dark. All of the students always accepted the idea, so I would Until night time, when the whole lake fell asleep. I was turn off the lights after each was situated, for a one to 8 years old. I woke up one morning about 3 a.m. and two minute stay. went outside to pee. It was about 20 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit), there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and Over a period of several years the students invariably the air was absolutely no wind.