Sep. 5th, 2012 03:26 pm
Sounds of silence
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muckefuckToday around lunchtime my workplace staged a performance of John Cage's 4'33" in honour of the centennial of his birth. They did it DIY-style, so it had some of the feel of a happening. One of my colleagues brought a surf guitar. (Requests to play "Miserlou" or "Rock Lobster" fell on deaf ears.) Another had a didgeridoo. The head of Africana played a vuvuzela. There were two people with tin cans and a length of string.
The conductor used the same time intervals as in the original performance, i.e. 33", 2'20", and 1'40". He signaled the start of each movement with a downbeat and the end by lowering the baton. Some performers held their instruments on their laps, others readied them as if to play. Pablo held a set of headphones attached to an iPod queued up for Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music (which he played during the tune-up phase). At the beginning of each movement, he turned on the power to the headphones, and shut if off at the end.
The silence would've been exquisite if not for damn fool photographer shooting it all with one of those antique cameras with a mechanical shutter. I seriously wanted to ask him to knock it off. Afterwards, a young guy asked my big bear colleague for a try on his didgeridoo. Whereas BBC failed to get a decent tone out of it, this guy played a mini concert in-between explaining his circular breathing technique. I was so rapt I clean forgot about the cheese platter in the next room.
The conductor used the same time intervals as in the original performance, i.e. 33", 2'20", and 1'40". He signaled the start of each movement with a downbeat and the end by lowering the baton. Some performers held their instruments on their laps, others readied them as if to play. Pablo held a set of headphones attached to an iPod queued up for Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music (which he played during the tune-up phase). At the beginning of each movement, he turned on the power to the headphones, and shut if off at the end.
The silence would've been exquisite if not for damn fool photographer shooting it all with one of those antique cameras with a mechanical shutter. I seriously wanted to ask him to knock it off. Afterwards, a young guy asked my big bear colleague for a try on his didgeridoo. Whereas BBC failed to get a decent tone out of it, this guy played a mini concert in-between explaining his circular breathing technique. I was so rapt I clean forgot about the cheese platter in the next room.