The Value of Silence

We're constantly surrounded by music. It's on the radio, the TV, YouTube, restaurants, stores. It's even on our phones when we're on hold. I suppose some might think this is a delightful state of affairs. I do not.

I tend to agree with John Cage on this score. He 'composed' his 'Silent Prayer' in 1948 and attempted to sell it to the Muzak Company. The Muzak Company had just recently begun to sell their 'canned' music to shopping centers, restaurants, hotels and nearly every other indoor public space. Muzak was produced to be uniformly inoffensive and bland. Cage hated it. So, he wrote 'Silent Prayer' which is 3-4 minutes of silence and submitted it to the Muzak Company. They rejected it. About 4 years later, Cage presented his silent piece 4'33" and created one of the most important watershed moments in the history of music. More than 70 years after the first performance, people who consider music seriously are still debating whether that piece (4'33") is actually music.

I'm still unclear whether 4'33" is music, but that doesn't really matter. What's important is that it was an invitation to listen deeply and listening is one of the essential requirements of improvisation. Ubiquitous music does NOT invite us to listen. It is intended only as background. By presenting four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence, Cage invited us to listen deeply to everything around us.