[Raiderhater]

Originally Posted by SNR

Perhaps the greatest man I've ever talked to is John Cage, the greatest developer of aleatoric music, which is music involving randomness and chance. He wrote a radio symphony once, which involves 12 radios tuned to different stations chosen by tossing a coin.

Anyway, he took aleatoric music a step farther. He wrote a piece called 4'33". The first performance was for solo piano, but it can be done with any instrument or ensemble. The performer(s) merely sit in silence for four minutes and 33 seconds.

His belief was that the integration of silence as an essential element is the only "new idea since Beethoven." Cage wrote an essay on it saying that silence can never be total... there's always somebody breathing, appliances running, people coughing, coats rustling, etc, during a performance. Also, silence was an important part of music before in deceptive cadences. Cage wanted to use that same energy to write his "music."

You know what's odd? He almost makes sense.

If you say so....