John Cage's 4'33"
February 23, 2008
John Cage's most famous musical composition is called 4'33".
It was composed in 1952 for any instrument (or combination of instruments), and the score instructs the performer to not play the instrument during the entire duration of the piece.
In a 1982 interview, and on numerous other occasions, Cage has stated that 4′33″ is, in his opinion, his most important work.
'In the late 1940s John Cage visited the anechoic chamber at Harvard University. An anechoic chamber is a room designed in such a way that the walls, ceiling and floor will absorb all sounds made in the room, rather than bouncing them back as echoes. They are also generally extremely soundproof. Anechoic chambers are widely used for measuring the acoustic properties of instruments and microphones, and for performing psychoacoustic experiments.
Cage entered the chamber expecting to hear silence, but as he wrote later, he "heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation."
I don't know if this explanation is accurate, but this experience is often described as the inspiration behind the famous Cage composition 4' 33".'
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