“In the Middle Ages,” Sara Maitland writes in her brilliant “A Book of Silence,” “Christian scholastics argued that the devil’s basic strategy was to bring human beings to a point where they are never alone with their God, nor ever attentively face to face with another human being.” Hence our Faustian pact with Facebook, with cellphones, with virtual everything.
Over-stimulation is one outcome of social media and the sheer intrusiveness of modern life, the noise of it all. But in 2010, the backlash began in earnest. This is the movement to take back our connection to each other and the physical world we live in, not the one we cyber surf in.
Silence is being hailed as the solution. John Cage’s 1952 silent piece, “4’33″,” is the theme song. The Brits are calling it “Cage Against the Machine,” and the movement for a silent night this Christmas, or Cagemas, has gone viral. In London, Cage’s picture is showing up on fake million-pound notes and the slogan is on posters with clenched fists and Che Guevara’s image…
Image via Wikipedia
…What all the writers are forced to acknowledge is that there is no such thing as silence. Even our ears make noise in the process of listening. It is imperative that we reduce noise pollution for the survival of the human race. But sound is also essential to existence, and being attuned to that is a quality-of-life issue as well.
And that is precisely the point of “4’33″,” in which a performer sits without playing for four minutes 33 seconds. Cage’s seminal score directs us to listen to everything that we miss when we hear music, and it also gently accommodates us to our concert hall environment.
More remarkable still, “4’33″” has a reasonable chance of becoming the Christmas No. 1. For the new recording, some 60 reverential rockers — the Kooks, Billy Bragg, Imogen Heap and Orbital, among them — went into a London recording studio on Dec. 6 with their guitars and drum kits and did their best to shut up, although they did begin swaying to a silent beat after a minute or two. The proceeds from the single, available on iTunes, will benefit charities.
via John Cage’s “4’33″ ” could add to a more a silent night in on-board Britain — latimes.com.
Related articles
- Why I’m backing Cage Against the Machine for Christmas No 1 (guardian.co.uk)
- Silence is golden for Christmas chart hopefuls (independent.co.uk)
- Will John Cage silence the X Factor? (telegraph.co.uk)
