Attn: Toby and MOTW: Please write a really long song.

[Baliset]

Originally posted by ezekiel
that's not genuis. he didn't even do anything. give me a break.

I agree with Sam on this. I think to say he didn't do anything is a misinterpretation. I think his intent was in expressing art in a form other than music.

As others have said above, it really was not about silence. I mean anyone can record a few minutes of silence and jokingly call it a song but what Cage was doing was using a musical idea of complete sheet music full of rests and using it to create art from people's rections or from the enviroment in which it takes place and that is very genius in my humble opinion.

Not to mention it does take a certain level of musical skill as the performer to be able to count 4 minutes and 33 seconds of complete rests and keep it in tempo.

I always liked Cage's piece for four radios playing at once. Where he set up four radios in four corners of a room and had them play at once. He had a knack for creating art out of silence, or uncomfortableness, or even the spontanaeity of white noise and i think he fucking rules for challenging people's notions of what music and art consist of.

I hated the mortal kombat character of johnny cage though. hehe

 

[ezekiel]

well i give the guy a lot of credit because it's a really cool idea and all, and it's great art i guess. i just wouldn't call him a genius. gifted maybe, but not genius.

and yeah, johnny cage sucked. but i do like his one move in mk2 where he punches the guy in the nuts.

 

[Skull_Punk]

Originally posted by xfer
OK, John Cage wrote a piece of music called "ASLSP" (which somehow means "As Slow As Possible") that's supposed to take 639 years to perform, with a single chord banged out every year.

And yet, some poor bastard is sharing this on WinMX right now.

 

[chupe666]

Originally posted by Baliset
Not to mention it does take a certain level of musical skill as the performer to be able to count 4 minutes and 33 seconds of complete rests and keep it in tempo.

Now that is a damn good point. It's not like the performer is just sitting there, thinking about whether he left the iron on at home and if his cat will lick the iron and get a tongue burn and he'll have to take the cat to the vet and cost him an arm and a leg just because he was running late and the cleaners didn't press his shirt right and he had to iron it himself. He's counting, in time, to measure it out to an exact 4 minutes and 33 secs.

Now, if John Cage had really extrapolated, he could've included the vet bill for fixing the cat's tongue as part of the art.

Seriously, I do think this is an ingenious idea. It makes art out of what is least expected to be considered art. When you're sitting watching someone play, you try and keep quiet, but inevitably something you do makes noise. Be it breathing, seat noise, farting, whatever. To recognize this as part of life and to make it part of your art is what I'd consider the ultimate example of art imitating life.

 

[xfer]

Originally posted by Baliset

I always liked Cage's piece for four radios playing at once. Where he set up four radios in four corners of a room and had them play at once. He had a knack for creating art out of silence, or uncomfortableness, or even the spontanaeity of white noise and i think he fucking rules for challenging people's notions of what music and art consist of.

ZAIREEKA!

Yoshimi is an excellent album, btw.

 

[Novembers Paul]

You want art from a crowd? Go to the latest Eddie Murphy or Martin Lawrence movie, and stop the projector half way through. You'll get more art then you can handle, and most likely learn a few new words.

 

[xfer]

I really don't know why, but there were about two dozen urban teenagers at "Signs" when I went to go see it. There was some sort of minor fight halfway through and during one of the slower parts someone yelled out "WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF MOVIE IS THIS, YO?", causing the middle-aged couple in front of me to get all well-I-never. That's art, baby.

 

[xfer]

http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/23/uk.silence/

Composer pays for piece of silence
Monday, September 23, 2002 Posted: 12:21 PM EDT

LONDON, England -- A bizarre legal battle over a minute's silence in a recorded song has ended with a six-figure out-of-court settlement.

British composer Mike Batt found himself the subject of a plagiarism action for including the song, "A One Minute Silence," on an album for his classical rock band The Planets.

He was accused of copying it from a work by the late American composer John Cage, whose 1952 composition "4'33"" was totally silent.

On Monday, Batt settled the matter out of court by paying an undisclosed six-figure sum to the John Cage Trust.

Batt, who is best known in the UK for his links with the children's television characters The Wombles, told the Press Association: "This has been, albeit a gentlemanly dispute, a most serious matter and I am pleased that Cage's publishers have finally been persuaded that their case was, to say the least, optimistic.

"We are, however, making this gesture of a payment to the John Cage Trust in recognition of my own personal respect for John Cage and in recognition of his brave and sometimes outrageous approach to artistic experimentation in music."

Batt credited "A One Minute Silence" to "Batt/Cage."

Before the start of the court case, Batt had said: "Has the world gone mad? I'm prepared to do time rather than pay out. We are talking as much as £100,000 in copyright.

"Mine is a much better silent piece. I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and 33 seconds."

Batt gave a cheque to Nicholas Riddle, managing director of Cage's publishers Peters Edition, on the steps of the High Court, in London.

Riddle said: "We feel that honour has been settled.

"We had been prepared to make our point more strongly on behalf of Mr Cage's estate, because we do feel that the concept of a silent piece -- particularly as it was credited by Mr Batt as being co-written by "Cage" -- is a valuable artistic concept in which there is a copyright.

"We are nevertheless very pleased to have reached agreement with Mr Batt over this dispute, and we accept his donation in good spirit."

"A One Minute Silence" has now been released as part of a double A-side single.

 

[chupe666]

Originally posted by xfer
On Monday, Batt settled the matte...eem to help me. I'm probably using it wrong.

 

[xfer]

SMART SANCTIONS, my friend. I'm a master at web-searching.

 

[ezekiel]

soulfly has a minute of silence on their new cd. i wonder if they're worthy of being sued too. their "song" is called 9-11-01 and it's supposed to be a moment of silence in rememberance and all that crap. i still can't decide if this is cool or stupid. either way, it's not necessary.