6 ms·

It doesn't make sense to me that the piece should start with a 17 month rest. Surely it doesn't really start until the first note is played?

itishappy 2y ago
Ever been to see an orchestra play? In my opinion, the part where the conductor puts his hands up and the audience and orchestra both grow quiet in anticipation of the start of the piece is semantic.
- hinkley 2y ago
  Especially given how loud and sometimes discordant the tuning process is.
  - dmoy 2y ago
    Pedantic note, the tuning is typically before the conductor raises the baton. Depending on the concert, it is often done before the conductor even comes on stage.
kbutler 2y ago
In a live orchestra performance, the conductor raises his hands. The audience quiets in anticipation. He gives an up tick indicating the beginning of the music, then the downbeat of the start of the first measure. No sound is heard. The conductor continues to mark time. The silence is deep...profound. The conductor continues to mark the time of the passing measures. The audience listens. At some point, positive sound breaks the silence - suddenly, loudly destroying the stillness! Or possibly very nearly silently - at the uncertain threshold of perception, the audible music begins...
- lazystar 2y ago
  > the audible music begins... right, so it begins when the music starts playing?
  - throwway120385 2y ago
    The experience begins when the conductor starts marking time.
    - bigstrat2003 2y ago
      That's like saying "my meal begins from the time I start driving to the restaurant". It's just not true.
      - malcolmgreaves 2y ago
        Incorrect. A rest is as important to music as a note.
        hinkley 2y ago
        Found the jazz musician :)
      - p_j_w 2y ago
        It’s more like saying your meal begins when you sit down at the table, which is a proposition that a lot of people would agree with.
        dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
        Certainly every chef-run fine dining restaurant would agree with that.
      - dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
        It's nothing like that, but you're entitled to be confused and wrong.
        bmacho 2y ago
        Technically it's okay to be confused and wrong, but it is not really okay to be vocal about it. It just steals people's time. Maybe it is deliberate trolling, how should we know? Better to be moderated out
mykowebhn 2y ago
Not unless it was a "meaningful", aka "musical", rest
ssttoo 2y ago
Beethoven’s 5th symphony (da-da-da-DAA) starts with a rest too, it’s not unusual to notate like this. Many pieces have “pickup” measures which are not complete and much shorter than a full measure. But when the pickup is more than 50% of a normal measure, it’s no longer much of a pickup and starting with a rest to make up the complete measure makes sense.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  That's all fine and dandy when you're talking about a genuine piece of music. But for something like this, counting a rest that goes for 17 years is taking it way too far.
  - robin_reala 2y ago
    17 months. But in what sense isn’t this a genuine peice of music? It certainly meets Merriam-Webster’s definition: a: vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony b: the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity
    - cwillu 2y ago
      An exploration of what is and is not a piece of music, like this work explicitly is, needs to acknowledge the possibility that the answer might be “no, this isn't”. Dictionary definitions are entirely irrelevent except insofar as they provide the inspiration to ask “wait, but is that _really_ all a work of music is?”
      - trbleclef 2y ago
        One of HN's few(?) music appreciation professors here: in fact, I start every term posing this question. It's hard to teach music appreciation before a group of humans can agree where music begins and ends :) At the end of the day, like everything else it's a certain degree of statistics and a certain degree of subjectivity.
Isamu 2y ago
It’s a deliberate provocation, he certainly anticipated exactly this sort of response. In a sense he is exploiting a lack of rules that would prevent a piece from starting with this long of a rest. In other words, he is hacking the process.
- dahart 2y ago
  To be fair, while the piece is a deliberate provocation, like some of his others, the rest wasn’t imagined by Cage to take 17 months, that’s just an artifact of someone else’s decision to play the piece for 639 years. In typical performances while Cage was alive, the opening rest wasn’t more than a few seconds.
bongodongobob 2y ago
Lots of music starts with rests. If the first note isn't on the 1, you'll have rests before it. Not usual at all.
- feoren 2y ago
  If the first note isn't on the 1, you'll write rests before it, so that the person reading your sheet music understands what's going on. That doesn't mean the music has started yet. The notation is not the music.
tokai 2y ago
Check out his other work 4'33". It's an even more extreme try at silence as music. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- goldchainposse 2y ago
  It looks like this is his gimmick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3#/media/File:Marche_fun%C3%A8bre_compos%C3%A9e_pour_les_fun%C3%A9railles_d'un_grand_homme_sourd_-_Alphonse_Allais.jpeg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3#/media/F... Haters gonna hate, but there's not much more to his work than using extreme pauses and tempos as art. Maybe it's meta art.
  - vixen99 2y ago
    It certainly got him attention.
cfbolztereick 2y ago
Complaining about a rest (however long) in a piece by the composer of 4'33'' is certainly A Take.
williamdclt 2y ago
Regardless of the philosophy of it (which is certainly interesting), many pieces uncontroversially start with a rest. If the first bar doesn’t start on a note, then the piece starts on a rest. You could argue that the first bar is actually shorter than all the following ones and only starts on the first note, but… no one thinks like that that I ever heard of
jancsika 2y ago
> Surely it doesn't really start until the first note is played? That question itself is built on a radical assumption. Example: Just skimming, it looks like 38 out of 48 of the fugues from Bach's WTC Books 1 & 2 begin with rests followed by several beats worth of melodies in the first measure[1]. If you think the piece only really starts when the first note of the melody is played, then you've got problems. Either: 1. You hear the first articulation of the melody as the downbeat. But that would mean the first measure is in a disparate (and probably irregular) meter. Radical! 2. You hear the incomplete first measure as an anacrusis, or a kind of unaccented lead-in, to the second measure: OMG even more radical! You can use accent patterns on a modern piano to play any of these fugues using either of these methods, and it will sound silly to non-silly keyboard players. What's more, non-silly keyboard players do feel the pulse for the first downbeat of these pieces when they perform. Most of them will even inhale before the downbeat, as if they are somehow singing the melody through their fingers. Finally, lots of music begins with rests: not just conservative cases like Bach, but progressive cases like the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth, and of course the radical cases like Cage's. This leads to one of the things I love about Cage's music: it compels criticisms that reveal fundamental misunderstandings about music. E.g., you don't buy the radical case-- perhaps reasonable. But you then speculate there are no cases-- which is at odds with common musical practice. If Cage's music did nothing but compel these questions it would be worth its weight in pine nuts. Edit: 1: Bach does this because nearly all the fugues have three or more independent melodies singing at the same time. If they are all singing on every downbeat it can quickly sound really clunky and predictable.
- lmm 2y ago
  > If you think the piece only really starts when the first note of the melody is played, then you've got problems. Either: > 1. You hear the first articulation of the melody as the downbeat. But that would mean the first measure is in a disparate (and probably irregular) meter. Radical! > 2. You hear the incomplete first measure as an anacrusis, or a kind of unaccented lead-in, to the second measure: OMG even more radical! Why? Why can't you just say the piece starts partway through a bar, and we notate that with a rest for convenience? Just as when a piece ends partway through a bar we would generally accept that it ends when the last note ends (and while we might notate that as being a full bar in the case of a long held note, we don't always play it that way), not after some trailing rests, and we wouldn't consider this as being some kind of radical accented thing.

itishappy 2y ago

Ever been to see an orchestra play? In my opinion, the part where the conductor puts his hands up and the audience and orchestra both grow quiet in anticipation of the start of the piece is semantic.

hinkley 2y ago
Especially given how loud and sometimes discordant the tuning process is.
- dmoy 2y ago
  Pedantic note, the tuning is typically before the conductor raises the baton. Depending on the concert, it is often done before the conductor even comes on stage.

kbutler 2y ago

In a live orchestra performance, the conductor raises his hands. The audience quiets in anticipation. He gives an up tick indicating the beginning of the music, then the downbeat of the start of the first measure. No sound is heard. The conductor continues to mark time. The silence is deep...profound. The conductor continues to mark the time of the passing measures. The audience listens. At some point, positive sound breaks the silence - suddenly, loudly destroying the stillness! Or possibly very nearly silently - at the uncertain threshold of perception, the audible music begins...

lazystar 2y ago
> the audible music begins... right, so it begins when the music starts playing?
- throwway120385 2y ago
  The experience begins when the conductor starts marking time.
  - bigstrat2003 2y ago
    That's like saying "my meal begins from the time I start driving to the restaurant". It's just not true.
    - malcolmgreaves 2y ago
      Incorrect. A rest is as important to music as a note.
      - hinkley 2y ago
        Found the jazz musician :)
    - p_j_w 2y ago
      It’s more like saying your meal begins when you sit down at the table, which is a proposition that a lot of people would agree with.
      - dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
        Certainly every chef-run fine dining restaurant would agree with that.
    - dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
      It's nothing like that, but you're entitled to be confused and wrong.
      - bmacho 2y ago
        Technically it's okay to be confused and wrong, but it is not really okay to be vocal about it. It just steals people's time. Maybe it is deliberate trolling, how should we know? Better to be moderated out

mykowebhn 2y ago

Not unless it was a "meaningful", aka "musical", rest

ssttoo 2y ago

Beethoven’s 5th symphony (da-da-da-DAA) starts with a rest too, it’s not unusual to notate like this. Many pieces have “pickup” measures which are not complete and much shorter than a full measure. But when the pickup is more than 50% of a normal measure, it’s no longer much of a pickup and starting with a rest to make up the complete measure makes sense.

bigstrat2003 2y ago
That's all fine and dandy when you're talking about a genuine piece of music. But for something like this, counting a rest that goes for 17 years is taking it way too far.
- robin_reala 2y ago
  17 months. But in what sense isn’t this a genuine peice of music? It certainly meets Merriam-Webster’s definition: a: vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony b: the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity
  - cwillu 2y ago
    An exploration of what is and is not a piece of music, like this work explicitly is, needs to acknowledge the possibility that the answer might be “no, this isn't”. Dictionary definitions are entirely irrelevent except insofar as they provide the inspiration to ask “wait, but is that _really_ all a work of music is?”
    - trbleclef 2y ago
      One of HN's few(?) music appreciation professors here: in fact, I start every term posing this question. It's hard to teach music appreciation before a group of humans can agree where music begins and ends :) At the end of the day, like everything else it's a certain degree of statistics and a certain degree of subjectivity.

Isamu 2y ago

It’s a deliberate provocation, he certainly anticipated exactly this sort of response. In a sense he is exploiting a lack of rules that would prevent a piece from starting with this long of a rest. In other words, he is hacking the process.

dahart 2y ago
To be fair, while the piece is a deliberate provocation, like some of his others, the rest wasn’t imagined by Cage to take 17 months, that’s just an artifact of someone else’s decision to play the piece for 639 years. In typical performances while Cage was alive, the opening rest wasn’t more than a few seconds.

bongodongobob 2y ago

Lots of music starts with rests. If the first note isn't on the 1, you'll have rests before it. Not usual at all.

feoren 2y ago
If the first note isn't on the 1, you'll write rests before it, so that the person reading your sheet music understands what's going on. That doesn't mean the music has started yet. The notation is not the music.

tokai 2y ago

Check out his other work 4'33". It's an even more extreme try at silence as music. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
goldchainposse 2y ago
It looks like this is his gimmick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3#/media/File:Marche_fun%C3%A8bre_compos%C3%A9e_pour_les_fun%C3%A9railles_d'un_grand_homme_sourd_-_Alphonse_Allais.jpeg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3#/media/F... Haters gonna hate, but there's not much more to his work than using extreme pauses and tempos as art. Maybe it's meta art.
- vixen99 2y ago
  It certainly got him attention.

cfbolztereick 2y ago

Complaining about a rest (however long) in a piece by the composer of 4'33'' is certainly A Take.

williamdclt 2y ago

Regardless of the philosophy of it (which is certainly interesting), many pieces uncontroversially start with a rest. If the first bar doesn’t start on a note, then the piece starts on a rest. You could argue that the first bar is actually shorter than all the following ones and only starts on the first note, but… no one thinks like that that I ever heard of

jancsika 2y ago

> Surely it doesn't really start until the first note is played? That question itself is built on a radical assumption. Example: Just skimming, it looks like 38 out of 48 of the fugues from Bach's WTC Books 1 & 2 begin with rests followed by several beats worth of melodies in the first measure[1]. If you think the piece only really starts when the first note of the melody is played, then you've got problems. Either: 1. You hear the first articulation of the melody as the downbeat. But that would mean the first measure is in a disparate (and probably irregular) meter. Radical! 2. You hear the incomplete first measure as an anacrusis, or a kind of unaccented lead-in, to the second measure: OMG even more radical! You can use accent patterns on a modern piano to play any of these fugues using either of these methods, and it will sound silly to non-silly keyboard players. What's more, non-silly keyboard players do feel the pulse for the first downbeat of these pieces when they perform. Most of them will even inhale before the downbeat, as if they are somehow singing the melody through their fingers. Finally, lots of music begins with rests: not just conservative cases like Bach, but progressive cases like the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth, and of course the radical cases like Cage's. This leads to one of the things I love about Cage's music: it compels criticisms that reveal fundamental misunderstandings about music. E.g., you don't buy the radical case-- perhaps reasonable. But you then speculate there are no cases-- which is at odds with common musical practice. If Cage's music did nothing but compel these questions it would be worth its weight in pine nuts. Edit: 1: Bach does this because nearly all the fugues have three or more independent melodies singing at the same time. If they are all singing on every downbeat it can quickly sound really clunky and predictable.

lmm 2y ago
> If you think the piece only really starts when the first note of the melody is played, then you've got problems. Either: > 1. You hear the first articulation of the melody as the downbeat. But that would mean the first measure is in a disparate (and probably irregular) meter. Radical! > 2. You hear the incomplete first measure as an anacrusis, or a kind of unaccented lead-in, to the second measure: OMG even more radical! Why? Why can't you just say the piece starts partway through a bar, and we notate that with a rest for convenience? Just as when a piece ends partway through a bar we would generally accept that it ends when the last note ends (and while we might notate that as being a full bar in the case of a long held note, we don't always play it that way), not after some trailing rests, and we wouldn't consider this as being some kind of radical accented thing.