Re: A Different Question about 4'33" (not troll bait!)


"Joe Roberts" <cdex3_at_comcast.net> wrote in message
news:2ImdnSS4T6Ahm8HeRVn-hg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[snip]
>
> Very well expressed. However it still suggests the same dilemma which so
> far seems to be not addressed.
>
> Why does a visual-only prop -- no sound of its own -- which infers
> (directs,
> suggests, ...) that you should hear ambient sounds as music -- in itself
> constitute a music composition?

I don't understand, I didn't know it was a cane until after the sound had
occurred???
It was soley the "smack" that I'm talking about.

>
> ... Other than that you were predisposed to consider it a music
> composition?

I don't understand again. I've always considered 4'33" to be a work of
music.

>
> ... In which case, _anything_ visual can be a music composition, like
> your shoe, if you are predisposed to consider it to be one?

No, I never said that. The sound of my shoe could be used musically within a
piece.

>
> I am just trying to get someone here to define, if possible, what
> specifically constitutes a _composition_ of music, when its sole construct
> is visual.

Are we talking about 4'33" still? It sounds like you're on to a mime
performance or something. You don't have to see anything in 4'33" to
appreciate it. I mean, you can even not see things in ballet recordings and
still get a lot of it.

If the sole construct of a work of art is visual only, I would consider
calling it "visual art" "architecture" "sculpture" "portraiture"
"photography" and things like that.
A composition of music has sound as its sole contruct (when either includes
other things, they become "multimedia" art - music with dance is not "music"
to me, it's "ballet" or similarly named forms)

>
> ... Does it require a predefined "music-like" venue, consisting of a
> concert hall with piano and pianist and potted plant, with an
> advance-printed playbill listing the work alongside some Rachmaninoff and
> Chopin? In other words, does it require _advance_coaching_ of the
> audience to predispose them to be hearing "music"?

No, you can listen to it anywhere, just like B5. But I will say, if you hear
Beethoven's 5th in a supermarket, where you didn't expect to be being
present at a "listening event", 4'33" may not have a parallel, because it
would be awfully hard to recognize it since it always changes.

>
> ... Suppose we place the same piano, pianist, and potted plant inside a
> room at the Cummer Art Gallery (which both displays sculpture and gives
> concerts). We hand out programs to the museum visitors describing it as a
> kinetic sculture. Is it a composition of music being performed?

It's a "performance piece" or an "installment" as these things are apt to be
called. If, you incorporate visual elements (or other sensory elements) into
a performance of a piece of music, it is no longer "just music", but some
multimedia form. Music with video images is called, wait for it, a music
video. The musical work is still a piece of music without the video. The
video may not be interesting (albeit they're usually hysterical) with the
sound off, but it's still a video. However, a work that was conceived as
being a "music video" may or may not stand as either alone.

>
> I am not aiming for whether or not anyone notices "musical content" in
> ambient sounds, before, during, or ever after the performance or
> exposition.
>
> I am asking whether 4'33" remains a music composition.

Yes, but it's got nothing to do with visual elements.

>
> It would be hard to ask the same question of, say, the Beethoven Fifth so
> long as its score is being faithfully reproduced and heard. Put it in the
> Cummer or put it on the moon (with earphones, as there is no sound
> transmission through the atmosphere). It's still B5 and unmistakably a
> composition of music.
>
> For 4'33", put it in the Cummer or put it on the moon (with earphones, as
> there is no sound transmission through the atmosphere -- and no ambient
> sounds). Is it still a music composition?


Yes, but not unmistakably so as in the case of the Beethoven, which can be
remembered from performance to performance as the "guts" of the piece is the
same. 4'33" would be drastically different at every performance (though once
familiar with it, one would recognize it if it were track 5 on the CD,
sandwiched between Black Angels and Blue Moon). Of course, many jazz pieces
are quite different with every performance, as are most types of
improvisations.


Steve


.

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