Friday, May 14, 2010

The piece is not actually silent


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The piece is not actually silent 
[there will never be silence until death comes which never comes];
 it is full of sound,
 but sounds which I do not think of beforehand, 
which I hear for the first time the same time others hear. 
What we hear is determined by our own emptiness, 
our own receptivity; 
we receive to the extent we are empty to do so.
 If one is full, 
or in the course of its performance becomes full of an idea[...], then it is just that.
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~ John Cage, responding to a detractor of 4'33", recalled by Christian Wolff
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