John Cage’s 4’33’’: The Music of Silence

One of the examples of people who have been inspired by the idea of silence is John Cage’s 4’33’’. John Cage (1912 – 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. Inspired by silence, John Cage produced a piece composed entirely of silence: 4′33″. The title of the piece refers to the length of a given performance, 4′33″ being the total length of the first public performance. Composed for any instrument or combination of instruments, the idea was for performers not to play their instruments during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements.

A performance of 4’33” is shown below:

Some of his influences include Zen Buddhism, which Cage had studied since the late 1940s. Other influences include his Anechoic experience at Harvard: ‘In 1951, Cage visited the anechoic chamber at Harvard University. Cage entered the chamber expecting to hear silence, but he wrote later, "I heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation.’ It is this realization of the impossibility of silence that led to the composition of 4′33″.

Other sources mention how visual arts had an influence on Cage’s music of silence. For example, it is said that Cage was fascinated with white blank paintings by Robert Rauschenberg. This work inspired him so much that he said that music would lag behind if he did not compose a piece of silence.

In the book Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday, a chapter on silence mentions John Cage's 4'33'' (page 59-60). As the book puts it 'Cage wanted to create a song identical to the popular music of the day – it'd be the same length, it'd be performed live and played on the radio like every other song. The only difference was that 4'33'' would be a "piece of uninterrupted silence".'