Music without sound (ATOS 8.4)

Music without sound

When attending a musical performance, from opera to orchestra to a rock concert, you can generally expect one thing to occur-sound. John Cage would disagree. In 1952, he composed a piece called 4'33" "4 minutes, 33 seconds" where the pianist sat on a stage for four minutes and thirty-three seconds without playing a single note. Cage's intention was to point out that silence isn't actually silent and that the audience, in a way, becomes the performer. Everything from breathing to shuffling the programs became part of the music. Because of this, no two people ever hear the piece in the same way.