An essential but often ignored aspect of phrasing is your note grouping. Proper note grouping will give your lines a musical purpose and a sense of motion which is integral to good music. You may already be aware that the concept that propels harmony is that of tension-release. Almost all music can be simplified into dominant-tonic or predominant-dominant-tonic groupings. Notice that the harmonies that create tension (predominant and dominant) precede the release (tonic). This of course makes sense; there can be no release without tension beforehand. Our problem arises from the fact that within a bar the harmony is usually is usually ordered in some variation of: Itonic dominantI, Itonic dom. tonic dom.I, or ItonicIdom.ItonicIdom.I. This visually puts our music into groups of release-tension which breaks up the musical grouping of tension-release, and makes most players give unnatural significance to the downbeat of a measure.

Take this example:.  Most people would group this as, but the grouping that you actually want to think about is. This puts the stress on the tension creating notes and treats the downbeat as simply the resolution of the preceding music. To play groupings like this it probably enough to just change your thinking about how notes are grouped instead of attempting to accent the beginning of the groups, but thinking about a slight push in the tension creating music (the arsis) and a release on the downbeat (the thesis) might help.

Once we have shed the influence of the bar line on our thinking we can start to think on bigger and smaller levels. Within every level of rhythm, from 64^th notes to groups of whole notes, the notes are visually grouped release-tension, so it is up to us to rearrange that order when we play so that within the grouping that we made above, think about these groupings. On the eighth note level, this means thinking and . This concept be transferred down to notes of any value, and can also be transferred up to longer notes so that a group of half notes becomes.You now no longer have to sit on long notes wondering what to do with them. All of this can be applied to compound time by thinking.

Now that you have an idea of what constitutes good note groupings, you should pay close attention to the way that great players group their notes. An important thing to remember is that this is usually done very subtly. I have analyzed how Maurice Andre does his note groupings in the exposition of the Haydn concerto. There are some interesting things that you should notice in the Haydn. One is that he is normally very subtle, so that when he is more obvious it is a very effective way of adding more motion to his line. Another thing is that at the asterisk (6^th line), which is one of the most musically interesting sections of the piece, he reverses the order of his note groupings. This is effective because at this spot Haydn does something unexpected and puts diminished chords (functioning as dominant) on beats 1 and 3, which resolve to major chords on beats 2 and 4, instead of the more common dominant chords on beats 2 and 4 with resolutions on beats 1 and 3. Even though Maurice Andre does not group his notes rhythmically how one would expect, his note grouping still lines up with the dominant-tonic grouping of the harmony. Listen to Maurice Andre   

This concept of note groupings is based on the teachings of Dr. James Thurmond in his book Note Groupings: A Method for Achieving Expression and Style in Musical Performance.  Dr. Thurmond approaches the subject from a rhythmic perspective as opposed to the more harmonic approach I take.  I think both are valuable, but that the harmonic perspective more fully explains great performance practice.

The book Zen in the Art of Archery, by Eugen Herrigel, has had a profound effect on my playing. I would highly recommend getting a copy yourself, but I have pulled out one of the passages that I found to be particularly illuminating. Herrigel, who was a German philosopher, traveled to Japan to gain an understanding of Zen. In the pursuit of this understading he studied archery for six years with a Zen Master. In this passage, Herrigel has been having trouble loosing the shot smoothly (letting go of the arrow).

The Master was evidenty less horrified by my failure than I myself. Did he know from experience that it would come to this? "Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out!" he exclaimed. "The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by suprise. It must be as if the bowstring suddenly cut though the thumb that held it. You mustn't open the right hand on purpose."

After months of fruitless practice, Herrigel has this conversation with the Master:

"I understand well enough," I said, "that the hand mustn't be opened with a jerk if the shot is not to be spoiled. But however I set about it, it always goes wrong. If I clench my hand as tightly as possible, I can't stop it shaking when I open my fingers. If, on the other hand, I try to keep it relaxed, the bowstring is torn from my grasp before the full stretch is reached-unexpextedly, it is true, but still too early. I am caught between these two kinds of failure and see no way of escape." "You must hold the drawn bowstring," answered the Master, "like a little child holding the proffered finger. It grips it so firmly that one marvels at the strength of the tiny fist. And when it lets the finger go, there is not the slightest jerk. Do you know why? Because a child doesn't think: I will now let go of the finger in order to grasp this other thing. Completely unself-consciously, without purpose, it turns from one to the other, and we would say that it was playing with the things, if it were not equally true that the things are playing with the child." "Maybe I understand what you are hinting at with this comparison," I remarked. "But am I not in an entirely different situation? When I have drawn the bow, the moment comes when I feel: unless the shot comes at once I shan't be able to endure the tension. And what happens then? Merely that I get out of breath. So I must loose the shot at once whether I want to or not, because I can't wait for it any longer." "You have described only too well," replied the Master, "where the difficulty lies. Do you want to know why you cannot wait for the shot and why you get out of breath before it has come? The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You do not wait for fullfillment, but brace yourself for failure. So long as that is so, you have no choice but to call forth something yourself that ought to happen independently of you, and so long as you call it forth your hand will not open in the right way-like the hand of a child. Your hand does not burst open like the skin of a ripe fruit." I had to admit to the master that this interpretation made me more confused than ever. "For ultimately," I said, "I draw the bow and loose the shot in order to hit the target. The drawing is thus a means to an end, and I cannot lose sight of this connection. The child knows nothing of this, but for me the two things cannot be disconnected." "The right art," cried the Master, "is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen."

I will work backwards from the passages that I excerpted in my previous post and first look at this:

I had to admit to the master that this interpretation made me more confused than ever. "For ultimately," I said, "I draw the bow and loose the shot in order to hit the target. The drawing is thus a means to an end, and I cannot lose sight of this connection. The child knows nothing of this, but for me the two things cannot be disconnected."

"The right art," cried the Master, "is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen."

I can't do a better job than the Master at describing the concept (I'm no master), but I will try to add a little bit and relate it to trumpet. The preceding passage gets to the heart of the title of my post, Artless Art, which certainly sounds nonsensical at first. Zen has been called the "everyday mind," which basically means that tasks are carried out without unnecessary analysis and concern. The body does many complex things when eating or talking, yet we do not concern ourselves with interfering in the process. When we are hungry we eat, when we need to communicate we talk. The body is capable of great things if we don't get in the way, which is where artless art comes in.

When we think of art we rarely think of it is being a normal, everyday occurrence. It is given an importance above the everyday, and therefore we analyze our actions more, and consciously get involved in the process, which only interferes with what the body is capable of doing (if you tense up before you play a note you are getting involved in the process). Artless art occurs therefore when art ceases to be treated differently than the everyday, when you have no more desire to tense up or worry about the results from playing trumpet than sitting down.

And now the first part of the excerpt hopefully makes more sense.  When you realize that playing trumpet is just an everyday task you can let go like a child. There is no need to hold your air back after an inhale, no need to build up pressure, no need to tense the face. Breathe in and let go. Let the sound take you by suprise as though you are just an observer and vividly imagine the sound that you want the player to sound like. Now you may be thinking to yourself, "that all sounds great, but how do I actually train my mind to not care?" And the answer (as if it could be anything else) is practice. Yes, you already practice, but what are you training yourself to do with the way that you practice now? Practice that leads us away from our goal is useless. It is difficult for the mind to retrain itself, so we must use the body to train the mind.

I find that the most effective way to achieve this transformation is to treat trumpet playing as a ritual, and this must be done every single time the horn comes up to the lips. During this ritual it is important to not be concerned with playing trumpet, and simply focus on the ritual. We start before the horn comes up (you can actually do this part now). Most people have an unbelievable amount of tension built up in the facial muscles, and we will release that tension.

Start with your lips touching. Now, feel the muscles around your cheek bone just let go, as though they are dropping to the floor, and gradually transfer this feeling down to the bottom of your cheeks. Give it time, and let all of the tension leave. Release the tension in the corners of your lips, and feel that move towards the center of your lips (which are still together). Let the area above the lips let go and drop your lips to the ground.

In this relaxed state, bring the trumpet to the lips without changing the lips. Once the trumpet is on the lips go through the process again. You want to be comfortable with the trumpet just sitting on your lips with no thought of playing. It should feel natural, and you should not be antsy to play. Now that you have the trumpet comfortably on your relaxed lips you start the countoff, for we always breathe in rhythm (preferably with a metronome). 1...2...3...inhale (a huge, deep inhale) which you do not stop, but which is interrupted by the sound that you hear vividly in your head. The external results (the way you sound) may not be pleasant for a while, but it doesn't matter. Just keep practicing and listening harder to get a more detailed sound model in your head.

It is extremely important to not cheat yourself by letting a little tension stay because you feel more secure with it. It may help to do this a few times without going past the point of the inhale, so that you get used to not thinking about playing as you go through the ritual.

Besides this ritual, I find Clarke studies and songs (like those in The Art of Phrasing section of the Arban) to be great for moving past just starting a note to playing whole phrases. Keep your focus on the sound that you have vividly in your head and on keeping your air moving through the trumpet.

To continue with the same idea as the previous article, Artless Art, it is important to learn to appreciate the journey you are on as a trumpet player. Young players (and many older players) find themselves hampered by debilitating stress and frustration about their playing, many without realizing that it is a problem. Many players instinctively tense their tongue and momentarily hold in their air before an attack. Why do this? It's certainly not because it helps. It gets ingrained in most of us from the beginning that playing trumpet is hard and that playing high is very hard. The body's natural response to having to do something physically difficult is to tense up. It is necessary to retrain the mind so that playing is not thought of as difficult, but instead is just done. Watch this video of Maurice Andre playing.

He plays with the same ease that most of us speak with, and it is easy for him simply because he allows it to be. Let yourself just breathe and play as though you are just speaking. To make this change it is important to not care what you sound like. Imagine the sound that you wish to play but don't worry about whether it happens. This is one of the most difficult concepts to completely apply, but yields the greatest reward. Playing trumpet becomes not about wrestling the trumpet, but simply about playing music.

Getting back to the journey, it is important to not be concerned with getting "there". These kinds of thoughts lead to the excess tension explained above. I remember thinking in highschool that that if I could just get my multiple tonguing better and get my range up to a high F then I would be "there". As I continued to play though, and achieved those goals, I realized that in many ways I am no closer to "there" than I was in highschool. The better you get the higher your standards will become. If you are enjoying yourself and have the goal of making music every time the horn is on your face you are where you need to be.

John Cage's 4'33” seems to stand alone, an iconoclastic enigma in Western music. How is it even considered music when it is only silence? In a lecture Care published in 1958, six years after he composed 4'33”, he wrote “in this new music nothing takes place but sounds; those that are notated and those that are not.” Our initial reaction to seeing three movements marked tacet is that Cage has written silence, but he argues that he has written unnotated sound.  Silence had been an important concept for Cage since he was little, and the relationship between silence, sound, and time was at the heart of most of his musical thought. Though 4'33” seems to stand by itself it was a natural and possibly inevitable conclusion to other developments in music, visual arts, and Cage's exploration of Eastern philosophies.

 

To understand Cage's ideas about sound it is crucial to understand his ideas about silence because he placed great importance on the idea that silence is equal to sound when he began composing. Cage's conception of silence evolved. When he was 12 years old he won a high school oratorical contest in California with an oration called “Other People Think”. It was about our relationship with Latin America and his idea was for silence from the United States, so that we could hear what other people think. He saw silencing as a way for us to hear what others are saying.

 

When Cage started studying Eastern philosophies in the 40s his conception of silence was more of a nothingness or tranquility. His first idea for a silent piece was not 4'33”, but a piece he called Silent Prayer. He conceived of Silent Prayer in 1948, four years before 4'33”.  Muzac was just starting and he envisioned selling them a piece of uninterrupted silence 3-4.5 minutes long. As opposed to his later idea of silence being unnotated sounds his intention here was just silence. His intention was to silence the canned sound that was pervasive in society.  At the same time he wrote that he wished the AFM, which was in the middle of a recording ban, had the power to extend the ban to all electronic media. The man who would in just a few years celebrate the music inherent in all sounds wanted to silence sounds. At this point his conceptual break was still between sound and no sound as opposed to notated and unnotated sound.

 

In 1950 Cage gave a lecture entitled “Lecture on Nothing,” in which he stated "I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry as I need it." This is different than just saying that he has nothing to say. If he has nothing to say and says nothing, that silence is intentional. If it was music it would be notated. He's saying it though, yet there is nothing to say. What comes out can only be considered unintentional. He goes on to say “What silence requires is that I go on talking.” Here he is saying that what is happening in the silence is unintentional noise. He has now moved to thinking about there being only intentional sound and unintentional sound.

 

Cage's searching for answers in the 40s could be partly attributed to his trying to find a reason to compose. He had tried to write several pieces to communicate but had found that effort to be a failure. His 1943 prepared piano piece, The Perilous Night, was supposed to tell the story of the dangers of the erotic life, but a critic said that it sounded like a “woodpecker in a church belfry.” He felt that he had put a lot of himself into the piece and did not understand why it did not come across how he wanted. He decided after that attempt that artists must all speak different  languages and speak only for themselves, which made writing music for the sake of communication pointless.

 

He needed a different purpose for composing besides communicating and he got that reason from a student of his. Gita Sarabhai was an Indian musician and he taught Cage that the traditional reason for composing in India was to quiet the mind thus making it susceptible to divine influences. He says "We learned from Oriental thought that those divine influences are, in fact, the environment in which we are.” The quiet mind is therefore more susceptible to taking in the surrounding environment. For Cage this meant that music became not about self expression, but about self alteration through the influence of the environment. This leads to removing the self from the creative act.

 

Cage was also becoming interested in Zen Buddhism. There are several traditional Zen practices, including archery, sitting, black ink drawing, and flower arranging. The purpose is always to remove yourself from the process of what you are doing. An important concept in Zen is artless art. Zen has been called the "everyday mind," which means that tasks are carried out without unnecessary analysis and concern. The body does many complex things when eating or talking, yet we do not concern ourselves with interfering in the process. When we are hungry we eat, when we need to communicate we talk. The body is capable of great things if we don't get in the way, which is where artless art comes in.

 

When we think of art we rarely think of it is being a normal, everyday occurrence. It is given an importance above the everyday, and therefore we analyze our actions more, and consciously get involved in the process, which only interferes with what the body is capable of doing. The Zen arts are all used as ways of training the mind to detach from whatever action is being carried out. Cage wanted to explore this path, but thought it most appropriate to stay with the discipline he knew, composition, instead of a traditional Zen art.

 

He had to figure out a way to remove his self form the composition process and turned to the I Ching, a book he had been familiar with for several years. Cage turned to chance operations as a way of removing self and creating unintentional music. He used the I Ching to answer compositional questions. His edition of the I Ching had a forward by C.G. Jung. Jung wrote that the idea of causality had been broken by modern science because natural laws are no more than statistical truths that must allow exceptions. Humans like to see there being causality, but if we look at nature we see that every process is interfered with by chance. Cage was an admirer of Jung's writing, and this was probably influential in his turning to chance operations.  He had already earned that a quiet mind lets in divine influences, which themselves are the surrounding environment. Here was Jung stating that the environment is governed by nothing more than chance.

 

At this point, when he returns to the idea of a silent piece in 1952, his underlying assumptions are far different than they were in 1948. He has realized that silence is not absence of sound, but uninintention of sound. Chance operations gave him a way to structure the piece, which is how it got its length and three movement form.

 

Silence had great implications for Cage's music beyond the path to unintentional music.  Silence led Cage to the belief that duration is the greatest organizing principal in music.  Harmony had been the primary method of structuring music for centuries, and Beethoven had elevated it even higher. Cage viewed harmony as a way of artificially separating music from the otherwise continuous field of sound. It gives a contrived, hierarchical relationship to sounds that does not exist in nature. Cage says that sound is characterized by pitch, loudness, timbre, and duration.

 

Silence, which is equal and opposite to sound, is only characterized by duration, which makes duration the most fundamental characteristic of sound. Cage lamented that Beethoven's emphasis on harmony as an organizing principal had killed music.

 

Because Cage rejected the Beethoven ideal he had to come up with different methods of organizing his music. Since the 1930s Cage had been organizing his music with a square root form, which was a way to organize based on duration. The overall, macro form of the piece is based on squaring the form of the short, micro form. So, if the phrase unit is five measures the piece is twenty five measures. Durational ratios in the short form happen in all sections of the piece and in the overall macro form. The remaining to twenty measures can be broken up in multiple ways, but they must all have the same internal form as the five measure unit and the macro unit. In this way there is structure not based on any of the content. This was an important first step in his development of unintentional music. He has already lowered the importance of the content within the form, and he even states that it doesn't matter what goes in the formal structure. All that matters is that the structure is independent of its content.

 

Cage was not the first composer to recognize duration as a way to compose. Like with the neoclassical composers, the inspiration can be found with Erik Satie. There is a reason thatCage wrote “It's not a question of Satie's relevance. He's indispensable.”  Before Satie wrote a piece he planned the lengths of its phrases. We don't know if this is true for all of Satie's music, but his sketchbooks contain complete pre-compositional rhythmic structures for many of his most significant works. The importance of this idea to Cage's music is profound. In a more traditional formal structure based on pitch conventional scales and instruments are by necessity elevated to a higher stature. In a formal structure determined by duration there is no such hierarchy. This leads to non musical sounds being just as usable as musical sounds, which of course plays a big role in Cage's music. As Cage's quote said “in this new music nothing takes place but sounds.” Not musical sounds, but any sounds. Satie never actually took his music to that extreme (Cage gives Varese credit for that), but his music helped lay the groundwork for the acceptance of all sounds as equals.

 

The extent of Satie's influence did not stop with durational forms. Satie's static, non-developmental style of music relates to another important aspect of Cage's musical aesthetic.  Much of Satie's music sounds as though it could go on in infinite repetition with no strong tonal feeling. The sounds are treated as separate objects and not as teleological links in a musical continuity. Cage wrote that this aspect of Satie's writing brings about “a time that's just time”, which “will let sounds be just sounds and if they are folk tunes, unresolved ninth chords, or knives and forks, just folk tunes, unresolved ninth chords, or knives and forks”. Cage was obviously alluding to Satie, years earlier, saying that he wanted to bring about a music “which is like furniture-a music, that is, which will be part of the noises of the environment, will take them into consideration. I think of it as melodious, softening the noises of the knives and forks, not dominating them, not imposing itself”. They both see the totality of music including environmental noises, though they make opposite musical conclusions. Satie wrote “furniture music” to be part of the noises of the environment, and Cage used the noises of the environment as his music. Though Satie's music was still in the realm of musical sound, he sought to distance it from any type of musical associations, moving it closer to Cage's conception of sound.

 

Cage may have seen himself as more of an heir to Satie, but the striking parallels to Olivier Messiaen may be more revealing. By no accounts was Messiaen an influence on Cage, and there is nothing to indicate that Cage even had more than a passing awareness of Messiaen.  Besides Satie, the only major composers Cage gives any credit for contributing to the new music are Webern and Varese. By the late 20s however, Messiaen was using conceptions of silence, duration, and teleology that are hard to ignore when thinking about Cage's ideas of sound and silence.

 

Messiaen was not the first composer to experiment with teleological assumptions about the flow of music. Stravinsky's modular designs and Satie's (again) music broke down the idea that music had to come from what came before. More than those two, Messiaen was able to make his music seem static, and not tending to lead towards anything. Messiaen avoided standard scales and instead relied on his seven modes of limited transposition. For Messiaen, the scales of limited transposition were effective because they removed the impetus for the music to move to a tonic. Because the scales are symmetrical there is no beginning and there are no hierarchical relationships that lead to a linear, teleological concept of time. They are just collections of notes, or as Messiaen called them, colors.

 

Messiaen's first published organ piece, La Banquet Celeste, is only 25 measures but lasts for over six minutes, with the first chord lasting a full seven seconds. The extreme slowness serves two important functions. First, it further breaks any sense of teleological movement.  Musical events happen too far apart for the listener to make sense of how they relate to each other. Musical events just become individual sounds. For Messiaen this was all in service of his overriding focus on time, specifically the eternal time of God.

 

Messiaen's focus on time led him to other areas that are of interest in relation to Cage.  Messiaen's forms are usually some type of mosaic form, with the parts being unrelated to each other. To Cage this would be an improvement over Beethoven, but not quite up to Satie. On a smaller level though, his forms are based on duration. Messiaen's use if Indian tala rhythms meant that the fixed tala rhythms were the main organizing structure in his phrases. The tala rhythms were unretrogradable. Because the rhythm is the same backwards and forwards they represent the eternal time of God. Messiaen also was the first composer to experiment with integrated serialism, which meant that all aspects of the piece, including durations were serialized.

 

Focus on silence led Cage to duration, but for Messiaen it was a focus on time that led to silence. Going back to La Banquet Celeste or any of his other slow organ works, the unwavering, sustained sound of the organ, representing the eternal time of God and the afterlife, elicits a sense of silence, perhaps more than in the tacet in 4'33”. There is always background noise. Cage discovered this in Harvard University's anechoic chamber, which is supposed to be a completely silent environment. Cage went in and asked the engineer what the high and low sounds were. The engineer told him that the low sound was his blood moving through his veins and the high sound was his nervous system. This means that until we die there can't be silence, so we have to figure out what it is that we think makes the illusion of silence.

 

One of the main components of silence would have to be inaction. Though there may be sound, if none of it draws attention by changing we cannot hear it. A quiet organ, sustained and unwavering beyond the ability of any instrument that requires human input for sound production, can do this. We hear the steady drone as a deep, surrounding silence. Silence for Cage is to get us in touch with the environment. Silence for Messiaen is to get us in touch with God. We recall that Cage had stated "We learned from Oriental thought that those divine influences are, in fact, the environment in which we are.”

 

When thinking about Cage’s 4'33” the closest parallels I could think of were the slow organ pieces of Messiaen. One piece in particular was one I had read about that would be performed for the next several hundred years. I didn't actually remember who it was by, but thought it must be a Messiaen piece, because who else would think to write a piece so slow that it takes hundreds of years to finish?

 

When I finally figured out what the piece is it turns out not to be a Messiaen piece, but John Cage's ORGAN2/ASLSP As Slow aS Possible. It is a meditation on timelessness. The link between Cage and Messiaen is not written about but is illuminating.

Besides precedents in music, Cage was highly influenced by happenings in the visual art world. Getting back to the original quote, Cage states “In this new music nothing takes place but sounds; those that are notated and those that are not.” He goes on to say:

 

Those that are not notated appear in the written music as silences, opening the doors of the music to the sounds that happen to be in the environment. This openness exists in the fields of modern sculpture and architecture. The glass houses of Mies van der Rohe reflect their environment, presenting to the eye images of clouds, trees, or grass, according to the situation. And while looking at the constructions in wire of the sculptor Richard Lippold, it is inevitable that one will see other things, and people too, if they happen to be there at the same time, through the network of wires.  There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make silence, we cannot.  

    

Cage sees these works as successfully combining the intentional and unintentional, which was his goal in music. What is unresolved however is the difference between seeing the environment through the Lippold wire sculpture, but only in reflection in the van der Rohe building. The quote is from 1958, so he had moved beyond 4'33”.  Lippold’s work is closer in spirit to 4'33”, with the piece of art serving as a framework to see through. His indeterminate music after 4'33” seems more  closely related to the van der Rohe reflection of the environment.

                                                                                                                                     

Cage was also an admirer of the artist Marcel Duchamp, especially the work "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass)”. Cage wrote about the work “the thing that I like so much is that I can focus my attention wherever I wish. It helps me to blur the distinction between art and life and produces a kind of silence in the work itself.  There is nothing in it that requires me to look in one place or another or, in fact, requires me to look at all. I can look through it to the world beyond.”   His description of “The Large Glass” sounds like a description of the music he was attempting to write. Blending between art and life seems to be the same as blending between notated and unnotated. The music should be unassuming so as to not draw attention to itself or its parts. It is there to draw the listener closer to the surrounding environment.

 

Cage was clearly influenced by the visual arts. He saw in modern architecture and sculpture what he was aiming for in his composition. What Mies van der Rohe, Richard Lippold, and Marcel Duchamp all achieved was an artistic form through which the observer would more clearly see the surrounding space. The problem is that he was not as successful as them. Going back to Richard Lippold, as I wrote earlier, Cage's description of Lippold's sculptures is closer to what he did with 4'33” than his description of van der Rohe's buildings. That doesn't mean that it is close though. In 4'33” Cage created a framework of a three movement piece and leaves the rest to whatever ambient noises there may be. Lippold's works go far beyond just constructing a frame. His works are dazzling, organized pieces that give the viewer to ability to see the environment from a completely different perspective.  Lippold's works transform their space.

 

Similarly, "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass)” is not the passive vehicle for seeing through to the world beyond that Cage suggests. He says that there is nothing in the piece that requires him to look one place or another, yet the piece has a powerful visual narrative and composition. Like with Lippold's sculptures the environment becomes a part of the piece, but we see the environment differently because the composition of the work. These pieces that he thought his work to be so similar to don't just ask the observer to look around a little closer, they offer a new perspective on what we see when we look through them.

 

If, as Cage says, “in this new music nothing takes place but sounds; those that are notated and those that are not” where in 4'33” is the notated sound? Not only is there no notated sound, but it is marked tacet. The piece relies on ambient noise and whatever noise the audience makes in response, but the performer has no options but nothing. In previous conceptions of silence it makes sense to tell a performer to be silent, but here it seems hypocritical. The performer seems to have a role outside of performing notated or unnotated sounds.  Cage incorporated every audible and potentially audible sounds, so that there existed no more sounds to incorporate music. The new music started in 1911 with Luigi Russolo's insistence that music incorporate noise. Cage took that idea all the way to its absurd end where we remove the composer and the performer and leave only the listener.