Home 1. Introduction 2. Markers 3. Archive 4. Audible Markers 5. Visible Markers 6. Notational Markers 7. Conclusion
4.1. A Checklist 4.2. Waveforms 4.3. Examples 4.4. A New Checklist
In 2020, in collaboration with Szymon Hernik, a student in design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, I undertook an interdisciplinary project examining performative interpretations of 4’33”. We aimed to uncover hidden commonalities for embodied silence by visualizing interpretations found on YouTube. Unexpectedly, we found vast discrepancies in both duration and sound levels among the performances. The diversity of interpretations surprised us. We searched for commonalities without at first finding any, until we looked at the audio waveforms. As we compared waveform amplitudes across videos, we discovered significant similarities in their structural patterns despite the diverse interpretations. By picturing the silences, the ritualistic natures of preparation and postlude emerged, bookending the performed silences. Our analysis reinforced the importance of considering 4’33” performances in terms of their audible markers.
However, there are limitations to this visual representation of each performance by concentrating on waveforms: while viewing these waveforms offers a global perspective, it risks distorting artistic intentions and ignoring the eloquence of silence. The act of viewing waveforms within the confines of audio software and a numbered timeline imposes its own framing. Reducing complex performances to two-dimensional waveforms could potentially also lead to a false sense of equivalency. We tried to be cautious in our analyses in order to not lose sight of the actual performances.
Figure 1: Preparations and postludes (“bookends”) are starkly visible in fourteen randomly chosen YouTube versions of 4’33”(Livingston & Hernik, 2020).
The majority of YouTube videos featuring performances of 4’33” exhibit a consistent framing approach, characterized by a (preparatory) prelude and a (concluding) postlude, despite the unnecessary and un-notated nature of these bookends, which were certainly not specified by the composer. This framing has become ingrained in the performance practice of the piece. Our analysis initially had focused solely on 4’33” itself, but we quickly switched our attention to the significance of the transitional elements before and after the notated “silence.”
Figure 2: In these six randomly chosen videos of 4’33”, and despite variations in length, there are similarities in framing and structure. Although it may be unclear when watching exactly when the “music” starts and begins, looking at the waveforms gives clarity. By shading the “music” area, the bookends preceding and following the silence are made clearer.
After examining eighty videos of Cage’s composition, I observed that only a few were four minutes and thirty-three seconds long; durations did not seem important. As far as the framing was concerned, some musicians opted to silence the video in post-production—very clearly visible as flat horizontal lines (waveforms 2 and 6 above). Most included all the background noise or created their own noise with shuffling, caressing of instruments, feedback, natural sounds, or fidgeting. In a few cases, the “silence” was louder than the audio before and after the performance (waveform 5, for example). This is not unique to the internet; it could also happen in live performance.
Figure 3: The pre- and post-performance segments resemble book-ends (Livingston & Hernik, 2020). Mostly they are louder (larger waveforms) than the “music” of 4’33”. Occasionally they are quieter (example 3) or non-existent (the bottom example contains no bookends).
In most of these videos, 4’33” is bookended by a prelude and a postlude that is louder or, in a few cases, softer than the performance that follows or precedes: left-frame and right-frame. This is reminiscent of Cone and Littlefield’s point that (classical) music is framed by a silence in the beginning and at the end. It also corresponds with Jankélévitch’s ideas about the anticipation of avant-silence and the remembrance of après-silence (Jankélévitch, 1961). Jankélévitch spoke of the avant-silence as a silence preceding the start of a piece (think of the expectant pause before a Mozart second movement). Après-silence is the silence after an emotional event (e.g., the hush after a mass in church). These two kinds of silence are exterior to the notated composition but not to the experience. Most of the YouTubers deliberately include footage before and after 4’33”. Is this a deliberate search for context or framing? The pre- and post- filmed elements shape the silence between them.
As Littlefield suggests (see Chapter 2), frames are necessary to mark the transition from the “real world” to the “musical world,” and these frames are often silent, that is, consisting of all the “non-musical sounds” that are always already present. However, Littlefield also acknowledges that frames are often porous; it is not always clear which silences belong to the “real world” and which belong to the “musical world.” Regarding 4’33”, it seems that this musical world is, in fact, the real world. What is generally excluded (all the already existing environmental sounds) is included in the inside, thus becoming a part of it. Therefore, it is to be expected that it is difficult to determine what belongs to the inside and what to the outside in performances of 4’33”. However, even if Cage somehow deconstructs the opposition between silence, “non-musical sounds” and music, in most of the YouTube performances (even the home videos without a live audience), the framing remains clearly visible and audible: the avant-silence often comprises gestures and random sounds of the performers setting up their instruments, tuning, etc. And the après-silence is mostly louder than the silence of the composition which precedes it. These framings create a context, a setting apart, a hierarchy of music vs. non-music, or performing vs. non-performing. There is even another kind of interior framing since most performers mark the start and end of each of the three movements. This stems from traditional performance practice around the work and entails two pauses of “not”: non-playing between the movements. Thus, a nested recursive system of marked noise within silence may be created through the insertion of spacing between movements. YouTube performers of 4'33" show originality in their search for new markers of silence, but still need to frame their performance.