The article about John Cage assigned for this week had me deep in thought. I loved reading about his life and stories from his career. But for this blog post, I wanted to post a stream of consciousness of sorts, as I recall reading this article. When I first heard “4'33",” I was confused, as I am sure most people have been throughout time and continue to be as they learn and read more and more about this musician and composer (in this article it even stated his own mother doubted him, so that feeling was common upon first hearing the piece).
However, after learning the deeper, artistic meaning behind his piece, I found much more of an appreciation for it. Noticing our surroundings in great detail for an extended period of time is something we often don’t do. This piece that John Cage created allows us to do just that – to find peace, art, and beauty in the mundane sounds around us.
To feel grounded in the present, taking in each and every murmur and appreciating them for what they are. In this piece the world and the audience are the music. This piece, especially when performed in natural venues, like Maverick, for example, which the article stated was a beautiful place in the woods, can truly be experienced to the fullest – immersing the audience in the liveliness of nature around them.
Only now, our only interruptions to this beautiful piece that they didn’t have before are the sounds of our advanced world – phone ringing, car engines, etc. Even still, John Cage’s work left the door open for interpretation, which I find incredible. How incredible is it that in the length of this piece, whether surrounded by an audience or alone watching it on YouTube, you are spending time fully alone with your own mind. You are left to not only appreciate and to feel grounded, but to search for what emotions this piece evokes in you, why you feel the way you do, what you are finding beautiful or uncomfortable and why, and to search for the hidden meaning John Cage places in his work, or how you might be projecting that from your own experiences.
Much like other art pieces do, you find yourself on a journey of self-analyzation as you experience his work. His avant-garde approach to music has a lot of people upset, but I seem to feel like those same people getting upset over this experimental approach to music are the same people whose narrowminded-ness has forced them to miss out on many of life’s simple pleasures and hidden beauties. There is so much beauty in the world that may not initially come across as mainstream magnificence, but with the right mindset and an appreciation for the human condition, there is so much extra beauty in life to feed off of.
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