Or do you silent silent people rock hard?
Off topic...uh...does anyone listen to John Cage?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Off topic...uh...does anyone listen to John Cage?
...just wondering. He had this thing about silence, you see.
Or do you silent silent people rock hard?
Or do you silent silent people rock hard?
Almost completely off topic
I can't believe I missed this post when it first went up. I adore John Cage, and can't pass up an opportunity to talk about him, even when it's completely off topic like it is here.
I suppose I can say one thing that is sort of relevant to silent computing (which begins in the next paragraph for those who want to skip the background info). After visting an anechoic chamber at Harvard (I think it was), Cage found that even there true silence was impossible, as he could still here the sounds of his body. This prompted his infamous composition " 4'33" for any instrument", in which the performer is instructed to make no deliberate sounds. The only sounds heard, then, are the ambient noises of the performance space. Through this and other works in which chance and ambience affect what the audience hears, Cage (so the story goes) presented music not as an act of performance or compositon, but one of listening.
As a Silent PC enthusiast, this prompts the question for me of what it is about the ambient sounds of my computer that I find so distasteful. I'd say that my primary objection (beyond health/ergonomics reasons) is simply that the sound that most computers make is completely without character. While devices like motorboats and chainsaws are certainly noisy, at least they sound like motorboats and chainsaws. No one will ever make a composition that features the mechanical sounds of a computer* the way musiqe concrete composers used typewriters, and not because computers don't make noises, but because the noises computers make are bland.
* Some pieces of computer hardware do have some character to them-- dot matrix printers, definitely modems, maybe even the head chatter of hard drives. And while I find these sounds nothing but irritating most of the time, I'm also rather taken with the song "Bonus High Frequencies" on the recent release "2 Remixes by AFX" by British electronica wizard Richard D. James (aka Aphex Twin, AFX, Polygon Window, etc.), which sounds more or less just like a modem.
If you've read this far, thank you for suffering through my indulgence. I will now go say 100 "Hail Panaflos" as penance.
I suppose I can say one thing that is sort of relevant to silent computing (which begins in the next paragraph for those who want to skip the background info). After visting an anechoic chamber at Harvard (I think it was), Cage found that even there true silence was impossible, as he could still here the sounds of his body. This prompted his infamous composition " 4'33" for any instrument", in which the performer is instructed to make no deliberate sounds. The only sounds heard, then, are the ambient noises of the performance space. Through this and other works in which chance and ambience affect what the audience hears, Cage (so the story goes) presented music not as an act of performance or compositon, but one of listening.
As a Silent PC enthusiast, this prompts the question for me of what it is about the ambient sounds of my computer that I find so distasteful. I'd say that my primary objection (beyond health/ergonomics reasons) is simply that the sound that most computers make is completely without character. While devices like motorboats and chainsaws are certainly noisy, at least they sound like motorboats and chainsaws. No one will ever make a composition that features the mechanical sounds of a computer* the way musiqe concrete composers used typewriters, and not because computers don't make noises, but because the noises computers make are bland.
* Some pieces of computer hardware do have some character to them-- dot matrix printers, definitely modems, maybe even the head chatter of hard drives. And while I find these sounds nothing but irritating most of the time, I'm also rather taken with the song "Bonus High Frequencies" on the recent release "2 Remixes by AFX" by British electronica wizard Richard D. James (aka Aphex Twin, AFX, Polygon Window, etc.), which sounds more or less just like a modem.
If you've read this far, thank you for suffering through my indulgence. I will now go say 100 "Hail Panaflos" as penance.
I'm really happy to hear that there are acutally computer buffs out there that take music seriously. I'm not going say things like:"This music is good and this is bad", I'm just glad that you all seem to listen instead of look (at a pretty singer or a videoclip). I'm into classical music mostly, but more of the older kind (Bach, Beethoven, Purcell). I don't listen to John Cage much, not because I find it bad music, but I 'don't get it'. Music has to make me cry, and I'm afraid I won't be ready for John Cage for about the next 50 years. But I can really understand that you like it, because it's really very interesting. Did he ever write music for computers to play, like Varese did?
A serious reply! 
People usually just make jokes about Cage. I kind of wish he hadn't wrote that 4.33 piece, since it seems to be the only piece people know...
I think Cage was right when he said something like that 'silence is a turning (of the mind)'. There are few sounds I enjoy more than hearing my fans go from 12V to 5V. Just listening to a quiet computer makes me pleased.
My favourite album by Cage is Gerard Fremy's performance of Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano. Try to give it a listen, in headphones, at 2 am while doing something else. It just melts my heart away...
Justin, I think many people find that kind of electronica (glitch, I think they call it) to be composed of mainly annoying computer sounds...some people, eh?
I don't think, but I don't know for sure, that Cage ever wrote for computers. But he was part of the first wave of musicians using electronic sounds. He didn't go as far as, say, Stockhausen or Ligeti. But I suspect generative music would have been right for Cage.
People usually just make jokes about Cage. I kind of wish he hadn't wrote that 4.33 piece, since it seems to be the only piece people know...
I think Cage was right when he said something like that 'silence is a turning (of the mind)'. There are few sounds I enjoy more than hearing my fans go from 12V to 5V. Just listening to a quiet computer makes me pleased.
My favourite album by Cage is Gerard Fremy's performance of Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano. Try to give it a listen, in headphones, at 2 am while doing something else. It just melts my heart away...
Justin, I think many people find that kind of electronica (glitch, I think they call it) to be composed of mainly annoying computer sounds...some people, eh?
I don't think, but I don't know for sure, that Cage ever wrote for computers. But he was part of the first wave of musicians using electronic sounds. He didn't go as far as, say, Stockhausen or Ligeti. But I suspect generative music would have been right for Cage.
Music is why I'm trying to silence my PC in the first place!!!
I record vocals directly into my computer using a large capsule diaphragm condenser microphone. Although it is a directional mic, I cannot completely eliminate the reflective sounds from my PC. My quest to silence (or at least reduce the noise of) my PC is to improve on the quality of my recordings...
Q
I record vocals directly into my computer using a large capsule diaphragm condenser microphone. Although it is a directional mic, I cannot completely eliminate the reflective sounds from my PC. My quest to silence (or at least reduce the noise of) my PC is to improve on the quality of my recordings...
Q