Review: Silence: Lectures and Writings

Silence: Lectures and Writings by John Cage
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this years ago, the affecting musings of a "compleat" composer essayist on art and such joie de vivre topics as mushroom collecting. Three things particularly stay with me over the years :

1. his ordering that it's good to listen to music, better to play it, best to create it via composition. this urges me to someday become capable on some instrument and also create something, maybe my own book if not a tune

2. cage in a silencing anechoic chamber, an experiment I duplicated in a semi-anechoic chamber at General motors. there's no silence for the living. you hear 2 distinct and low volume tones: the high pitch of the nervous system and the low pitch of the circulatory system.

3. This sanguine philosophy: "The composer whose works were being performed had provided program notes. One of these notes was to the effect that there is too much pain in the world. After the concert I was walking along with the composer and he was telling me how the performances had not been quite up to snuff. So I said, 'Well, I enjoyed the music, but I didn't agree with that program note about there being too much pain in the world.' He said, 'What? Don't you think there's enough?' I said, 'I think there's just the right amount.'


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