free to find truth: 4'33" | John Cage and His Bizarre Composition 4'33" (Four Minutes Thirty-Three Seconds)

Friday, July 4, 2014

4'33" | John Cage and His Bizarre Composition 4'33" (Four Minutes Thirty-Three Seconds)

Composer John Cage is best remembered for his composition "4'33"". It is a three part composition, in which one of three parts is four minutes and 33 seconds of silence from the orchestra, but the purpose, at least said by John Cage, is for the audience to listen to the sounds of the room, including themselves. In this portion of the song, John Cage uses a stop watch set precisely to 4 minutes and 33 seconds. This number is very curious to me from my research. It immediately makes me think of the "urban environment nuclear detonation drill titled TOPOFF 4".

TOPOFF = 2+6+7+6+6+6 = 33
TOPOFF 4 = 33 4, much like 4 minutes and 33 seconds
This drill was conducted in Oregon, the 33rd State
It was also conducted in Phoenix, on the 33rd Parallel North

John Cage's first composition was released in 1933, titled Sonata for Clarinet.

Sonata = 1+6+5+1+2+1 = 16
for = 6+6+9 = 21
Clarinet = 3+3+1+9+9+5+5+2 = 37
Sonata for Clarinet = 16+21+37 = 74

Let us examine this excerpt from John Cage's Wikipedia about how he got into the music business in 1933; I don't think his story is unique, I think it is "how" you make it; you essentially sell your soul to this people, just as Bob Dylan and many others have publicly admitted.

By 1933 Cage decided to concentrate on music rather than painting. "The people who heard my music had better things to say about it than the people who looked at my paintings had to say about my paintings", Cage later explained.^[20] In 1933 he sent some of his compositions to Henry Cowell; the reply was a "rather vague letter",^[29] in which Cowell suggested that Cage study with Arnold Schoenberg—Cage's musical ideas at the time included composition based on a 25-tone row, somewhat similar to Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.^[30] Cowell also advised that, before approaching Schoenberg, Cage should take some preliminary lessons, and recommended Adolph Weiss, a former Schoenberg pupil.^[31]

Following Cowell's advice, Cage travelled to New York City in 1933 and started studying with Weiss as well as taking lessons from Cowell himself at The New School.^[28] He supported himself financially by taking up a job washing walls at a Brooklyn YWCA.^[32] Cage's routine during that period was apparently very tiring, with just four hours of sleep on most nights, and four hours of composition every day starting at 4 am.^[32]^[33] Several months later, still in 1933, Cage became sufficiently good at composition to approach Schoenberg.^{[n 2]} He could not afford Schoenberg's price, and when he mentioned it, the older composer asked whether Cage would devote his life to music. After Cage replied that he would, Schoenberg offered to tutor him free of charge.^[34]

John Cage was born September 5 1912, and died August 12, 1992. He suffered a massive stroke on August 11, 1992, and passed away in the early morning of August 12, less than a month shy of becoming 90 years old.