The curse of Rap

Originally posted by Starrman
I know a lot of people would find it hard to consider his stuff music. I've not heard 4'33" but Varese's work encourages a major detour from traditional rhythm and melody such that it would be hard for those who've not heard it before to understand it or enjoy it. This makes me wonder how much familiarity impacts on our definitions of music or musical enj ...[text shortened]... ises. I'm still trying to understand the complexities therein and how to call it music.

Oh I see. No, the only reason I brought up 4' 33" is because it's a composition made up entirely of silence. It would be interesting to hear your opinion on whether that constitutes as music in your mind or not. First you should watch a "performance" of it though as clearly it's not entirely silent but made up of whatever ambient noises surround you at the time.

This talk of Varese is piquing my interest. I will check it out later on.

Originally posted by darvlay
Oh I see. No, the only reason I brought up 4' 33" is because it's a composition made up entirely of silence. It would be interesting to hear your opinion on whether that constitutes as music in your mind or not. First you should watch a "performance" of it though as clearly it's not entirely silent but made up of whatever ambient noises surround you at the time.

This talk of Varese is piquing my interest. I will check it out later on.

I like the notion that a live performance of 4'33" would encapsulate a point in time, an audience, an environment etc. As such, certainly a piece of art, whether it is music or not I suppose depends on whether music consists in sounds alone, or whether rhythm/melody are necessary parts.

Or indeed what the intention of the piece/artist is.

Originally posted by Starrman
I like the notion that a live performance of 4'33" would encapsulate a point in time, an audience, an environment etc. As such, certainly a piece of art, whether it is music or not I suppose depends on whether music consists in sounds alone, or whether rhythm/melody are necessary parts.

Or indeed what the intention of the piece/artist is.

Gedankenexperiment time!

On my hard disk, there's some weirdass track by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno that's 4:33 in length. Suppose that, during a performance of Cage's 4'33", someone stole my laptop and did a trick* which resulted in the Fripp/Eno piece being played through the sound system to the same audience at the same time as the Cage piece. The next night, security is tighter, and the second audience hears the Cage piece "as usual".

Was the Fripp/Eno piece "part of" 4'33" on the first night?

Is the Cage piece a "piece of music" in the same sense that the Fripp/Eno piece is?

Given a piece of music, how similar must two separate performances of it be in order for it to be a recognisable "piece of music"?

Do we each listen to infinitely many performances of 4'33" constantly, with one starting and ending at every instant of our entire lives, composed of the sounds we hear in each of continuously many overlapping four-and-a-half-minute chunks?

How do you like the current part of my new piece, 4'33"*(aleph-1)? It has around 100 billion movements, each of which is a continuum of intersecting chunks of radio-friendly length, and it includes all human auditory experience ever...

*see South Park, season 9, "Die, Hippie, Die".

Originally posted by ChronicLeaky
How do you like the current part of my new piece, 4'33"*(aleph-1)? It has around 100 billion movements, each of which is a continuum of intersecting chunks of radio-friendly length, and it includes all human auditory experience ever...

I find it a bit derivative to be honest. 😀

(Rec'd)

Originally posted by ChronicLeaky
Was the Fripp/Eno piece "part of" 4'33" on the first night?

Frank Zappa's version of Cage's "4'33" included the sound of him lighting a cigarette and smoking it. With the musician's presence confirmed in this way, it is impossible to deny that the preformance occurred. Added to this is the fact that I have listened to it which makes it impossible to deny that this music exists.

Originally posted by FMF
Frank Zappa's version of Cage's "4'33" included the sound of him lighting a cigarette and smoking it. With the musician's presence confirmed in this way, it is impossible to deny that the preformance occurred. Added to this is the fact that I have listened to it which makes it impossible to deny that this music exists.

Does a performance of 4'33" occur each time somebody smokes a cigarette slowly and audibly?

Originally posted by ChronicLeaky
Does a performance of 4'33" occur each time somebody smokes a cigarette slowly and audibly?

Zappa was sitting at a piano and the manuscript of Cage's music was on the stand. The whole performance lasted a little over four and a half minutes. For engineers to merely record somebody smoking a cigarette slowly and audibly for 4 minutes and 33 seconds would be totally preposterous.

Originally posted by FMF
Zappa was sitting at a piano and the manuscript of Cage's music was on the stand. The whole performance lasted a little over four and a half minutes. For engineers to merely record somebody smoking a cigarette slowly and audibly for 4 minutes and 33 seconds would be totally preposterous.

I reckon Zappa was taking the p;ss. I think he would have considered 4'33" music on some tenuous and abstract level, but a ridiculous exercise in self immolation on another. He'd have likely talked it up in interviews just to see how gullible the music journalists really were.

Originally posted by ChronicLeaky
Gedankenexperiment time!

On my hard disk, there's some weirdass track by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno that's 4:33 in length. Suppose that, during a performance of Cage's 4'33", someone stole my laptop and did a trick* which resulted in the Fripp/Eno piece being played through the sound system to the same audience at the same time as the Cage piece. T ...[text shortened]... tory experience ever...

*see South Park, season 9, "Die, Hippie, Die".

I must consider this experimen flawed on the basis that anything with Robert Fripp in should be considered invalid.

Originally posted by Starrman
I must consider this experimen flawed on the basis that anything with Robert Fripp in should be considered invalid.

Fail.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Fail.

I judge a man primarily on his taste in women. Darvlay, for example is up with the best of us, irrespective of his sarcastic barbs and his chubby Canasian face. Fripp, on the other hand, married Toyah...

Originally posted by Starrman
I judge a man primarily on his taste in women.

Fail better.

Originally posted by Starrman
I reckon Zappa was taking the p;ss.

Really? Well, who'd have thought?

Originally posted by Starrman
I must consider this experimen flawed on the basis that anything with Robert Fripp in should be considered invalid.

Valhallic Fail. If you like, I've got a Chopin Berceuse and the Grateful Dead doing "Quinn the Eskimo" clocking in at 4:33, too, so you can use one of those instead, you literalist.

Originally posted by buckky
Inner city kids need good parents to guide them in the right direction. Rap guides them straight into the prison life. Rap serves no purpose other then to fill the pockets of the thugs that make it.

Imagine that. Poor young men making an honest living. Terrible!

Poverty and oppressive laws guide these people into prison life, not rap.