Silence

by Elizabeth Loving

Meaningful Philosophies on Nothing

“If a tree falls in the woods and there is nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?” – Unknown

“I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is the poetry as I need it.” – John Cage

“There is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express.” – Samuel Beckett

“The eternal silences of these infinite spaces terrifies me.” – Blaise Pascal

“The rest is silence.” – William Shakespeare

“I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.” – Publilius Syrus

“The illimitable touches non-existence on a horizon circumscribed by silence. A single utterance would make a boundary and make it finite, eternal silence makes nothingness an infinitude.” – Stan Link

What is Silence...?__

The Oxford Dictionary Online defines silence as, "the complete absence of sound."(2006, http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/silence?view=uk)

According to the composer John Cage (1978, pp 51) and popular belief, absolute silence does not exist. In his writing "Composition as Process: III Communication" Cage comments that even within so-called anechoic (sound proof) chambers, people are able to hear the sound of their nervous and circulatory systems in operation. In other words to have an absolute absence of sound, life cannot exist. Silence therefore in a musical context is a relative term.

Representative Composers

John Cage is the best known contemporary composer to implement silence as a major part of his compositions. 4'33" is one of his most significant and controversial pieces, in which the musicians sit on stage for four minutes and thirty-three seconds and play absolutely nothing. Cage's piece "Organ² / ASLSP", is currently being performed in the German township of Halberstadt. It is to be played for 639 years,the performance began at midnight on September 5th 2001. The first one and a half years of this composition were silence. (2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage, )

To hear samples of some of Cage's works or find out more about Cage, click on the link below or access the Naxos Library Database and run a search on Cage:

Wikipedia entry on Cage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_cage

John Cage Database: http://www.johncage.info/

The Halberstadt project: http://www.john-cage.halberstadt.de/new/index.php?l=e

Georges Lentz is a composer from Luxembourg, currently living in Australia. The Wikipedia describes his music as possessing the following qualities: "His music is concerned with astronomy and a love of the Australian landscape and indigenous Australian art, reflecting his spiritual and existential beliefs, questions and doubts." He is relatively unknown compared to Cage, however his use of silences in composition are described as capturing some of the most evocative silences imaginable.

To hear samples of some of Lentz' works, click on the links below or access the Naxos Library Database and run a search on Lentz:

Georges Lentz official website: http://www.georgeslentz.com/

Wikipedia entry on Lentz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lentz

Silence in philosophical, historical and aesthetic contexts

Silence has been and will remain an integral component of all music across the world. Stan Link in his article "Much ado about nothing", points out that silence is probably the only musical element that all musical cultures and genres share. Historically, in the west, silence has not been featured as a major element of music, until the time of Cage.

According to the Groves Dictionary Online, Cage believed that silence was a window through which any sound could pass through and become musical material. Whether or not the composer decided to say anything or not within that piece of time, the silence maintained its integrity as a valid musical statement. Cage's philosohical approach to silence as a compositional element was heavily influenced by his exposure to Asian aesthetics and spirituality, initially by Indian aesthetics and philosophy and more significantly by Zen Buddhism. (1978, pp. xi)

The artist Robert Rauschenberg was an artist who Cage associated with while studying at the Black Mountain college in North Carolina, he was best known for his blank canvasses in which the light and shadows cast on his artwork. In Cage's book, "Silence: Lectures and Writings" he credits the work of his colleague in inspiring him to create the ‘blank aural canvas’ which constituted his silent piece. (1978, pp.98)

The most notable use of silence before Cage, is evident in traditional Japanese music. The Japanese aesthetic of ‘Ma’, meaning literally time/space, in a musical context refers to the sensory space or silence in between musical phrases or individual notes. These silences often possess more meaning than the actual musical material surrounding them. This aesthetic is also prevalent in many other Japanese arts not limited to but including Kabuki, Butoh and Noh.

In his book "Confronting Silence" the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu best describes this aesthetic as following, “Between this complex sound – so strong that it can stand alone – and that point of intense silence preceding it, called ma, there is a metaphysical continuity that defies analysis....It is here that sound and silence confront each other, balancing each other in a relationship beyond any objective measurement. In its complexity and integrity this single sound can stand alone. To the sensitive Japanese listener who appreciates this refined sound, the unique idea of ma – the unsounded part of this experience – has at the same time a deep, powerful, and rich resonance that can stand up to the sound. On short, this ma, this powerful silence, is that which gives life to the sound and removes it from its position of primacy. So it is this sound, confronting the silence of ma, yields supremacy in the final expression.” (1995, pp.51)

Silence is an infinite plane of philosophical, spiritual and aesthetic beliefs.

The Challeges of using Silence

In my own research the first problem I came across in researching the term silence is that it is a relative not absolute term, it cannot be defined. Music theory has an extensive vocabulary for describing sounds but when it comes to silence, there is no coherent analysis available. The definition of silence is wrapped in a package of ambiguous, lofty, esoteric wordings.

“Silence is where we are, not what it is.” – Stan Link

Besides duration, silence has no measurable properties, it does not exhibit frequency, amplitude, envelope, timbre, etc. Stan Link comments that silence to remain meaningful, or to be considered silence must remain tethered to its immediate environment (so in a particular time and space in which the listener shares immediately) whilst every other musical element can be transported. One cannot say about silence, that it has 'this particular rhythm or harmonic progression', etc, in other words it cannot be abstracted to become some human conceptual tool, it only has meaning in the physical world, where silence is silence...

Every other musical element is malleable, transferable and has the ability to be shared, as if an object. 'Twinkle Twinkle' will be identified conceptually to be the same whether it is played on recorder or in an orchestra, in the year 1927 or 2006, it will have the same characteristics of melody, rhythm and harmony, it can be defined as an entity, a package of abstractions which make it a logical 'object' in the human mind.

One can summarize that these are the main problems with using silence, it cannot be fully conceived in the human mind, it is not a tangible object, it remains to be mysterious and confusing to many (See Blaise Pascal's quote under the heading "Meaningful Philosophies on Nothing") it cannot be trasferred to another space or time, it cannot coexist with any other musical utterance (unlike harmony, pitch and rhythm), it cannnot be contained within the realm of seemingly logical explanations and rationality.

The Benefits of using Silence

“Is musical silence devoid of attributes? Is the absence of sound, an undifferentiated nothing?” – Stan Link

“Silence is the extreme manifestation of indirectness. If indirectness is a matter of saying one thing and meaning another, silence can be a matter of saying nothing and meaning something.” – Deborah Tannen

The way to create musical silence in a work is to obviously to create no sound (in the relative sense of the word), the perfect thing about this is that the performer only need to abstain from making sound for a particular duration, it is not a difficult to achieve.

One might hear silence being described as “deep and profound”, containing “pregnant pauses” or “the silence was deafening”, this refers to silence's ability to capture and maintain attention. Silence therefore becomes a paradox in that in contrary to it's definition of absence, it has the ability to create presence.

Silence has the ability to create meaning and it can have a multiplicity of meanings in different contexts. In the opening of Beethoven’s 'Fifth Symphony', silence is used as a strategic tool to make the listener, anticipate what is coming next. Whereas in ‘Music for Marcel Duchaump’, Cage uses silence where it has a meditative, transcendant quality, enveloping the listener and evoking that sense of ‘ma', in the fullest sense. The ability for silence to create meaning depends on the relationship of what precedes and follows the musical silence. Although these silences possess a multiplicity of meanings for the listener, there is nothing differentiating the silences, except for duration and context.

Some of the benefits of using silence can briefly be summarized that firstly it is not difficult to create silence (in the relative sense) in a musical context and secondly it has the ability to create so much meaning and invoke such powerful thoughts, feelings and responses in the listener that can be a truly effective tool of communication.

The Sustainability of Silence in future music

“until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear the future of music.” - John Cage

As long as the physical world and life within it exists there will be sound. Silence and sound are interdependent (they are dependent on the other, to have existence and have meaning)yet they cannot coexist, similar comparisons can be drawn when speaking of light and darkness or life and death, etc. It's wide usage throughout all the musical contexts and genres of the world also supports this author's firm belief in the sustainability of silence in music. Silence may not be used as the primary musical element in future music, it has already been done by Cage. It's ability to create meaning and communicate without saying anything, ensures that it will continue to remain a powerful philosphical, aesthetic, spiritual and musical tool in all of the world's music.

Bibliography

I gratefully acknowledge the following works which helped me to write this article on 'Silence', if there are any discrepancies in my referencing, most of the information can be attributed to the following works:

Cage, J. 1978. Silence: Lectures and Writings.Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd: London

Link, S. 1995. Much ado about nothing.Perspectives of New Music 33:1/2, 216-272

(Accessed 29/09/2006)(http://www.jstor.org.ezp02.library.qut.edu.au/view/00316016/ap030054/03a00170/0?searchUrl=http%3a//www.jstor.org/search/BasicResults%3fhp%3d25%26si%3d1%26Query%3dMuch%2bAdo%2babout%2bnothing%2bby%2bStan%2bLink%26xc%3don&frame=frame¤tResult=00316016%2bap030054%2b03a00170%2b0%2cFFF7DF5FFFD7DF0100&userID=83b5fb42@qut.edu.au/01cce4403700501cab0e7&dpi=3&config=jstor)

Moncur, M. 2005. Quotations on Silence The Quotations Page (Accessed on 2/10/2006) (http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/silence/)

Pritchett, J. Cage, John: New aesthetics, silence Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 28/09/2006)(http://www.grovemusic.com.ezp02.library.qut.edu.au/shared/views/article.html?section=music.49908#music.49908)

Takemitsu, T. 1995. Confronting Silence.Fallen Leaf Press: California

John Cage. 2006. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia (Accessed 1/10/2006)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_cage)

Georges Lentz. 2006. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia (Accessed 1/10/2006)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lentz)

Robert Rauschenberg. 2006. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia (Accessed 1/10/2006)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rauschenberg)

Zen. 2006. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia (Accessed 1/10/2006)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Buddhism)