[silence] Silent Ringtone

[John McDonough]

Not a dumb comment at all. Cage's whole point was that there was no  
such thing as silence.

He went to an anechoic chamber in 1950, a room that was supposed to  
be as sound proof and reverberation proof as possible. Cage expected  
to hear nothing. Instead he heard 2 sounds - a high singing sound and  
a low throbbing pulse. When he asked he engineer why he heard these  
sounds, the engineer said that the high sound was his nervous system  
in action and the pulse was his circulatory system.

I'm curious about this silent ringtone. Does it drown out surrounding  
sound with silence? Does it only work if you're wearing an earphone?


On Jan 8, 2007, at 5:58 AM, wim maesschalck wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm probably fairly new to the ideas and music of john cage  
> compared to you all, but when I read:
> "But, says Keats, Cage was limited by the technologies available at  
> the time. His silence wasn't perfect "
> I was under the impression that the impossibility of perfect  
> silence was the essence of 4'33" - that music is all around us at  
> all times. So while a silent music ringtone might be a fun way of  
> looking at 4'33", it doesn't really capture john cage's ideas - nor  
> does it help to explain his thoughts?
>
> If everyone would agree on that silent ringtone though, the world  
> would be much nicer music-wise ;)
>
> greetings,
>
> wim
>
> ps; I am a student who'll be reading lots more of john cage (and  
> this list) as I am still relatively new to him & his music, but  
> also planning on writing a paper about him (actually about silence)  
> as my final work for philosophy. So, in case this remark was really  
> dumb, I'll probably find out myself soon :)
>
>
> 2007/1/8, Mark R. <gnmark@gmail.com>:
> Hi All,
>
> Thought this might be a must for a few of us >http://blog.wired.com/ 
> tableofmalcontents/2007/01/worlds_first_si.html
>
> Best Wishes,
>
> Mark
>
> -- 
> Every seed is awakened and so is all animal life. It is through  
> this mysterious power that  we too have our being and we therefore  
> yield to our animal neighbours the same right as ourselves, to  
> inhabit  this land. - Sitting Bull
>
>
> --
> To join or leave the Silence mailing list, please go to https:// 
> list.mail.virginia.edu/mailman/listinfo/silence .
> You can find searchable list archives at http:// 
> list.mail.virginia.edu/pipermail/silence/
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> http://wixel.be
>
> --
> To join or leave the Silence mailing list, please go to https:// 
> list.mail.virginia.edu/mailman/listinfo/silence.
> You can find searchable list archives at http:// 
> list.mail.virginia.edu/pipermail/silence/

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.mail.virginia.edu/pipermail/silence/attachments/20070108/bb82807b/attachment.html