Cage's Silence and Noise- Ball

In John Cage’s essay, Silence, Cage discusses his theories on sound, music, and composition, which he refers to as simply “the organization of sound”. Cage states that, at almost all times, we are surrounded by sound in one form or another. However, in his Lecture on Nothing, Cage presents an interesting idea. He writes, “But now       there are silences       and the words       make      help make      the silences     ” (Cage 109). In this, the author is suggesting that silence creates sound, and, likewise, sound creates silence. The two could not exist without one another, and the boundaries between the two define how we as humans understand our world aurally. Cage represents this visually by the formatting of the page, exaggerating the natural space between words, visually representing the spaces that sound helps define just as Mallarme did in “A Throw of the Dice”. The representation of space and silence can also be seen in the stories of "Indeterminancy", in which Cage told a number of stories of greatly varying lengths in a time frame of one minute each. In a sense, Cage is doing to music and sound what other modernist artists such as Tzara are doing for writing (or their respective art forms I guess), manipulating the building blocks of the art form (including things that are often taken for granted such as silence or meaning itself) until it is unrecognizable.

I found it interesting how Cage’s theories on sound mirror the discussions we had as a class at the beginning of the semester around sense and nonsense. Just as sound defines what silence is, sense provides a standard by which nonsense can be judged, and the two play off of one another. And just as, on pages 3-5, Cage talks about attempts to fit the sounds of new instruments into the molds cast from old ones, people attempt to judge new language by the standards of works created centuries ago and the standards of sense. As Cage writes, these standards censor consumers of media from new sensory experiences, and, oftentimes, it can create a feeling of not “getting” a form of art such as experimental music or nonsense literature. This creates a cycle in many mainstream art circles: people are not exposed to these art forms, so they do not understand it when they come across it and reject it, and, in reaction, they continue to not be exposed to these forms of art.

wow

Joyce

In Finnegan’s wake, the unusual way Joyce handles language allows for a number of different meanings to come into play. The alternative interpretations of this language also brings in polysemy, a trope that can be found in classic nonsense literature such as Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. However, the way Joyce uses polysemy adds something completely different to the work than Carroll or Lear. This can be seen on page four of book one when he writes,

“one yeastyday he sternely

struxk his tete in a tub for to watsch the future of his fates but ere

he swiftly stook it out again, by the might of moses, the very wat-

er was eviparated and all the guenneses had met their exodus so

that ought to show you what a pentschanjeuchy chap he was!”

A number of examples present themselves, most obviously "yeastyday", “watsch”, and “exodus”. "Yeastyday" is clearly a play on the word yesterday, but it also implies heat as one would experience when baking bread. Thus, "Yeastyday" can be read as "a hot yesterday". "Watsch" appears to be an amalgamation of the words “watch” and “wash”, and, when read aloud as can be suggested when reading Finnegan’s Wake, it can be interpreted to be either one, giving the phrase “watsch the future of his fates” two completely different meanings. Exodus refers to a great migration, and, in reference to the aforementioned “guennesses”, probably a play on Guinness, it refers to being drunk. However, as with a number of other references on this page and throughout the book, this also refers to the book in the Bible in which the Israelite flee Egyptian rule.

What separates Joyce’s polysemy from that of others is what it brings to the piece. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, another work rich in polysemy, the use of this sort of language adds to the overall absurdity and dream-like quality of the piece. Alice is a child, and this limits her ability to detect the nuances in language; she takes everything at face-value, and, thus, so does her dreamscape. So the mouse’s tale literally takes the shape of a tail, the mock-turtle is a creature with a bizarre mix of features, and the Cheshire cat is an actual cat rather than an expression.

However, in Finnegan’s Wake, polysemy adds an entirely new layer to the text. Examples such as "yeastyday" and "watsch" add meaning that might otherwise be omitted from the text such as atmospheric (both literal and figurative) conditions to the story as well as alternate meanings to phrases. The numerous Biblical references not only adds an element of symbolism to the text, but it also highlights the fact that Ireland, where Joyce is from and where many of his stories take place, is very strongly rooted in Catholicism.

Cage-Minji Kim

John Cage says in his essay called “silence” that wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. People are living in the world where silence, noise and sound are jumbled together and they coexist. Relationship between these components can be easily figured out if we look this relationship superficially. Especially relationships among silence, noise, and sound the relationship between silence and noise seems most simple. If we just think about the definition of silence and noise, their meaning is completely opposite; therefore, their relationship can be explained by one word: antithesis. However, after I examine silence and noise more carefully I figured out that the relationship between them is more than a simple antithetic relationship. I think the relationship between silence and noise is similar to the relationship between sense and non-sense. As the concept of “non-sense” cannot exist with out “sense”, silence is an essential source for noise to exist. One might not be aware of non-sense if sense never exists since non-sense is derived from the absence of sense.  Like wise, noise cannot exist without the appreciation of silence since people, without comparing the noise to the silence, cannot understand how disturbing the noise can be. Even though silence and noise have opposite meaning they ultimately need each other to be defined.

Through the essay called “Lecture on Nothing” by John Cage, he indirectly and visually explores the relationship between noise and sound using chance operation and enspacement. Enspacement is a special writing technique that invented and utilized by Mallarme who is one of the most influential modernist. Mallarme uses enspacement to show the chance operation and how it can be applied as a literature form. The way Cage employs chance operation and enspacement provides readers simlar feelings that the readers might feel when they hear noise: very disturbing and annoying. The disturbing feelings can be from the random white blank spaces that separate sentences or words without any orders. For example,

“ I am here            ,         and there is nothing to say         .

      If among you are

Those who wish to get      somewhere ,       let them leave at

any moment       . What we re-quire”

Not only sentences, phrases, and words are randomly separated, but punctuations are also put in the middle of the white space. When I read through “Lecture on Nothing” it was not easy read and understand what Cage wants to say this section because I had to pause several times due to the random enspacement. The disturbing and annoying feeling that I had when I read his piece is similar to those feelings that I had when I listen very noise sounds. Therefore, I believe that the white space represents the silence and any other components on the white space including punctuations, words, uncompleted phrases and sentences can be seen as noise. If people refer disturbing and annoying sounds as a noise, then the words, phrases, and even punctuations can be visual noise. Therefore, noise and silence can be thought as auditory components but they are also expressed by visual components, which can generate similar disturbing feeling compared to auditory noise.

Silence and Noise - Bianco

The relationship between silence and noise is an essential question in today’s society.  Noise can be defined as the everyday clatter that often surrounds us in today’s society. This type of noise allows for the individual to associate memories and experiences around such noise. Such as the clatter of kitchenware might become associated with the creation of food. Yet, silence becomes the opposite, silence is either defined as moments of quiet contemplation without noise or disruption. The relationship between that of noise and silence is duality. Duality is two objects that are separate yet intertwined. Noise and silence are intertwined yet separate in that, silence expresses that which cannot be expressed in noise. Silence itself cannot be defined; it is limitless in its expression and undefined by society. However, In John Cage’s lectures on silence, Cage aim to demonstrate the dualistic characteristics of silence and music. Silence is so intertwined with that of music and sound that one cannot ever fully achieve absolute silence. Therefore, there can only be noise, which is intended and that, which is not intended.

In intertwining the silence within music, Cage allowed for more focus on the duration of the song instead of the harmony. Harmony structuralizes music with the focus on pitch, length and dynamics. As a society, we’ve also created preconceived notions of the music that we like and the music that we don’t like and what music ought to sound like. With a focus on silence, the forces the audience to listen to the duration of the silence and to move away from preconceived notions. For instance, when Cage demonstrates his square root form he states, “ That music is         simple to make       comes from        one’s willingness to accept         the limitations         of structure” (Cage, 111). In this statement, Cage demonstrates the square root form, which is Cage’s musical structure, which he then translates to text by using both rational and irrationality. He demonstrates that music is a unifying experience. Without harmony, silence, and duration it becomes noise or unidentifiable by our societal standards. Silence becomes the definition of chaos, it fails to be structured or unified under any circumstances.

            Cage’s experiment with silence and music also shows how far as a society that we have moved away from naturalism. In nature, silence is a norm; the duality of silence and white noise combined surrounded the individual with contemplation. Yet, in today’s society we have created music to affect our environment, to cause emotional arousal. Instead of using music to demonstrate our perception of the world around us, we’ve used it as a method to create and define a perception. For example, Cage states, “Pure Life      expresses itself     within      and through structure.        Each moment    is absolute,       alive and significant” (Cage 113). In this statement, Cage expresses how life structuralizes itself whether it’s the environment or humans; life has become structuralized through morals, laws and societal expectations. Cage focused upon the relationship between silence and music in order to gain a better understanding of the perception of music.  

silence, noise, music, cage. - connor chapman

Dualisms, I've noticed, are an overarching theme in this class. Sense versus nonsense at first, and it seems especially relevant when discussing sound versus silence, noise versus music, (or any medium of actual physical sound coupled against silence, really). This topic is really no difference, as evidenced by John Cage's 4'33", a controversial piece where there is nothing necessary other than to have the performer be present for the duration of the performance. The purpose of the piece is to have the listener pay attention to their environment, the little sounds. The piece, therefore, is evolving, and one can perform 4'33" wherever he or she so desires, so the piece can sound literally like whatever the performer wants. Music is generally defined as an art of organized sound, an art whose mediums are sound and silence. That definition is quite vague; can language, by that definition, not be categorized as organized, and defined be sounds and silences? Surely it's more complicated than that. Perhaps the idea behind music is that this organization is constant, and it's designated, at least more so than just verbal communication, but even so, when musical feedback is used even artfully, these lines are blurred. Perhaps the more chance is factored into conventional music, the less it sounds to us like music. Take, for example, again, feedback and John Cage's 4'33". IT could be anything. These things aren't controlled. Write down a piece of music, that's not really chance. IT was organized and devised and all that, the rest of these things isn't. Silence is merely an absolute absence of these things. 4'33" may not have the performer making any sounds him or herself, there is no silence. There is still a ringing in our heads, the creaks of the floorboards and scratching of carpet fibers beneath our feet, the twiddling of our thumbs. Humans cannot create chance. They can make things that make chance. But that's pretty much it.

I've rambled. The cognitive dissonance is proving to be too much for little ole me.

Cage

The American composer and active figure in the avant-garde movement, John Cage, presents a very interesting relationship between sound and noise in his speech at a meeting at the Seattle arts society. He depicts this relation through the context and structure of his text.

At one point he writes “what we re-quire is silence; but what silence requires is that I go on talking.”(pg 109).  With this statement, I feel that Cage is explaining that in order for us to have silence and define what silence is, we need to have sound, which in his case is his talking. And in order to define sound we need to have silence. These two must coexist or not exist at all.

Another example of sound and white noise that Cage presents in this speech is at the beginning. It seems as though he has two separate trains of though regarding music and sound. The first is the statement that we see in all caps, begins with, “I BELIEVE THAT THE USE OF NOISE,” and then this statement is suddenly interrupted with another though, “Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly…”(103).  This is a reoccurring pattern that we see in this section of the text. The part in caps flows smoothly if one where to skip over the non-caps parts. The parts that are lower case begin to seem like white noise in comparison to the caps sections. Its incredible to think that one can actually use words and ideas about a certain subject to create background noise.

In his lecture on nothing, we also see the comparison to music. Some of the lines in his text for instance, are structured like music notes. There is a lot of repetition, the lines are spaced out into four columns and then punctuated to indicate pauses, much like how music notes indicate rests with certain symbols. The silence that is necessary for music is also essential here.  He refers to music as “the organization of sound.” I had never heard of this idea before but it seems to have a valid point. Music is sound, but it is sound arranged in a particular way that it is pleasing to hear the sounds. When listening to parts of this lecture out loud, trying to catch the full meaning was difficult and even annoying with all the frequent pauses. However, there was a certain rhythm and tempo in the annunciation of the word, which was actually quite soothing. Soon, the meaning of the words is forgone while one only hears the rhythm of the sounds. The meaning becomes the background and the sound becomes the foreground.

Through his speech and unique structure of text, Cage explores the concepts of sound, silence, and white noise in a very unconventional manner; he gives silence a whole new perspective. 

Silence

John Cage's writing on silence brings about several interesting ideas.  In the content of his writing, the physical representation of the work, and in the read-aloud presentation, Cage seeks to eliminate false notions of silence.  In producing text which, when read or even observed, seems to allow no silence, Cage makes a statement about the inexistence of silence in the natural world.  In his strangely structured "Lecture on Nothing," the author writes in columns, as if the words on the page were notes among many measures of musical notation.  It would seem that pauses, due to both punctuation and excessive spacing, would be a more prominent feature in the text.  Instead however, like in a piece of music, the writing creates one whole, seemingly unbroken string of thought and sound. Cage's intention, or one of the many, is surely to create a work that occupies an entire period of time, instead of implanting many words and phrases into empty space.  When read aloud soon after its inception, audiences were often tortured or bored by the incessant nature of Cage's work-- a piece which seemed to take no breaks or pauses, (when in reality it was fraught with them.) 

 In his similarly strange "Indeterminacy," Cage explains in a short preface that the short stories contained within the section are intended to be read sequentially, adhering to a strict rule of one minute per story. With this tactic, the author forces constant noise upon the reader; a string of incomplete and often incomprehensible stories that follow one-another so closely as to not allow for any sort of evaluation.  It is this unique practice of discerning meaning from a din of background noise that it appears Cage is attempting to highlight.  By providing a constant stream of noises and ideas that could easily slip into the background, the author challenges readers and listeners to train their ears and minds to listen intently.  This mindfulness in reading or listening is a muscle that consumers of literature must learn to flex, and Cage's Silence is an extraordinary exercise for the mind.  

The Sounds of Silence

Interestingly, I have been thinking a lot about the relationship between silence and noise not only for this class and with respect to Cage's work, but also because I have been thinking a lot about the usage of sound, particularly with respect to the use of silence and noise, in Silence of the Lambs after screening it in my film class. In Silence of the Lambs, "sound" practically acts as a character that is central to the plot, much like Clarice or Hannibal Lecter. Most obviously, the concept of sound is introduced right there in the film's title--Silence of the Lambs--which is a reference to Clarice's recurring nightmares about the screaming lambs that were being slaughtered by the farmer she was sent to live with as an adolescent. The movie is, in many ways, about Clarice's quest to "silence" the screaming lambs whose cries she continue to haunt her in the dead of night, even as an adult. She hopes that if she finds Buffalo Bill and saves the girl he is holding hostage, the lambs will, finally, become silent.
Throughout the entire film, the sound of breathing is used as a motif. The sounds of sighing, panting, and other breath-related noises can be heard in many pivotal moments of the film--when the cocoon is extracted from the throat of one of Buffalo Bill's victims, a sigh can be heard. When Clarice is descending down the stairs of Buffalo Bill's home into his basement, heavy panting can be heard. When Hannibal reveals that he is alive and after literally wearing the skin of one of the security guards he killed in order to get out of his jail and into an ambulance, his breathing is heard before he moves. The sound of breathing is interesting because it is not often thought of as "noisy," but in Silence of the Lambs, it is quite a prevalent sound. 
Throughout the film, however, complete silence is incredibly rare. Ambient noise is always lurking in the background, almost constantly layered beneath the dialogue and the score. In the scene where Clarice is on her way to have her first meeting with Hannibal, sounds of wailing voices of humans and animals, heart monitors, and doors opening and slamming and locking shut can all be heard as she walks down the stairs and prepares herself to enter the cell area, and those are just the noises I am able to discern out of all the other ambient noises that are occurring simultaneously. When Clarice arrives at Hannibal Lecter's cell, the score cuts out, and so do most of the ambient noises that were occurring previously--all that the viewer really hears in this scene aside from the dialogue is faint coughing, dripping pipes, or the occasional footstep. While this is not complete silence, the vast reduction in the amount of noise does create an eerie contrast where tension and suspense is built up and built up by all the ambient noises at the beginning of the scene, only to be reduced drastically when Clarice arrives at Hannibal's cell, making the exchange between them incredibly intense and nerve-wracking for the viewer--Clarice is really alone with Hannibal, and this is reflected in the relative lack of background noise activity.

Silence, Disruptive Noise, and Constant Noise

Pairing up the concepts of silence and noise first leads us to establish the two as a dichotomy; something is either silent or it produces some kind of noise that disrupts the silence. However, the structure of silence and noise seems to be more triangular, where there is also a type of constant noise / white noise. This white noise shares qualities of both silence and disruptive noise while being separate from them both. It is silence in the way that it is not heard. It is not paid attention to, and it does not disturb anybody from their focus. However, it is also not silence, because it is a production of sound, and it can be focused upon if somebody wishes to do so. I think that claiming a triangular relationship between the three nodes of silence, disruptive noise, and constant noise is also significant in that it allows a combination (and opposition) among the three, for example, we can imaging something between disruptive noise and constant noise that is opposed to silence (perhaps we can even claim that Cage's Lecture on Nothing falls within this category, as it first presents itself as a lecture to be focused on and eventually dissolves into something repetitive to the point that it cannot do much more than be ignored).

We can also think of the relationship between silence and noise as one of necessity. Silence cannot exist without its being observed as different from noise, and vice versa. However, this distinction is also interesting in the way that we cannot fully reach one side or the other. By that, I mean that we can never experience true/pure silence or true/pure noise. There is also some difficulty in imagining what either of those would "sound" like-- for example, we might guess that a pure noise sounds identical to a pure silence because it cannot be differentiated from any other type of sound. The same is true with white noise. We often only recognize a white noise when it begins or when it ends, in other words, when it stands out in opposition of the previous semi-silent or semi-noisy state. Therefore, the relationship between silence and noise necessarily allows for silence and noise. We cannot even imagine any aspects of sound and hearing that lack the gradient distance between silence and noise.

Lastly, we must also notice something unique about the relationship between silence and noise in comparison to other sensory input. It is much easier to say that silence is necessary for noise than to claim that blindness is necessary for vision, or to claim the equivalent for any of the other senses. The relationship between sound and noise is less similar to the other senses and more similar to the relationship between sense and nonsense. Additionally, it can be said that the relationship between noise and silence is the relationship between sense and nonsense (here, we can look at the less conventional meanings of both, where nonsense could be used to mean "not relevant to the senses").

Cage-Joan

John Cage’s “Lecture on Nothing” illustrates a relationship between silence and noise through deliberate manipulation of text and structure. Often, silence is seen as the absence of noise. Likewise, we often identify noise as the absence of silence. This mutual exclusivity creates this relationship between silence and noise that we are familiar with. However, Cage goes beyond this kind of relation that relies on exclusivity. That is, he points out that there can never truly be silence. Silence will always include noise—specifically ambient noise. Similarly, noise will always includes silence. The following quotation illustrates this: “What we require is silence, and silence requires that I go on talking.”  Cage’s work casts a kind of character onto silence and noise that binds them in this relationship of inclusivity in which silence contains noise and noise contains silence. Thus, Cage plays with the tensions between the exclusive and inclusive components that ultimately bridge silence and noise together.

The author employs the rigorous structure within his work to demonstrate this. Through repetition, he creates the ‘ambient noise’ that is inextricable from silence by turning his own speech into background noise. The excessive redundancy in his text is intolerable for some readers, painful for some, or a soothing lull to others, but he ultimately strives to recreate ambient noise within his own speech. For example, the following passage illustrates this repetition:

“…we are getting nowhere. That is a pleasure, which will continue. If we are irritated, it is not pleasure. Nothing is not a pleasure if one is irritated and then more and more it is not irritating…slowly nowhere….” (120).

The repetition is evident as certain phrases such as “getting nowhere” and “a pleasure” and “irritated” reappear multiple times within a few sentences (120). Yet it is in this mathematical and structured manner that Cage employs this strategy to recreate background noise within his own piece. In a way, he is structuring the lecture so that he is saying nothing and the phrases are simply strung together as ambient noise. This goes to show that silence doesn’t just happen when he is not talking but also when he is talking. This quotation shows how Cage illustrates the interdependency of noise and silence, as well as the tensions between the two.

Something that should also be noted about Cage’s work is its parallel to musical compositions. That is, he employs techniques that are equivalent to measures and rests in musical pieces. There is a lot of space that is deliberately employed and separates the various phrases, words, and even punctuations. Sometimes a single punctuation such as a comma or period occupies a column on the page. The importance of the structure in Cage’s work is that it resonates with those used in music. Both silence and noise play an essential role in music. While noise is defined within parameters of pitch, silence is defined by its duration. Indications of these include rests. In a similar fashion, Cage employs these techniques to signify the role that silence plays in his own work and its interdependency with noise.

Noises: SIlence?-Merchant

This week in class we spent quite some time discussing the relationship between silence and noise through the work of John Cage.  When thinking about silence and noise many people may see them as purely opposites.  It seems like a common generalization that you can either be silent or you can noisy, but you cant be both. But do we really find this to be true?  Can it be possible to be silent but noisy at the same? John Cage says in his Lecture on Nothing “what we require is silence, but what silence requires is that I go on talking.” These seemingly contradictory statements make perfect sense when we branch out from the conventional definitions of silence and noise and delve deeper into what these words actually entail. Cage in the above line wants to achieve silence in room filled with a bunch of people. This goal can only be accomplished if he makes “noise” by speaking so that the people are paying attention to him and not talking among themselves. But does this achieve “silence” in its truest form? To answer this question we have to consider what exactly Cage defines “silence” to be. To him it could simply be the absence of incessant conversations and he believes that if he continues to talk and lecture then the people around him will cease their conversations and listen in silence. Silence could mean a number of different things and each of its definitions carries a different relationship with “noise”

When contemplating what silence actually means to me I come up with one main definition: the sound I hear when I am in the reading room in the Woodruff Library. Some people might say that the whole point of “silence” is to hear absolutely nothing but to me this is not the case. Silence has a coexisting relationship with “noise.” For example, when I step into the reading room on the fourth floor of the library I immediately become extremely self-conscious of the sounds my shoes are making as I walk and I begin to notice how loud computers actually are. I also realize that when an individual turns a page in a textbook it makes a very distinct sound or how annoying it can be when someone is unconsciously tapping his or her foot on the ground. In an otherwise “normal” setting where silence did not exist,  I probably would never have noticed these “noises” but it was the “silence” that amplified the humming of laptops and the flipping of pages. This shows that silence and noise have a unique relationship where one cannot exist without the other.  The silence makes us aware of noises that used to go unnoticed. So can we really say that silence is the opposite of noise or do we believe that silence is just one type of noise?

Cage

            There is a great contradictory relationship between silence and noise. Silence is defined as the complete absence of sound. Noise on the other hand is defined as a sound. I think that pure silence is unattainable in the word, at least while the earth is rotating. You could go to the quietest place on earth, maybe somewhere in the mountains or in the middle of a random island, but there would still be sound. The sound could be coming from the waves or wind in the trees. It could also be noises that human ears can’t pick up such as, insects crawling, the heater in the cottage starting, or the birds landing on each branch. So even though people enjoy silence and what it means in humanistic terms, silence is not truly in place without some type of noise there.

            In a Lecture on Nothing, John Cage includes silence in his almost music sheet layout of the work. The way he sets up the sentences on the page make them look as though they are measures in music. There are also these huge spaces between the words and punctuation. The spaces indicate silence within the “music”, while the words on the page or the “music” its self can represent noise. Noise doesn’t always have to relate to sound. Noise can also be used to describe something visually. For instance, “That painting is too noisy.” This would mean that there are so many things going on in the painting that it’s overwhelming. With this said, Cage could also be writing these words into measure to make them seem noisy on the page. The noisiness of the page could be broken up by pieces of silence, which they are.

            Chance also plays a part in Cage’s piece. Chance had control over what words stayed within what measure but overall how the columns and silent spaces were worked into the page. I really think the word formatting was due to chance. Also there’s the idea that chance is unpredictable and unexpected but noise and sound are known for having a time and place. So it’s interesting that Cage would write with chance as a backbone to his formatting while also including some silent aspects as well.

            John Cage claims, “[he has] nothing to say and [he is] saying it and that is poetry as [he] need[s] it.” Normally there would be meaning put into a piece but since Cage has nothing to say there is no structure he has to follow in his piece. Meaning that since he so quotably has nothing to say then his work should be filled with empty space. His piece is filled with empty spaces and those spaces are the silence in which he claims he has nothing to talk about. Noise comes into play here because silence is being “said.” When someone says something it usually has a sound or visual of what they want to say. That’s noise but it could also be related to silence since the silence on the page is visually telling the readers something. This is my reflection on the relationship between silence and noise and how chance relates in that.

Cage - Matt

In John Cage's "Lecture on Nothing", he talks about the relationship between nothing and something in terms of noise and silence.

He appeals to the senses; first the sense of sight. He created an image of an empty glass that could be filled with something at any moment. The existence of emptiness in the glass is dependent on the existence of liquid in the glass. He continues this visual appeal by presenting a scenario where a person from a city like NYC travels out to the wide lands of Kansas. Cage says that the city person would see the emptiness and still see something; the absence of the city itself. This illustration alludes to the idea that while one can appreciate the existence of something, one also could easily appreciate the absence of it. He then says that one doesn't even have to be immersed in noise to appreciate silence. In his other illustration, a man is standing on a cliff and just standing in silence and three others contemplate why the man is standing silently alone. The man revealed that he had no reason to be in silence, there does not have to be a reason for silence. Silence can be appreciated on its own. However, one social value of being alone is to "hear" one's own thought; to think by him/herself. So in a way, the physical silence brings about mental noise. Noise can be used to contrast and appreciate silence, but in turn, the silence can bring about other noise until there is a never-ending existence in a gradient between total silence and total noise.

One other example where Cage expresses the relationship of silence and noise is through classical music. He mentions Bach and Beethoven. Bach wrote during the baroque period, when the harpsichord was commonly used. The harpsichord did not have the pedals to mix sounds together. Playing a note resulted in a very brief sound followed by silence. As such, Bach and other composers during the baroque period, not only had to play with music theory to create a musical piece, but they also had to account for the brief sounds of the notes and the almost immediate silence that followed. Thus music during the baroque period was not slow, because notes must be playing at all times to create sound and mask silence. With the nature of the harpsichord, silence was important in the baroque period in that it must be filled.

On the flip side, Beethoven wrote music during the romantic period, when the piano developed the pedals to merge and bleed sounds and notes from one measure to another measure, to create an omnipresent pool of noise. The layers of sound became infinite. A note could resonate for 3 or 4 more measures while mixing with more notes on the way. While the combinations of the music can be beautiful, it can also be overwhelming. The pedal opened the door to mixtures of sound, but that meant that the silence rests brought were equally important. Rests and pauses in conjunction with the drama of  fortissimos and diminuendos and the pedal  further enhanced the drama and beauty of the musical piece.

In progression and transition of the piano and music from the baroque period to the romantic period, we see that when noise is created and how it is created changes, the silence changes to accommodate it and enhance the significance of the sound while standing on its own. In these visual and aural sensory images, Cage sees the relationship of silence and noise to be a very dependent one, much like we found the existence of nonsense and sense to be dependent on each other. The relationship and interaction between noise and silence is more complex than one might initially think, as if they exist and not exist simultaneously.

Silence vs. Noise- Michelle Wolff

The relationship between silence and noise can be thought of as more than just the obvious connection: they are opposites. Although the two words are an opposite pair that most think of as a package, they actually aren’t always opposites. I always associated the two words, silent and noise, as strictly being opposites. Once I thought about them in a more in-depth manner, I was able to discover that the two usually thought of as opposite words in fact do share some similarities.

            Silence in some ways can be thought of as noise. Although, it cannot literally be thought of as noise, since no one can hear silence. If someone is upset, and chooses not to speak, other people can sometimes sense their emotions even though he or she is not speaking. Not literally, can someone “hear” emotions if they are silent, but it does not take words said aloud to know how someone is feeling. Facial expressions are often used to substitute noise in order to convey a feeling.

            Similarly to this idea about silence, we can also think of noise in this way. Noise is obviously something a person can hear, but just because one can hear something, does not mean that the words have value. Some would consider speech without value to be silence, since there is no point in absorbing it. Noise is also not necessary all the time. Like I mentioned above, noise can be unnecessary sometimes and silence can be just as good if not a better way to get a point across. Some would agree that a person shouldn’t just “speak to speak,” and rather speak when necessary. Their thoughts are more likely to be heard and less likely to be overlooked or appear “silent.”

            Although silence and noise do share some similarities, they also greatly reflect there opposite stereotypes. While there are many different types of noise, there is only one type of silent. That being said, a silent person can act in a variety of different ways, but they will always be silent. Something that is making a noise has an endless amount of possibilities of noises to make.

            Noises aren’t the only way to show emotion or convey a message. “Signs” are not only silent but also are able to easily convey certain messages. Not just signs but also people, for instance, who aren’t speaking, can still be able to show emotion or illustrate what they need to say without actually saying it verbally.

            I think that in society, it is sometimes thought that silence is automatically associated with awkwardness. I know that certain people are more comfortable with silence and certain people really dislike silence, and feel the need to speak instead of having silence. Silence is something people should be able to deal with because silence is not a bad thing at all and should not be thought of as something uncomfortable. I know I was and still am sometimes the person who thinks silence is awkward but I am learning to realize that sometimes silence is just what is needed.