John Cage's 4'33"
this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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It's not a bad performance of the piece, but it's far more up-tempo than the composer intended.
Exactly! I mean, come on... completing 4'33" in 3'43" is just preposterous.
As a python programmer, this is the most beautiful song I've ever heard.
For the first minute I was still waiting, then I understood.
Beat me to it. It's a fun thought experiment determining what really defines music and I always love to hear people's answers. Are recordings of nature considered to be music? The idle ambience of everyday life? If yes, then why not 4'33"? If no, why not?
no music!
Being a cover, an instrumental cover of an a capella song would have instruments playing and not just be silence...
a capella instrumentals
Right, it would consist of the instruments mimicking the voice of the original singer
Edit: That makes me wonder, has anyone ever tried to actually imitate human speech with musical instruments? How many would you need?
There's an old video where someone converted songs to MIDI piano and the vocals are still almost distinguishable. It's purely an illusion and it only works if the listener knows the lyrics, but it's pretty convincing.
Haha that's awesome! It is surprising but somehow also makes sense.
Jeff Beck was really good at imitating human voice without the voice box. Badass guitarist.
Not sure about the human speech, but there is a certain mongolian string instrument able to perfectly immitate a horse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4xZUr0BEfE (4:41)
Not quite what you mean, but it reminded me of a Game Grumps episode where they talk about it for a loooong time...
I saw a documentary about an old-timey music device someone invented and put on shows mimicking voice. It was very complicated to play and I don't even know how much of it has survived.
Yeah. It should be a capella karaoke tracks.
4’33” on repeat.
There are plenty of covers of 4'33"
Edit: I'm not joking
True, I just finished playing one of them.
Next mozart over here
About 8 billion or so, if I had to guess.
You can take my kids out of the count. I haven't gotten 4 minutes of silence since they were born.
My kids are outside the house at the moment and I'm literally sitting in a dark, silent house. It's almost eerie how foreign this feeling is to me, to just sit around in silence. I'm quite enjoying my cover of 4'33", I've listened to it a dozen times now.
I particularly like the 4'33" (downtempo electronica extended mix). 12 minutes and 54 seconds of perfect digital silence. You can almost hear the individual zeroes in the signal
Not even that. That piece proves that there is no such thing as silence.
I like how they're styled like Pokemon elemental types
My favorite game sound track is from dysmantle.
There’s no music in 99% of the game; only at campfires and cutscenes.
It took me 42 hours (out of roughly 100 to complete the game) to notice the lack of music, because I always turn music down to 50%, sound effects to 75%, and leave dialogue/voices at 100%.
Edit: this post has attracted a downvote troll! Yay! Please disregard downvotes on any post under the OOP, because some asshole needs a hobby :)
I had a similar experience with Animal Well, though I actually did have the volume up. In that though, there's enough random little melodies scattered throughout that it didn't really feel like it was without music. Every sound the character and setting made contributed to the ambience. I love music, but it was still beautiful.
I got a friend that actually doesn't listen to any music or sounds of any kind.
Bro's friend is a plant.
Plants like music though. For the science behind this, check out any middle school science project.
No plants like carbon dioxide 😭
there is never silence
I like The Sound of Silence
I knew a musician who did an amazing cover of Come to Me by Bobby McFerrin. It translates really well into a guitar.
I particularly like songs with the silent parts building up the anticipation of what's about to come next. Like at the beginning of Whole Lotta Rosie, although you can hear a soft hihat in the background when Angus stops picking.
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