The Sound of Silence (is Music)

In a lovely coincidence, chinadaily.com posted this article just this morning about a Venezuelan school for disabled children.  Specifically, the article talks about a choir of deaf children; some were singing, harmonizing with each other, while others performed the lyrics in sign language.  I wonder how the silent children and their alternative communication effected how the audience received the piece.

 When my father first told me about 4’ 33”, during my junior year of high school, I found the idea ridiculous and absurd. I believed that it was not original, profound or art. I thought it was just four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence. But this year,  when Tian just doing 2 movements of the piece, I thought it was amazing. I don’t know what changed for me in two years, but I can see the silence in this piece so much better now. I see it as true creativity, and amazingly complex. Chase’s work shows how much we mistake for both art and non-art. 

Challenging what we hear and what we hear as beautiful challenges all the senses veracity. One of my friends is legally blind, and absolutely blind without her contacts, as are her parents. However, she is a world-side bowling champion. She has been paid to travel and bowl; bowling got her to Amsterdam and Australia. She’s been bowling since infancy, as her parents have. Her entire family is amazing at bowling. She chalanges the idea of what it means to be sighted- I certainly cannot bowl a 298, like she can. I think all the people that angered at the first performance of Chase’s did not understand the beauty in the piece. That not only is there music in the noises we here in silence, but music in silence itself. Or that silence does not even have to be music. Silence can just be silent.