The Silent Musician: Why Conducting Matters

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Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man (1897) by Alphonse Allais, a French writer and humorist (1854–1905); published in his Album primo-avrilesque Rosemary Brown Psyches Again!, a 1982 Enharmonic Records LP by David DeBoor Canfield. (Side one contains parodies of works supposedly taken down by British psychic Rosemary Brown from deceased composers. Side two is silent and contains an Introduction by Marcel Marceau and a "discussion" by Johann Sebastian Bach and Johannes Brahms on the musical merits of Rosemary's Brown's efforts.)

Of all the notions most likely to rile more conservative critics, the idea of composing music with no sound may be the most provocative. But can silence ever make a valuable artistic statement? If not, why are people still willing to pay good money for the chance to rest their ears? When I was asked to review a book about conducting my first reaction was to say no thanks. Then I thought that even if I had to endure another book of two-dimensional pictures of beat patterns it would at least give me a platform to parade my wisdom and prejudices, so I said yes. The University of Manchester’s Julian Dodd doesn’t think so, however. Distilling the concept to its most basic definition, he believes that music must involve the organisation of sounds according to instruction planned by a composer and then executed by a performer. Since all the sounds – such as a baby crying or someone coughing – that might occur in a piece like 4’33” are incidental and unplanned by the composer, it cannot meet this essential criteria, Dodd says. Instead, he prefers to consider it a piece of conceptual art. This experience sits comfortably with the more philosophical aspects of qin theory, and with Cage’s intentions for 4’33’’. Later in life, Cage still recalled the sounds that were heard during the premiere, including the sound of the wind outside, and the sound of people walking out of the concert hall. In his book Listen to This, Alex Ross describes Cage’s life as ruled by the thought that “all sounds are music”. “He wanted to discard inherited structures,” says Ross, “open doors to the exterior world.” (13) Cage famously believed that “there is no such thing as silence”, a belief underlined by his experience in Harvard University’s anechoic chamber, a soundproof room where, according to the writer David Toop, he heard “the high singing note of his nervous system and the deep pulsing of his blood”.(14)In Daoism, art in its most ideal form should reflect nature; sparseness in music represents the peaceful space of the natural world. The influence of Lao Tzu’s Da Yin Xi Sheng (大音希声, meaning Big Sound), referring to the cosmic flow of existence, contributed to what Reylon describes as “untimed, irregular, patternless or free” elements in Chinese music, which often includes inaudible or barely audible sounds.(9) In his book A Song for One or Two: Music and the Concept of Art in Early China, the musicologist Kenneth DeWoskin tells the story of Han Dynasty musician called Music Master Chuang, whose transcribes “mysterious music” with his qin resting on his lap: “He may have strummed responsively to the airborne tones as they came to him; more likely, however, his qin resonated responsively to the sounds as they came…It was a kind of hearing aid rather than a performing instrument.”(4)

Fellow Tangram member Alex Ho wrote, “Narratives that assume Cage as the centre who implicitly conquered an East Asian philosophy, that itself is millennia-old, are frequent and misleading. Although not necessarily through Cage's own active shaping, this aligns with western classical music's long history of marginalising and misrepresenting East Asian cultures and identities.” (16) The researchers’ companion study looked at a more natural form of silence – the rests and pauses written into Bach’s melodies. Previous studies on this topic tended to artificially cut out notes from a melody, leaving unexpected silence. But Marion and DiLiberto wanted to study the structured silences that naturally crop up in musical structures. It is so wonderful to be able to read a beautifully written and constructed book which exactlyinforms the reader what a conductor is with disarming accuracy and humility and with a touch of humour when needed. I don’t see Cage himself as an authoritarian. He was no stranger to marginilisation as a queer man and avant-garde artist, who often funded his practice through mycology. (21) However, I see the limits of the system in which he practiced and under which his legacy has been appraised. A cultural obsession with 4’33’’ as a single watershed event, or a literal interpretation of its intentions, can narrow the potential of what we find in silence. Reaching for its roots, we might find new ways of interpreting the meaning of both silence and sound.Oliveros, who died in 2016, was a contemporary and friend of John Cage’s. Despite her influence on contemporary music history as a performer, composer and mentor, she is not always found in the mainstream narrative of that history. To those who know her work, she is often spoken of with something akin to reverence. Oliveros developed Deep Listening in collaboration with her partner IONE and the movement artist Heloise Gold. A Deep Listening practice involves exercises and meditations that encourage “360 degree” and “24-hour” listening. This might include listening with parts of your body other than your ears, and paying attention to sounds even while dreaming. To facilitate the practice, Oliveros wrote text-based scores, many of which resemble Zen koans, such as the meditation “Have You Ever Heard the Sound of an Iceberg Melting?” This truly underlines the complicated business of performing what a composer wrote honestly and is the constant challenge we as performers face. It is with great joy and admirationthat I confess that this is the first book on conducting that I have read since the introduction to the Handbook of Conducting by Hermann Scherchen published in 1933 that not only finally bears resemblance to who and what a conductor actually is but puts into very readable and eloquent English prose exactly who and/or what a conductor is and/or isn’t. Dr. Shen, Chian Theng – The Enlightenment Of Bodhisattva Kuan-Yin (Avalokiteshvara) Part I, Delivered at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii February 26, 1982

The EEG recordings from the study showed that, when imagining music, volunteers’ brain activity was slightly delayed and had reversed polarity – peaking and troughing in reverse – when compared to the same activity in response to heard music. This finding was no suprise to Marion, who pointed out that this was in line with theories about how the brain makes predictions: "[Imagery signals'] nature would be to suppress the sensory signal. In other words, summing two signals of an inverse polarity would result in a diminished, almost null, signal which is the main primary role of a predictive signal." That which, within our present-day music, most nearly approaches the essential of the art, is the Rest and the Hold (Pause). Consummate players, improvisers, know how to employ these instruments of expression in loftier and ampler measure. The tense silence between two movements— in itself music, in this environment—leaves wider scope for divination than the more determinate, but therefore less elastic, sound. Extract From The Compassion & Humanity Of Margaret Thatcher", on the Cherry Red Records compilation Pillows and Prayers 2 (1984)McMullen, Tracy – Subject, Object, Improv: John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, and Eastern (Western) Philosophy in Music, Critical Improv, vol. 6 no. 2 (2010) The motivation behind Scott’s 1941 concert is unclear; the audience, apparently, found it amusing and giggled throughout the performance. Perhaps the sight of the musicians puffing and banging away on the instruments was designed purely for comic effect, or as an ironic comment on effort and failure, says Julian Dodd, a philosopher of music at the University of Manchester. silent; in three movements lasting a total of four minutes and 33 seconds, for any instrument or combination of instruments The composer instructed: "In a situation provided with maximum amplification, perform a disciplined action. The performer should allow any interruptions of the action, the action should fulfill an obligation to others, the same action should not be used in more than one performance, and should not be the performance of a musical composition." [8]

Ultimately, however, he thinks the label is unimportant. “Whether it is music or not is a side issue. The really interesting thing is what it was designed to get us to think about,” he says. “It raises issues concerning the nature of music and how much we value traditional music.” Antrobus, Raymond – Annotated transcript, Inventions in Sound, Falling Tree Productons for BBC Radio 4, 2021 The researchers estimated expectations by building a statistical model that was fed with a huge variety of Western music. This model enabled the researchers to assess how well their participants’ brains were predicting the notes they heard or imagined. Their analysis showed that, regardless of whether music was actually audible, their volunteers’ brains predicted it in a very similar way. A Lot of Nothing" by Coheed and Cambria (Split into 11 sections ranging from 5–15 seconds in length)

It is terrific to read this truth. Often when I ask what someone thinks a conductor’s instrument is, the reply is usually either the orchestra, the baton or some other observation. I often elaborate when talking about this that the concertmaster’s basic view of the conductor is his left kneecap, the trumpet his right eyebrow etc. Consequently, it is essential that the conductor’s body is so trained that whatever bit a player sees gives the same accurate message. Betz, Marianne (1999). " In futurum – von Schulhoff zu Cage". Archiv für Musikwissenschaft. 56 (4): 331–346. doi: 10.2307/931056. JSTOR 931056. includes one facsimile, p. 335 Also known as 0'00"; the performer determines the extent to which the piece is silent, mostly silent, noisy, or raucous. DeWoskin, Kenneth J. – A Song for One or Two, Center for Chinese Studies, the University of Michigan, 1982 (p. 117) The wide range of accessibility that Wigglesworth creates makes this book truly unique and incomparable to other books of its kind. It provides a clear view into what it takes to be a conductor and all that this very demanding and multi-faceted role encompasses. Wigglesworth’s statements about the art of conducting and the need for self-reflection apply across the board to people of all professions. “… Despite all the good and bad that comes our way, the most significant criticisms are the ones we give ourselves.”