July 19, 2002
Silence is Golden
My friend Andrew I. Cohen directs me to this report about British musician Mike Batt, whose group's new album contains a track called "A One Minute Silence." The track, true to its claim, is simply 60 seconds of silence. He's facing a lawsuit from the company that owns the copyright to late composer John Cage's "4'33"," which presents four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence.
Batt refuses to back down. He notes: "Mine is a much better silent piece. I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and 33 seconds." The article is worth a look if only because it provides the score to Batt's piece. In light of much of what plays on radios these days, his work isn't so bad.
Posted by Woodlief on July 19, 2002 at 09:22 AM
Does this mean that white (definition=the absence of color) can now be considered a color?
Maybe Mr. Batt can give copies of his sheet music to the grrls music camp. Sounds like they could use it.
i'd probably side with mr. batt. in fact, i'd bet his silent piece is better than anything cage ever did.
as for white equaling absence of color, that's only in pigment. in light, absence of color equals black.
This has been a sore point for me ever since they chopped down In a Gadda da Vida (or however the hell it's spelled) to under three minutes just to make it suitable for AM airplay. Now the artists are doing it themselves! What next, a two-minute Hey Jude? A fifteen-second Mr. Tambourine Man (cutting the song even more ruthlessly than the Byrds did)?
Re Cage's 4.33, I think it's the best thing he ever did.
I have to side with Cage. He wrote the piece so that the silence of the instrument or performers was intentional. It was the other "noise" that made the piece music. The fact that Batt was intentionally being a silent performer thus violates the copywright. Complicated but very legal.
