[Orwn Acra]

You're right, the ink idea isn't very accurate because it shouldn't be manufactured. But a white pixel is a white pixel is a white pixel and it's always the same no matter where one is reading it. The same with an un-inked stretch of paper. But silence is always different. Maybe you should have cut a hole in the page.

I'm not saying your idea is silly, it's just doesn't exactly parallel 4'33". You could try Rauschenberg's White Paintings.

[Martin Elster]

Originally Posted by Orwn Acra

I'm not saying your idea is silly, it's just doesn't exactly parallel 4'33". You could try Rauschenberg's White Paintings.

Actually, Cage was influenced by Rauschenberg's White Paintings:

Another cited influence[11] for this piece came from the field of the visual arts. Cage's friend and sometimes colleague Robert Rauschenberg had produced, in 1951, a series of white paintings, seemingly "blank" canvases (though painted with white house paint) that in fact change according to varying light conditions in the rooms in which they were hung, the shadows of people in the room and so on. This inspired Cage to use a similar idea, as he later stated, "Actually what pushed me into it was not guts but the example of Robert Rauschenberg. His white paintings… when I saw those, I said, 'Oh yes, I must. Otherwise I'm lagging, otherwise music is lagging'." Cage's musical equivalent to the Rauschenberg paintings uses the "silence" of the piece as an aural "blank canvas" to reflect the dynamic flux of ambient sounds surrounding each performance; the music of the piece is natural sounds of the players, the audience, the building, and the outside environment.

-- Wikipedia

I like your hole-in-the-page idea!

[Martin Elster]

http://solomonsmusic.net/4min33se.ht...urning%20Point