The Sound of Silence

"The silence of this place is as real and solid as sound. More real, in fact."

Written by Admiral Byrd in 1934, alone in a shack near the South Pole for five months. He received messages by radio from his friend President Roosevelt.

Though close at times to death, he "felt more alive," he confesses, in his solitude, "than at any other time in my life."

To feel alive because of silence, reminds me of the silence of death in a weird kind of way.

Byrd's solitude, by definition, translated to silence. I love that he viewed silence as solid as sound. What is the Sound of Silence?

You might have thought I was going to move onto the Simon & Garfunkel song! But no!

The sound of silence makes beautiful sense to me. I think about it often when I feel a certain stillness from within.

One of my first awarenesses of silence was brought to me in my teen years, by the artist/composer/musician, the late John Cage.

John Cage's composition "4.33" proved silence was full of sound. Composed in 1952 for any instrument or combination of instruments; the score instructs performers not to play their instruments throughout the three movements. Cage performed it in the open lobby at CalArts, where I did my graduate work.

The piece was first conceived in 1948 as a “Silent Prayer,” relating to the composer’s curiosity in Zen Buddhism and its emphasis on silent meditation. During the early 1950s. He began using I Ching, a Chinese practice based on flipping coins onto various charts, to determine aspects of works like Music of Changes (1951). He was known for cultivating a more abstract “compositional silence” by diminishing the composer’s control over the music.

Another interesting influence on 4’33” was Cage’s 1951 visit to Harvard’s anechoic chamber, a space creating a near silent environment using surfaces designed to absorb all sounds. He was dismayed to find the quiet broken by the noise of his own nervous system and blood circulation.

These factors suggest the piece is an invitation to meditate on the indeterminate ambience of any given environment, and the impossibility of “true” silence. In dismissing 4’33” as silent, and thus empty, audiences failed to tune in to these sounds. (source: https://lnkd.in/gMvS8-rF)

When you get quiet within, do you hear sound?

What sound are you aware of in a silent space?

Does silence make you feel more alive?

Listen to the sound of silence and let me know what you think.