Part 1: Sound Recording of Train Trip, By Clinton, W. 2018
Part 2: Sound Recording of Train Trip, By Clinton, W. 2018
Part 3: Sound Recording of Train Trip, By Clinton, W. 2018
The Composer I chose to study was John Cage.
John Cage was a American composer and music theorist born in 1912. Cage was best known for his work 4'33" (four minutes and thirty three seconds) which is 3 composed movements equally in the length of time played of four minutes and thirty three seconds. This piecewas first played at Maverick Concert Hall, near Woodstock, New York by a man named David Tudor. The crowd was astonished and shocked by this piece of silence as the expectation for beautiful music was embedded in the audience minds.
The work of Cage's 4'33" is instead of taking people away through music he chose to let people take time to reflect their surroundings.
With that exact message I chose to record the silent carriage of the train which is a twist of John Cages work of the sound of silence when its not expected but rather experiment and see what the sounds of people trying to be quiet are. With the absence of music and talking I was able to record sounds through my smart phone such as the friction the train makes, the sound of the train going along the tracks, the sounds of the motor working harder as the train accelerate and more simple noises of people walking. (See Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3).
Through the careful listening of the 3 composed movements I recorded, I notated a score of the sounds through the Figure below (See Figure 1). In the figure below i used a 30 sector circle with each sector representing a second in time. I used red line to divide my 3 composed movements which are 10 seconds each which combined equal 30 seconds.
I used different symbol to represent different sounds which can be read through the legends provided. Through this project I would agree with John Cage, that there is no such thing as complete silence.
Figure 1: Notated Score of Sound, Drawing By Clinton, W. 2018.
Reference List
The New Yorker 2010, Searching For Silence, viewed 9 September 2018,
<https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/searching-for-silence>.
Wikipedia 2018, John Cage, viewed 9 September 2018,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4′33″>.
