Quote:
|
Originally Posted by blunderbuss
Are there any modern noise artists have recorded a totally silent piece ? They'd get my vote for best ever.
|
"Listen" to
4'33" by John Cage. Although he would techinically not define it as silence (Cage was firm on the idea that there is never
complete silence, that even in the most noiseless of settings, you will still hear your heart beat), it's probably the only, or at least the most famous, silent piece.
As far as the debate over the King Of Noise, I would have to vote for Merzbow. I'm not always crazy about him, but to me, he defines the genre. So I choose that, not based on popularity or favoritism, but more on where my mind heads first when I think of noise, much as many people's mind may head toward Hendrix when they think of rock, even if he isn't their favorite.
EDIT:
To back up my statement about Cage:
In 1951, Cage visited the
anechoic chamber at
Harvard University. An anechoic chamber is a room designed in such a way that the walls, ceiling and floor absorb all sounds made in the room, rather than reflecting them as echoes. They are also externally sound-proofed. Cage entered the chamber expecting to hear silence, but he wrote later, "I heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my
nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in
circulation."
[9]