Piano and Amplified Teapot

To understand my utter bewilderment, you must listen first, to this: (it’s not long, don’t worry up to the 1:00 mark should be enough to get the point)

If you were wondering when the music starts, get ready to have your world shaken up: what you heard was the music, composed by John Cage, one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. The music, it doesn’t get any different. It’s plant noises for 8 whole minutes. I’m telling you, people applaud at the end and everything.

That utterly confusing piece is a form of “contemporary music”. If you understood or thoroughly enjoyed it, you can stop reading now, because the rest of this might be total nonsense to you.

Still reading? Okay. I’m going to try and convince you why this form of “music” isn’t so random after all. I experienced it for the first time at a concert by the contemporary music band “Sonic Generator”. They began with a most “interesting” piece called “this(continuity)”. To give you a feel of what it was like, here’s a description of it from a pamphlet we were given:

“Writing this again starting/stuttering location: this location and dislocation, disclosing and this closing … somewhere in the something to do, somewhere in the middle/muddle, a vertex/averting, where the fidgeting begins... using repetition to counteract the dominant culture’s obsessively repetitive state of denial, thus hopefully becoming an input for new and different information...”

Now, the music consisted of the artists breathing into flutes/clarinets, at intervals hissing words like “Begin!” or “This!” and stamping their feet. Towards the end, a section of around half a minute is pure radio static. No, seriously.

I was totally befuddled. I had no clue why anyone would pay to listen to a collection of arbitrary sounds, some of which make you want to jab your ears violently with a fork. So I rushed home, and reached for the nearest fork, when a thought struck me: Has this fork been washed properly? And then, another thought struck me: Isn’t music basically about sounds? Why was this any different?

I took deep breaths, eased the fork out of my hands and thought about it. Music, most people would agree, is anything that sounds “good” to the ears. Of course, people have varying definitions of “good” (just ask your grandparents to listen to Metallica for example). But in spite of differences in tastes, there is one thing common to almost all forms of music:a pattern. Almost any music contains intricate patterns and repetitions: a drumbeat in the background, a rhythm you can tap your foot to.

This contemporary music stuff, however, has no easily recognizable pattern. And no, its not just me saying that, many of my musician friends who attended the concert with me were equally ... er... surprised... by the piece.


The composition that followed this(continuity) was more understandable. It was played using two instruments: a Piano and an Amplified teapot. Yes, you read that correctly.Here’s the pamphlet description of it:

“During this work, fragments are played … The performance is recorded on a cassette tape... the tape is rewound  and played back through a small loudspeaker hidden inside a teapot. … the lid of the pot is raised and lowered, changing the resonance characteristics of the pot.”

Essentially, the artist took a part of The Beatles’ Strawberry Fields Forever and modified its sounds in eccentric ways. But there was something about the sounds within that steel teapot that gave the tune a different aura: a hollow, echo, growing and shrivelling through the air, like memories of the past. And that got me thinking: is Music really about patterns, or is it more about the emotions and the images it creates?

Most people associate some emotions and feelings with musical pieces. But emotions can often be triggered by random events, and random noises. The noise of the wind or could fill you with awe, when you remember the first thunderstorm you saw as a child. Birdsong might make you picture a happy sunlit garden. A clang of metal in the dark could fill you with fear, when the last horror movie you watched floats up in your mind.

All of these are random noises, right? What if this piece I’d heard was not meant to sound pleasant, but instead meant to evoke emotion? I thought back and realised I was trying too hard to find patterns. Maybe if I had just listened, I would have understood.

I recalled a phrase from the description: “trying to counteract dominant culture’s obsessively repetitive...”. The description spoke of people constantly trying to conform to standards, trying the same things over and over: patterns. Instead, they wanted you to simply stay in the moment, feel that sense of discomfort as you relish the struggle between wanting to stay here and wanting to move into the future. Now it may not be the standard definition of Music, but it wasn’t as random as I’d thought. It actually made sense.

What if you could go to a concert, not necessarily to listen to something that sounded pleasant, but could bring back memories you never realised you had; evoke in you emotions that you rarely experience; give you something to think about? I think I’d pay for that.

And no, I still didn’t understand the plant noises noises thing :-/

(All of this is just my take on the matter. This is a topic where people’s opinions vary greatly. What do you think? Please post/comment and tell me how ignorant/stupid I am)