The sounds of silence

The essence of a cup is that it can contain stuff. His cup is half full.

Right. But it is the emptiness which enables the half-fulllness to occur.

And the fullness that keeps it from being empty.

Enough, already.

try pouring some hot coffee into pure emptiness sans cup.
Lao Tzu was a crackhead

Given a few more hours , Set will no doubt present the entire libretto of "Sounds of Silence"

My favorite chapter from the Tao Te Ching is:

44
Fame or integrity: which is more important?
Money or happiness: which is more valuable?
Success of failure: which is more destructive?

If you look to others for fulfillment,
you will never truly be fulfilled.
If your happiness depends on money,
you will never be happy with yourself.

Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.

Sir Lao Tzu
The Tao Te Ching

Don't we need BOTH the vessel AND its emptiness? Indeed, the emptiness and the vessel define each other like yin and yang. Complementarity and balance are everything (and nothing).

I believe the point being made is that while we all notice -- and often praise -- the physical attributes which surround an emptiness, we fail to realize that, in fact, it is the emptiness itself which has become useful. I'm reminded of something I posted on edgarblythe's daily quotations thread which also speaks to this. It's from an interview with renowned pianist Artur Schnabel who told a reporter:

"I don't think I handle the notes much differently from other pianists. But the pauses between the notes -- ah, that is where the artistry lies."

The silence is every bit as important as the music. It makes the music possible. The emptiness of a room is as important as the walls that surround it. We live in the empty space, not in the wall.

So, yes, JL, I'm not arguing that the surrounding matter is unimportant; it is what creates the very useful emprty space.

Yes, that was half of what I was saying, a crucial half.

Here's another worthwhile quote that I hope helps illustrate what I'm trying to get across. It's from a man named Modupe, who grew up in French Guinea, writing about his childhood: "We learned that silences as well as sounds are significant in the forest...[we learned] how to listen to the silences...Deeply felt silences might be said to be the core of our Kofon religion. During these times, the nature within ourselves found unity with the nature of the earth."

I actually got the inspiration for the headline of this thread -- "The sounds of silence" -- not from the Simon and Garfunkel classic, but reading a memoir by an Oglala Sioux named Luther Standing Bear. He describes his childhood in 1870s Dakota: "[We children] were taught to sit still and enjoy [the silence]. They were taught to use their organs of smell, to look when apparently there was nothing to see, and to listen intently when all seemingly was quiet."

Some of this may seem alien to Western readers, but anyone familiar with Japanese Noh plays will know that properly-timed silences are every bit as important as any dialogue or spoken material.

Atoms are mostly empty space.
Space that can't be filled with anything.
Shells of probability never broken.

As a musician I am deeply aware of the importance of silence. It IS half of what music is about (notes and rests)

As a musician, I agree completely. In a way, making music is a matter of pronouncing silence.

Could we also say that music is a matter of punctuating silence?
We might even say it's a way of playing silence. I'm thinking of the sonata for piano by John Cage--can't remember its name. The pianist comes out on the stage and takes his seat. But instead of playing the piano he sits there for 33 or so minutes while the audience waits in silent anticipation. Actually the inactivity of the pianist puts the audience in an "enhanced" position to hear everything else: the trucks driving by, the birds singing outside, one's neighbor's wheezing, police siren in the distance, etc. etc. The noises of life become the sounds of John Cage's sonata.

Yes, I also like to think of music as a matter of punctuating silence. A drum beat can be completely altered by changing the timing of sound rather than the sound itself. I think John Cage's silent sonata is a good reminder that music is a perspective. Traffic and other incidental sounds can form musical impressions if we just listen for them.

I think Cage lost all credibility as a serious composer with that silent sonata.

Just sayin'.

I think he approached sound and music from a very philosophical perspective. I do not know how I would react to it if I went to a concert where it was performed.

I agree. He was primarily a philosopher, therefore his music was that of a conceptual artist. Just as the visual works of Duchamp and Warhol were o.k. to think about but not particularly interesting to see. But to a lesser degree that may be said of much New Music, good to read but not to hear.

I tried striking up a talk about the sound of silence recently. You are making a slightly different point then I, but i often find myself listening to the ringing vibrations of nothing. It can get quite loud...But what is it?