Final Artist Statement 4’33:
For this project, I created a 4 minute and 33 second long composition in honor of John Cage’s famous 4’33 piece. The meaning behind Cage’s 4’33 is the concept of all sounds being a form of music. His piece contains no typical “instruments” and encourages audience members to listen to the sounds of the environment surrounding them and to take that into account as the song. In order to do this I used multiple sounds from our classes' shared folder and clipped them together. I wanted the introduction to grab the listener's attention and sound slightly beat-like but also not fall under the song category. Some of my favorite and most used sounds were the baby toy, water drop, lighter, and blowing bubbles through a straw. These elements acted as a solid background and allowed me to further layer the overtop. The overall theme I went with was sci-fi space-agey. When listening to the audio I couldn’t help but picture a little alien character peacefully strolling through space and gazing around while listening to all the mysterious sounds that may occur in this other world. I wanted the climax to be pretty direct and bold as well because when I imagined this world although it is not meant to be scary, it does feel sort of “halloweeney” at times. Although it felt sort of daunting to listen to the same sounds repeated numerous times, it was important in curating the final result. Ultimately I was happy with how this project turned out and enjoyed the challenge of creating it!
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