Silent Running

Listening to - Running up That Hill - Kate Bush

Which hill would that be then? Oh! Really? Well whatever turns you on I suppose.

Radio 3 is to broadcast a full performance of 4'33" tonight. I have never actually heard it right through though sometimes I might catch a snatch of it during a meeting. Yes we can all joke about it but doesn't it have a serious meaning. I don't think that the score defines that the piece is 4'33" of silence but rather that amount of the Orchestra NOT playing which in most case means that it is not silence but rather the ambient sounds of the performance venue. There are of course many musicians who use ambient sounds as part of their own compositions so 4'33" id simply the ultimate distillation of that within the formal structures of a performing orchestra. Not sure I like all the pieces for prepared piano, though some of the sounds produced are interesting if not musically familiar.

My daughter likes making the spanners in my tool kit into some sort of xylophone. I tried to improve on it at the weekend by using plastic Raw-plugs as suspension for the spanners but the act of hitting them to make the noise just knocks the whole arrangement about. I have been wanting to make my own rough-and-ready marimba out of blocks of wood ever since I went to Bali but of course along with lots of other projects I have not managed to get around to it. Anyway, my daughter is now going to drum club at school and I suppose I will have to drag the drum pads down from the attic and put batteries in them. I love loud drumming!