The composer John Cage wrote a brilliant piece called "Four Minutes and Thirty-Three Seconds" which addresses the value of silence in music (your comments about white space in Japanese art reminded me, Allan C). In the piece, a pianist comes out on stage, spends some time opening up his piano, sits at his bench, and proceeds to stay still for what seems to be an unending period. Then, without playing a note, he gets back up, closes up the piano and walks off. All this in the span of 4 minutes, 33 seconds. Sure, it pushes the definition of "music," but it's an interesting exercise.

It's amazing to watch and hear what happens when this piece is performed for an unsuspecting audience. At first, everyone is silent, eagerly anticipating the playing. When the performer sits still for a while longer, you start to hear small rustling and coughing. As people get more and more impatient, you begin to hear all of the ambient noise that you normally tune out in the course of a day: clothing rustling, breathing, sniffling, programs crackling, the noise of the air system.

Some people come away feeling cheated that they have not heard "real" music. Other people come to more of a realization that music is what you make of it, and that silence can never truly exist. 4 minutes and 33 seconds is probably about as long as most people will sit there without stalking off and demanding their money back. Who knows, perhaps Cage was having a laugh at all of our expenses. Either way, it forces you to listen in a whole new way, both for those people who enjoy silence, and those who don't.

Jigger