Coffee-Table Notes

When John Cage first conceived his composition, 4’33”, he couldn’t have predicted how the pandemic-enforced lockdown we’re currently living in would inadvertently create the perfect environment for it to be heard.   4’33”, after all, is arguably the American composer’s most taboo-busting piece of all-embracing zen, in which musicians or performers studiously don’t play their instruments for the time outlined by the title, while the rest of the world ebbs and flows around them. Often misunderstood as a ‘silent’ composition, 4’33” is more akin to a form of environmental sound art. Here, the sounds of the natural world are captured in what amounts to a fleeting pause for thought that democratises the experience for both listener and artist. This is something John Wills has taken a chance on for his independently produced podcast, The Great John Cage Project – in Lockdown. Now five editions in, Wills’ self-produced initiative has seen him present a series of recordings collected f

Life During Lockdown Amongst the mountain of paper on my desk, some of it   has acquired a ghostly air since the Coronavirus-enforced lockdown in March. Here, gathering dust at the top of the pile, are flyers for theatre productions that were supposed to open last month, but which didn’t make it to the rehearsal room. Next to them are more DIY style leaflets picked up at assorted late-night dives for gigs by bands I’ve barely heard of who never got to play. Like the increasingly tattered and long out of date posters for theatres and concert halls that adorn walls around town, the flyers and brochures on my desk look like monuments commemorating another time, when you could still have a good night out without putting your life at risk. Perhaps most poignant of all is a black covered brochure that contains details of Edinburgh International Festival 2020, set to take place in August, but necessarily cancelled in the wake of the pandemic. Where the blackness once had a sleek chic