It may seem ironic or even slightly absurd to discuss silence in a context where the sound is art. Perhaps even more absurd is the fact that we are engaging in a kind of dialectical exchange about silence which inevitably materialises in sound. Paradoxes and contradictions aside, for a musician to ask, ‘what is silence?’ is for a painter to ask, ‘what is a canvas?’ or an actor to ask, ‘what is an empty stage?’ Silence has a necessary interrelationship with sound be it music, speech or noise. It also has potential to be translated to space, body and existence – our physical being in the world. Silence has often been construed as nothing, a void or completely disregarded. Instead of speculating the is-ness of silence, by objectifying it as a thing in the world that has positive or negative ontology and dismissing it as merely no-thing, the attempt here is to investigate the experience of silence in music and music performance, as it is as much an expressive gesture as music and sound and it gives light to the experience of listening and performing. An awareness of silence will hopefully be an invitation to a different perspective, regard and respect for its place and space in music and our own minds.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/269916 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Tan, May-Kim |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Restricted Access: Abstract and Citation Only Available |
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