When most people hear the phrase, "silence and music", they'll think of John Cage's piece, 4'33", where silence is exactly what we get for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. A two-day event at Trinity College, Dublin will explore the role of silence in music. The event is a collaboration between the Trinity Centre for Asian Studies and the college's Department of Music.
Adrian Tien from Trinity's Centre for Asian Studies joined Seán Rocks on Monday's Arena to discuss The Music of Silence: Its Interpretation and Performance. Tien comes at the subject from a linguistic perspective, as he's a linguist by profession, as well as a musician. True silence, in the sense of a complete absence of sound, doesn't actually exist, he says, at least according to the perspective of traditional Chinese music. Tien tells Seán that, in ancient China, according to Confucius and many other leading philosophers, music was divided into Yah and Soo – elegant or refined music and what might be called vulgar music.
"Yah music fits in all the proper functions and purposes a piece of music is supposed to serve."
Can silence be musical? The aim of the Music of Silence event, Tien says, is to get people to think beyond sound and also to think of silences as very important musical devices.
You can hear Adrian Tien talking to Seán Rocks on Arena by clicking here.
Further details of the Music and Silence event here.