There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time.

There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.

I spent the entire night listening to all sorts of music. From Dvorak's Romantic classic the "New World Symphony" to John Philip Sousa's "King Cotton" to Shostakovich's "Festive Overture" to John Cage's 4'33". Ah, King Cotton and Festive Overture give me good and bad memories from last year. I can still picture myself marching down Main Street, U.S.A. at Disneyland last year when I listen to King Cotton. That has to be one of the coolest things I've ever done in my whole life. The entire thing was just plain epic: from the announcer personally announcing our school right down to the very last drum cadence.

However, Festive Overture makes my fingers twitch in pain in the terrible memories of having to play it over and over. When I close my eyes, I can still see all of the accidentals flying across the page as I struggled to keep up with the musicians from CAL that joined to play it with us. I'm very surprised that the oboes trusted me with the solo (even though it's a tiny one). One girl even let me play her English Horn! It's so much fun! She had a lot of piercings on her face, and Joe says that I probably got AIDS from her...

4'33" has to be one of the most interesting songs I've ever heard. I had heard about it before, but today was the first time I ever listened to it. For those of you unfamiliar with the song, it's a song with three movements and always consists of four minutes and thirty-three seconds of performance time. The first movement is Tacet, the second movement is Tacet, and the third movement is Tacet. This means that no one in the orchestra plays at all. That's right, it's four minutes and thirty-three seconds of "silence" or however close the audience can get to it. The song has an interesting effect on people. During performances that involved the orchestra playing, the audience feels free to cough and whisper to their neighbors. However, 4'33" creates an tremendous tension among everyone. Everyone tries to be as silent as possible, and yet, everyone is listening for others to make a sound...anything to shatter the tension.