Last summer, I was fortunate to have visited the recently completed and wonderful Museum of Modern Art in Ft.Worth, Texas. However, some of the exhibits were well, a bit of a stretch to be considered art it seemed to me. Art is a funny thing to judge and maybe I'm just not qualified to appreciate it. But only when my wife pointed out a particular "exhibit" was I sure that some of these guys are laughing at us. We stepped into an immense room that appeared empty to my untrained eye except for a lit, single bulb, 4 foot fluorescent fixture that was leaning against the wall at a 30 degree angle at the far end. Foolishly thinking it was under construction, I was ready to explore the next room when my wife said: "I wonder if that is art?" Intrigued, we walked over to it and sure enough, a placard declared it was graciously on loan to the museum for an undetermined amount of time- in all it's 40 watt glory. Apparently, music has a parallel universe.

Apple can't say how many silent songs have sold. But three of the tracks, each entitled "Silent" by hip-hop group Slum Village--are labeled as explicit, so it's anyones guess. Oddly, there has been a market for inaudible music over the decades. Most famously, composer John Cage composed "4'33""--a 1952 piece that features just over four and a half minutes without sound. The brilliance of the composition is only matched by it's hauntingly direct numeric title. Yeah, he was tired afterwards, but it was a "good" kind of tired.

The BBC broadcast a live performance earlier this year--featuring the BBC Symphony Orchestra, no less. I heard it the other day on public radio and nearly wept, only to realise later that the radio was not on.

Cage's estate even managed to win a copyright fight in 2002, getting Mike Batt to pay a six-figure settlement because a Batt recording included a silent track that he credited to Cage.

Batt had initially vowed to fight the copyright claims and was quoted in press reports saying, "Mine is a much better silent piece. I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and 33 seconds." Yeah, that makes sense.

Actually, this looks more like a glitch in the system as I went to the Wal*Mart site, typed in Slum Village and sure enough the tracks came up. But three were only 5 seconds long, one was 8 seconds and were appropriately called "blank tracks". You could also stream the silence and then make your decision. But, they were offered as tracks for 88 cents each. So It is not a composition in all cases. Neither Batt's piece nor Cage's is available on iTunes. Good thing, can you imagine the artists furor over their creation being encoded in some horrid lossy format? The story is fun to read so go here to C|Net and check out the whole sordid tale, where there are links galore to verify this bizarre story.

Source: C|Net