One of the things we touched on in the lectorial yesterday was a listening exercise that had me very confused, though I guess that was the point. We listened to a piece John Cage style – in other words, it wasn’t a piece at all. Until yesterday I didn’t know anything about this man, but now I know he’s an avant grade performer who would sit in front of an audience for a solid 5 minutes and not do a thing. The intention I guess was to make people feel uncomfortable and confused – like Rebecca demonstrated with us on Monday – but more importantly, to try and get the audience to really be alert to the sounds around them.

So after that, it got me thinking about what sounds I hear and what sounds I listen to. As someone whose perpetually wearing headphones, whether I’m listening to music or not (like right now…) I tend to miss a lot of the little sounds around me. This isn’t from a lack of appreciation (although maybe that plays a part to an extent), but I have always been very tuned in to noise and sound and easily distracted as a result. I remember shutting doors and telling my mum to turn off the radio at the other end of the house because I was being distracted while trying to read my book in silence.

Without getting too deep here, I want to mention that as a toddler I almost lost my hearing. I had to have surgery to prevent from going deaf (hence the sensitive ears) and additionally, I’ve grown up with a grandmother who was completely deaf. So really, sound has always been pretty prevalent for me. For as long as I remember I’ve been sensitive to sound – just last week I went to see the Force Awakens and I had to stuff tissue in my ears because it was too loud!

I think what John Cage was trying to do with his piece ‘4, 33” was incredibly obscure and clever. It made me listen to the little things around me for the rest of the day. I considered how I could tune in and out of conversations a meter, two meters away from me and really tested the lengths to which I could hear things most people overlook.