Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
How much gold is in silence?
SILENCE and gold. Are they related? We have previously mused on the copyright status of the John Cage composition 4′ 33″ – four-and-a-half minutes during which not a single note is played (1 November). Delightfully, we discover a small but perfectly formed study of the issue of copyright and silence in the form of an essay at .
It reveals that when musician Mike Batt put a track called A One Minute Silence on an album, the composers appeared as “Batt/Cageâ€. In the UK, PRS for Music when music is played in public – on the radio, for example – and distributes the money to composers and to owners of the so-called “mechanical right†in recordings. It faithfully noted the writing credit and made an entry on John Cage’s ledger in respect of… er, what? Who is to say whether any and every silence on the radio constitutes use of the track or not?
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Batt, however, had officially registered “Clint Cage†as a pseudonym. So this particular silence was co-authored by two instances of the same person.
Silence grows
Feedback envies the colleague who has a copy of the printed score, which instructs the performers not to touch their instruments but permits any ambient sound.
At you can hear licensed excerpts of performances, including one by – an all-star attempt to keep a talent-show product out of the top spot in the 2010 festive season charts.
Our favourite version, though, remains the one performed at the 2010 Boring Conference in London, which observed the letter if not the spirit of the score by taking ambient sound to be the singing of one Martin White, to the vigorous accompaniment of the ukelele, about things that can be accomplished in 4 minutes and 33 seconds.
A variety of absence of noise
ALMOST certainly not violating any rights of John Cage is the two-CD set Kenotaphion, to which the above-mentioned colleague with an interest in silence alerts us. It was released in 2001 on 11 November – Armistice Day – by Jonty Semper, who the Guardian newspaper that he didn’t think listeners would be bored by his compilation of every surviving recording of two-minute silences observed at the Cenotaph in London. “All the silences are quite distinctive,†he said. “What is remarkable is how different they are.â€
Minimal information here
FEEDBACK is now intrigued by the implications for information theory. How little data can a recording contain and still count as a recording?
More accurate prognostication
AFTER reporting on premonitions of the internet (15 November), we came across a page from a 1964 issue of Tape Recording magazine, sent in by Chris Drewe. It reports predictions by , “widely seen as the father of magnetic tape recordingâ€.
By 2013, Camras predicted, “there will be no question of going out to buy a disc – or even a tape recordâ€. We would all own a recording apparatus “no larger than a box of playing cards, with no mechanically moving partsâ€.
Anyone wanting music would “ring up and it will be transmitted over a direct line†to that box. Furthermore, we “may no longer need currency†since we would all have a “magnetic credit cardâ€. Well done!
One prediction may have been a tad too trusting of rationality in technological advancement. In electronic commerce, “the appropriate tax will automatically be deductedâ€, Camras predicted. Feedback suspects he did not intend “appropriate†to include derisory rates of tax on the profits of internet corporations nominally based in Luxembourg.
A really immobile phone
TALKING of prediction, we recall mentioning powdered alcohol as “one of those stories that comes around once every decade or so, much as ‘videophones’ used to†(5 July). We found patents for powdered alcohol filed at 10-year intervals from 1964 (2 August).
Now, in the ever-entertaining Modern Mechanix blog, we find a plug for a videophone from the Toshiba corporation in July 1964 (). A metre long, it was intended to sell for $250 – nearly $2000 at today’s prices. “It can be used on ordinary telephone lines,†the blurb says: “Push a button and within five seconds the picture appears.†Do you have more recent sightings?
Tweet unlocking time
FINALLY, reviewing the short links we had created reminded us to check the status of Twitter’s application in the European Union for extended trademark protection of the word “Tweet†– see (26 July). Scrutiny of the application was completed on 28 October and it was published the following day – see .
Skimming more than 750 contexts in which usage of the word would be restricted, should the application be approved, we discover they include “cremation… night guards, copyright management, opening of security locks, organising and conducting religious meetings… [and] escorting in society (chaperoning)â€. Should any escorts, or others, wish to object, the deadline is 29 January 2015.
In memory
John Hoyland, editor of Feedback for many years, died last week. A comic and raconteur, John made innumerable contributions to Â鶹´«Ã½ over more than 25 years, most famously the concept of “nominative determinismâ€. He was a greatly loved member of the team. We will all miss him.