The Woodstock Festival of 1969 was not the first performance of note at Woodstock,NY. The first was in August of 1952 at Maverick Concert Hall where pianist David Tudor took the stage with a stopwatch in hand and sat at the piano not playing a note for 4 minutes and 33 seconds (titled 4'33") commonly known as John Cage's silent piece. Silence played a major role in several of Cage's works,giving over to other sounds that are often ignored. The idea behind "Four Thirty-Three" was for this period of silence to be sold to Muzak Company (that being the standard length of their canned music). I'm sure many of you who find Muzak annoying could get behind that idea. I also wonder if 4'33" was the inspiration for the title of the Simon and Garfunkel piece "Sounds of Silence"?
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