An article by Andrew Waggoner titled ‘The Colonization of Silence’ discusses the increasing intrusion of manufactured sound into daily life. He argues that silence plays a critical role in our appreciation of the sound environment. Silence is important for what he calls the ‘noiseless recalibration of the soul’.
Here’s what he says about the composer Morton Feldman:
Feldman’s view was equally rich and evocative, colored as it was by his friendship with Cage, though expressed in more workaday terms (he once remarked that like a tailor, he was a craftsman, committed to quality of detail; “the suit fits better” he said.)