Re: More on silence

[Brian Gygi <bgygi@xxxxxxxxx>]

Along the lines of Elliot Handelsman's comments, a composer friend of mine
responded:

I consider a rest as part of a musical
phrase and analogous to the musical language as
"negative" hue is in a black-and-white photograph. In
fact, I find that "silence" in terms of rests within a
musical phrase creates "tension" more effectively than
notes do at times. I have a choral work, based on a
chinese poem of Tu Fu of only 12 measures long. The
penultimate measure consists of six beats of silence.
I find it to be the toughest measure in my music to
perform, as it acts as the "dominant" chord of the
phrase. The term "rest" then is a misnomer.

The other point about musical "silence" is that it
serves as a frame for the "song" or "piece", like a
frame separates the "art" from the "wall".