It doesn't make sense to me that the piece should start with a 17 month rest. Surely it doesn't really start until the first note is played?

It’s a deliberate provocation, he certainly anticipated exactly this sort of response.

In a sense he is exploiting a lack of rules that would prevent a piece from starting with this long of a rest.

In other words, he is hacking the process.

Ever been to see an orchestra play? In my opinion, the part where the conductor puts his hands up and the audience and orchestra both grow quiet in anticipation of the start of the piece is semantic.

Beethoven’s 5th symphony (da-da-da-DAA) starts with a rest too, it’s not unusual to notate like this. Many pieces have “pickup” measures which are not complete and much shorter than a full measure. But when the pickup is more than 50% of a normal measure, it’s no longer much of a pickup and starting with a rest to make up the complete measure makes sense.

Complaining about a rest (however long) in a piece by the composer of 4'33'' is certainly A Take.

Regardless of the philosophy of it (which is certainly interesting), many pieces uncontroversially start with a rest. If the first bar doesn’t start on a note, then the piece starts on a rest.

You could argue that the first bar is actually shorter than all the following ones and only starts on the first note, but… no one thinks like that that I ever heard of

> Surely it doesn't really start until the first note is played?

That question itself is built on a radical assumption. Example:

Just skimming, it looks like 38 out of 48 of the fugues from Bach's WTC Books 1 & 2 begin with rests followed by several beats worth of melodies in the first measure[1]. If you think the piece only really starts when the first note of the melody is played, then you've got problems. Either:

1. You hear the first articulation of the melody as the downbeat. But that would mean the first measure is in a disparate (and probably irregular) meter. Radical!

2. You hear the incomplete first measure as an anacrusis, or a kind of unaccented lead-in, to the second measure: OMG even more radical!

You can use accent patterns on a modern piano to play any of these fugues using either of these methods, and it will sound silly to non-silly keyboard players.

What's more, non-silly keyboard players do feel the pulse for the first downbeat of these pieces when they perform. Most of them will even inhale before the downbeat, as if they are somehow singing the melody through their fingers.

Finally, lots of music begins with rests: not just conservative cases like Bach, but progressive cases like the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth, and of course the radical cases like Cage's.

This leads to one of the things I love about Cage's music: it compels criticisms that reveal fundamental misunderstandings about music. E.g., you don't buy the radical case-- perhaps reasonable. But you then speculate there are no cases-- which is at odds with common musical practice.

If Cage's music did nothing but compel these questions it would be worth its weight in pine nuts.

Edit:

1: Bach does this because nearly all the fugues have three or more independent melodies singing at the same time. If they are all singing on every downbeat it can quickly sound really clunky and predictable.

Check out his other work 4'33". It's an even more extreme try at silence as music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3

Not unless it was a "meaningful", aka "musical", rest

Lots of music starts with rests. If the first note isn't on the 1, you'll have rests before it. Not usual at all.

In a live orchestra performance, the conductor raises his hands. The audience quiets in anticipation.

He gives an up tick indicating the beginning of the music, then the downbeat of the start of the first measure.

No sound is heard.

The conductor continues to mark time. The silence is deep...profound.

The conductor continues to mark the time of the passing measures.

The audience listens.

At some point, positive sound breaks the silence - suddenly, loudly destroying the stillness! Or possibly very nearly silently - at the uncertain threshold of perception, the audible music begins...