We can not consider music without considering silence. Without silence, there is no sound - no way to tell the difference between sound and not sound. As musicians, we are interested in the way that sound is structured to create a spiritual, intellectual or emotional impact. And too many of us overlook silence.
Silence is to a musician what shadow is to a painter or photographer. It is a way to accentuate the bright areas. It is a way to draw attention to where you want it. But silence is something more in a temporal medium like music. It is a way to create, satisfy or foil expectation.
When we consider rhythm, is it a repetition of sound or a repetition of silence? Is silence the default state for music? That is, when the music is over, does the world revert to silence? Or is silence a constructed thing, like music. Perhaps the default sonic state of the world is chaos or noise - the hum of the computers, cars, airplanes, talking, birds. But when we enter the world of music, we have the rare ability to construct silence. People are quiet, the world is quiet.
Perhaps we composers are some of the few with the ability to create silence, not just music.
