The Art of Not Quite Listening

The Art of Not Quite Listening

In 1963, the avant-garde musician John Cage performed a work titled “Vexations,” an experimental work written by one of his forebears in 1893. This short work for piano is a kind of atonal sound-screen that seems to lose our interest after just a couple of minutes. And yet, its directionlessness fulfils some yearning in its composer that is part hardship and part joke—the accompanying note instructs its performer(s) to play it 840 times in succe…