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Almacg: You made some good points on other threads (even if we disagree about the whole "atonality" thing), so I respect your opinion. But I can't help saying "Nonsense!" to the whole "art is ability" idea. I agree with SSC. Art doesn't have to be "hard to write" for it to have any value. In fact, "how hard it was to write" means nothing at all. Writing a complex serialist quadruple-fugue in sonata form doesn't make good art. The creative act does.
Admittedly, if you can't write notes or constantly write high C's for the contrabassoon your artistic ideas might just not come through because you can't articulate them. But as long as your abilities suffice to put your ideas into effect to the maximum extent, I see no problem.
I don't care about how something was written (unless that is part of the artistic concept). I don't care about talent or skill. I care about the music.
(Apart from all that, I don't believe anyone could have written 4'33'', even if they technically were easily able to. But John Cage was someone who had learned to listen all the time, something not many musicians do. One of my teachers told me how he had seen Cage standing at a tram station in the middle of the street, like in a trance, totally absorbed by listening to the sounds around him. The ability and readiness to listen is one of the abilities I admire most in musicians. 4'33'' was a logical consequence of years of listening.)
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