page_title: Silence
section_title: Music
hierarchical_section_title: Silence / In art, entertainment, and media / Music
caption_attribution_description: English: Beethoven Symphony No. 9 scherzo, opening bars
context_page_description: Silence is the absence of ambient audible sound, the emission of sounds of such low intensity that they do not draw attention to themselves, or the state of having ceased to produce sounds; this latter sense can be extended to apply to the cessation or absence of any form of communication, whether through speech or other medium.
  Sometimes speakers fall silent when they hesitate in searching for a word, or interrupt themselves before correcting themselves. Discourse analysis shows that people use brief silences to mark the boundaries of prosodic units, in turn-taking, or as
  reactive tokens, e.g., as a sign of displeasure, disagreement, embarrassment, desire to think, confusion, and the like. Relatively prolonged intervals of silence can be used in rituals; in some religious disciplines, people maintain silence for protracted periods, or even for the rest of their lives, as an ascetic means of spiritual transformation.
context_section_description: Music inherently depends on silence, in some form or another, to distinguish other periods of sound and allow dynamics, melodies, and rhythms to have greater impact. For example, most music scores feature rests, which denote periods of silence. In addition, silence in music can be seen as a time for contemplation. The audience feels the effects of the previous notes and melodies, and can intentionally reflect on what they have heard. Silence does not hinder musical excellence but can enhance the sounds of instruments and vocals within a given musical composition.
  
  In his book Sound and Silence (1970), the composer John Paynter says, "the dramatic effect of silence has long been appreciated by composers." He gives as an example "the general pause in the middle of the chorus ‘Have lightnings and thunders …’ in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion":
  
  After the pause, the music continues to the words: "Open up the fiery bottomless pit, O hell!" The silence is intended to communicate a momentary sensation of terror, of staring into unfathomable darkness. Another example of a dramatic silence comes in the "rest full of tension"  at the climactic ending of the Hallelujah chorus in Handel’s Messiah:
  
  Musical silences may also convey humour. Haydn's Quartet in E flat, Op. 33 was nicknamed "The Joke", because of the comic timing of the pauses at the end of the last movement: 
  Taruskin (2010, p. 552) says, "whenever this ending is performed, it takes the audience an extra second or so to recover its wits and realize that the piece is indeed over. The result is an inevitable giggle—the same giggle that overtakes a prestidigitator’s audience when it realizes that it has been ‘had’."
  Barry Cooper (2011, p.38)  writes extensively of Beethoven's many uses of silence for contemplation, for dramatic effect and especially for driving the rhythmic impetus of the music. He cites the start of the second movement of the Ninth Symphony, where the silences contribute to a powerful sense of propulsion: "The rhythm of bar 1 is incomplete and demands a note at the beginning of bar 2. The substitution of such a note by a whole-bar rest therefore gives the effect of a suppressed sound, as if one were about to speak but then refrains at the last moment. The 'suppressed sound' is then repeated in bar 4, and 'developed' (by being doubled) in bars 7 and 8." Grove (1898, p. 355) writes of the "strange irregularity of rhythm in the sixth bar" of this movement.
  
  Much has been said about the harmony of the opening to Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, which Taruskin (2010, p.540) calls "perhaps the most famous, surely the most commented-on, single phrase of music ever written."  However, Wagner’s strategic use of silences between phrases intensifies the troubled ambiguity of the music: "The chord that fills the ensuing silence in the listener’s inner ear… is the unstated – indeed never to be stated, and ultimately needless to be stated – tonic of that key."
  
  Some of the most effective musical silences are very short, lasting barely a fraction of a second. In the spirited and energetic finale of his Symphony No. 2, Brahms uses silences at several points to powerfully disrupt the rhythmic momentum that has been building. (See also syncopation.) 
  During the 20th century, composers explored further the expressive potential of silence in their music. The contemplative concluding bars of Anton Webern’s Symphony (1928) and Stravinsky's Les Noces The Wedding, 1923) make telling and atmospheric use of pauses. Eric Walter White (1947, p.74) describes the ending of Les Noces as follows: "As the voices cease singing, pools of silence come flooding in between the measured strokes of the bell chord, and the music dies away in a miraculously fresh and radiant close."
  John Paynter (1970, p. 24) vividly conveys how silence contributes to the titanic impact of the third section of Messiaen’s orchestral work Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (1964):
  Woodwinds jump, growl and shriek. Silence. Eight solemn bell strokes echo and die. Again silence. Suddenly the brasses blare, and out of
caption: The opening bars of the scherzo from Beethoven's ninth symphony.
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