Is silence important in music?...........

Yes, because there are so many tones in silence. Everything emanates from silence. There's endless possibility. So when you're writing music, you come from a state of absolute concentration. I actually like, when I’m writing music, to have noise. I have the TV on, and a lot of people are always in my house making noise. It doesn't make a difference to me because I'm going to be concentrating with such intensity on what I'm trying to hear that the inside of my mind will be absolutely silent, except for what I’m hearing. And when I stop hearing it or if I stop, then there's absolute quiet. So that absolute silence is very important. It's like a meditation. In trumpet playing, we have something called long tone -- just one tone that you hold -- and that tone can become like white noise, like the sound of the ventilation. We hear "Whhhhh," and you try to make that tone so still that it is like silence. Essay: Wynton Marsalis http://wyntonmarsalis.org/