In John Cage's best known work, 4'33", a person approaches an instrument as if to play it and maintains that poise for a brief time. Audiences for the piece place their attention in the particular state usually reserved for hearing more conventional music, but then hear, instead, the sounds of their environment. The point of the work is to open one's ears, in the outside world as well as in the concert hall, so that one can listen to any sounds in one's environment as one would listen to music.