When Christina Rossetti described a “Silence more musical than any song” in her elegiac 1862 sonnet “Rest”, it was little more than a compelling poetic trope. A century and a half later, and post-4’33’’ – John Cage’s 1952 composition in which the pianist leaves the piano untouched throughout its three movements – the idea has become a central topic of artistic discussion. As the recording industry has developed throughout the 20th century – “the Age of Noise”, according to Aldous Huxley – and into the 21st, there has been an increasing interest in the cultural and commercial value of music and, correspondingly, the function and significance of silence.

City limits: Bill Drummond on the outskirts of Linz

Since 2005 the debate has been given an annual stoking on November 21 with No Music Day, the brainchild of Bill Drummond, former frontman of dance band The KLF and seasoned cultural provocateur. (One of his most celebrated stunts, in 1994, consisted in incinerating £1m.) The date is no accident: in true fast-before-the-feast tradition it falls on the eve of celebrations for the patron saint of music, Saint Cecilia, on November 22. And a theme of mild rebellion is promoted through a website displaying little more than a cheery, quasi-political manifesto ordering, among other things, that: “No hymns will be sung... no records will be played on the radio... iPods will be left at home... jingles will not jangle... milkmen will not whistle... ” What started as an almost private observance has gathered pace and publicity over five years, and has coincided with a rash of books on the theme of silence, including Stuart Sim’s fervent Manifesto for Silence: Confronting the Politics and Culture of Noise and Sara Maitland’s rather more contemplative A Book of Silence.

In spite of its provocative presentation, there is no fixed agenda. “No Music Day exists for various reasons, you may have one,” the website concludes. Drummond is careful not to engage with people’s perennial grumblings about background music or the wider issue of noise pollution; the idea was inspired by positive efforts to enhance the enjoyment of music.

“I had this fantasy of being a medieval hermit and travelling from my hermitage in the middle of nowhere to a city. I get to the city, I find the cathedral, I walk through its doors into a shaft of sunlight, and there’s a choir practising,” Drummond explains. “I know that the impact of that music would be far greater than anything I could experience in my life from now on in.”

This year marks the final year of Drummond’s Five-Year Plan. Throughout this half-decade there have been massive changes in the way we listen to music: the latest iPod model boasts 160GB of memory – that is enough for 40,000 tracks, or 111 days worth of continual play – and through MP3 players and online streaming sites such as Spotify and We7 we can now listen to almost anything, almost anywhere.

Traditionally, music was often tied to a specific event (a church service, a concert) and required active involvement rather than passive complicity. Now we have become addicted to the quick-fix playlist click-through and our enjoyment of music is often compromised by a sense of numbness or boredom caused by aural overload.

Perhaps the most telling consequence is that many people have become frightened of silence. Inevitably, a fear of silence is inextricably linked with a fear of death, because even if we insulate ourselves against all extraneous noise we are still aware of the thudding metronome inside our chest. But many people now choose to live their lives with a continual soundtrack accompaniment. Aware of this effect, Drummond has gradually weaned himself off a dependence on music – he has got rid of his entire CD collection – and attempts actively to listen as opposed to passively hearing. He describes it as “a radical shift in my life” and says he has noticed a marked sharpening of the senses.

Of course, it would be wrong to suggest that recent technology hasn’t revealed exciting listening experiences and imbued a great deal of music with new meaning. There is an unquestionable thrill to be had from playing John Adams’ instrumental fanfare “Short Ride in a Fast Machine” through headphones as the tube train hurtles from stop to stop, for example. And there is the freedom to be your own curator, programming music according to mood and setting without intervention from the taste police: who says you can’t segue Gluck into The Goo Goo Dolls?

What Drummond has discovered, however, is that for music to mean something to him, it must have some sense of occasion. Though he would hate to be labelled fogeyish and reactionary – “I like things changing, I like things evolving,” he insists – and is careful to avoid nostalgia for some past golden age, he believes that recording was in essence “a 20th-century medium” and that it will not exist in the same way in the future.

This year No Music Day is being hosted by the Austrian city of Linz, this year’s European Capital of Culture, and the planned events add up to an impressive swansong (if that is the right word) for the initiative: schools and churches are having no sung music during the day, the main cinema is playing only films with no soundtrack, Spar shops have agreed not to play music and McDonald’s outlets are displaying No Music Day statements on their canteen trays.As for the future, the website will remain but Drummond will no longer function as the public face of the campaign.

“It was never to do with me, it’s not a fame thing, it has genuinely touched the zeitgeist,” he concludes, “and now it’s out there for other people to take it on board.”