> His most famous piece, 4'33", is designed to be played by any combination of instruments - but musicians are instructed not to play them.<p>This is even better played back from a digital recording. You need those gold audio cables to truly appreciate the silence.
The orbits of the Galilean moons form a perfectly-tuned triple octave, plus a slightly flat minor tenth (1:2:4:9.4). After a slight glissando, they will likely settle in a quadruple octave (1:2:4:8) and stop there, in about 1.5 Gyr. It's a cross-cutting phenomenon that the natural universe likes to self-arrange itself into chords [4]<p><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.01106" rel="nofollow">https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.01106</a> (<i>"Long-term evolution of the Galilean satellites: the capture of Callisto into resonance"</i>)<p>via <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilean_moons#Origin_and_evolution" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilean_moons#Origin_and_evol...</a>
Its fascinating how the interest and energy around a project like this manages to be self-reinforcing. The idea on the face of it is quite nonsensical: building a machine to make continuous droning sounds for years at a time. How likely is it that the song actually would play to completion? The fascination is that it is not impossible that the effort will succeed, and its already gone far enough to be quite amazing in the attempt. And in the process its achieved a completely new way to experience music. That last part is both shallow (its a pretty boring way to experience music, and its hard to call it music at that time scale) and deep (with this performance, a chord change is opportunity for ceremony and news releases: its an event!).
Reminds me of the Clock of the Long Now: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now</a>
One quip: this piece is not "as slow as possible". One could write a piece of "music" that is one note to be played at the heat death of the universe, or a piece that is silence forever. It's fun to play with the definition of "music" like John Cage did his whole career, but the title of his piece is technically incorrect, the worst kind of incorrect.
<i>"Some people reportedly booked tickets years in advance to experience Monday's chord change"</i><p>Clearly they're attention seekers—their rustling about in seats or asleep and snoring from boredom would be far more entertaining than the actual performance.<p>One has to wonder what kind of people are drawn to a musical event where if it were compared with say Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue BWV 582 then the latter's performance would be seen as a prestissimo running at relativistic speeds. Perhaps social scientists have insights into such strange behavior.<p>Of course, it's those who've booked tickets who are the center of attention here, such antics have always been expected of Cage.
It isn't 639 years but.. Radiohead - Pyramid Song 800% slower (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiKWfcy-Z70" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiKWfcy-Z70</a>)
I heard that one night after a performance in college, John Cage returned to his room, where his roommate heard him laughing, “I did it! I fooled them again!”<p>What a character.
The closest thing I can think of is the strange art of bell ringing in peals [1], aka change ringing, in which bells in church towers are rung in every possible order. One of the very longest takes 18 hours.<p>[1]. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peal" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peal</a>
><i>The longest - and slowest - music composition in existence had a big day on Monday - it changed chord for the first time in two years.</i><p>That's faster than some pop "music" acts change chords.
> While the composition officially started in 2001 - it began with 18 months of silence, and the first notes only rang out in 2003.<p>That's one way to launch an MVP!
That was a the catchiest part so far but I am waiting for the Marshmello remix, which he’s releasing promptly on the 2640 Ryan Seacrest New Year’s show
Clearly nonsense. But some in the art world give it attention? Do they mean to be ridiculed?<p>A 'piece' is fundamentally something to be played, or something to be heard. This silly exercise violates both of those. It's not music, it's a stunt, that's clear.<p>Appeals to some folks' sense of wonder, I suppose.