aeblog

to the extreme

I first heard about this piece at a performance of Cage's works at Harvard a month or so ago and thought it sounded pretty interesting.

An Organ Recital for the Very, Very Patient

The piece is called "As Slow as Possible" and Cage did not indicate anything else as to how long it should take to perform the piece. Just notes on a page with no tempo leads to somewhat of an intractable situation with the title as one can always slow down no matter how slow one is already going, right? Maybe not in today's world, but certainly in theory. Discounting hyper-speed, physics says that there is an upper limit to speed - that of the speed of light, yes? - but I'm not aware of a lower limit (zero doesn't count because you're not 'going' anymore!). How slow can you go, but still be going? Clearly I need input from a physicist as my knowledge is vastly inferior to my imagination in this situation...

Cage really is as much philosopher as musician and I find that fascinating. I can't say that I'll be headed on a pilgrimage to Halberstadt anytime in the very near future to hear the next note sound, but there is something satisfying to me about the fact that this piece is being performed and taken seriously by enough people to actually keep it going...for 639 years!