Time
On September 5, 2001, in Halberstadt, Germany, the performance of a piece of music began with a stretch of silence lasting a preposterous 518 days. Composed for the organ, the first chord wouldn’t sound for another year and a half, which it finally did on February 5, 2003. It would sustain for another 513 days before moving on to the second chord on July 5, 2004, almost three years after the piece began. As astonishingly long as these durations are, they are merely the opening gestures for a piece of music called Organ2/ASLSP (As Slow as Possible) by John Cage.
The length of the performance is significant to Halberstadt’s musical history. The town is known for having installed the first ever documented 12-tone Gothic pipe organ, completed in 1361. The John Cage Organ Foundation of Halberstadt decided the performance should equal the time between the first organ’s construction in 1361 and the year 2000. And so, Organ2/ASLSP continues to be performed today, and if things go well, it isn’t expected to finish sounding its final chord until September 4, 2640.
Since the performance is expected to last about twenty generations, it is impossible for any one human being to hear Organ2/ASLSP in its entirety. Listening to any part of the work is akin to watching sequoias grow or mountains erode. Meanwhile, on the quick end of the extreme time-span spectrum for music, the English grindcore band Napalm Death have made their own quirky mark in musical history. Their song, You Suffer, currently holds the Guinness World Record for the shortest song, clocking in at a fleeting 1.316 seconds. It is so brief, with merely four incomprehensibly fast words for lyrics — “You suffer, but why?” — that listening to it can barely be justified as a musical experience. As unusual as Organ2/ASLSP and You Suffer are, they are significant because they draw attention to the fact that music is bound to the human experience and understanding of time.
At the risk of stating the obvious, music must occur in time. It is a combination of sounds in sequence over time that can express form, beauty, and emotion. For an audience to experience music, time must pass, and as it does, the music reveals itself, just as a sculpture will reveal its facets to a viewer as they walk around it in space.
Time is the foundational consideration for the composer.
What is the duration of the music you are creating?
What are the proportions of your music?
What is the length of each sound and silence?
How are your created sounds experienced as time passes?
How will the sounds you make affect the experience of time?
