4 ms·

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 piec

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.

osigurdson 3y ago
It does depend on the definition of "music". A constant tone of infinite duration might not be considered music to all. In my opinion (just rendered now), music must have 20 BPM < tempo < 1000 BPM.
- datashaman 3y ago
  ambient music enters the chat.
inimino 3y ago
You're misinterpreting it. It's not a descriptive title at all. It's a tempo indication and like all such is meant as an instruction to the player, also being a play on "as fast as possible" which is a perfectly legitimate tempo marking. Referring to a piece of music by its tempo marking is common.
- mminer237 3y ago
  One can play infinitely more slow than he can fast though.
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    Not really. If I wanted to finish playing this piece on my own, I'd have to play it at least 10x as fast
zellyn 3y ago
I mean, you could play his piece at a speed designed to spread it out evenly from the present until the (predicted) moment when the universe can no longer support the mechanism used to play it. That would literally be "as slow as possible", and seems technically fine.
- d1sxeyes 3y ago
  It's technically fine, but tempo instructions such as this are often just rough guides, rather than an accurate BPM target. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings If you check the Wikipedia article for the piece itself[0], it explains: > Musicians and philosophers discussed Cage's instruction to play "as slow as possible" at a conference in 1997, because a properly maintained pipe organ could sound indefinitely. The John Cage Organ Foundation Halberstadt decided to play the piece for 639 years, to mark the time between the first documented permanent organ installation in Halberstadt Cathedral, in 1361, and the originally proposed start date of 2000. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Slow_as_Possible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Slow_as_Possible

osigurdson 3y ago

It does depend on the definition of "music". A constant tone of infinite duration might not be considered music to all. In my opinion (just rendered now), music must have 20 BPM < tempo < 1000 BPM.

datashaman 3y ago
ambient music enters the chat.

inimino 3y ago

You're misinterpreting it. It's not a descriptive title at all. It's a tempo indication and like all such is meant as an instruction to the player, also being a play on "as fast as possible" which is a perfectly legitimate tempo marking. Referring to a piece of music by its tempo marking is common.

mminer237 3y ago
One can play infinitely more slow than he can fast though.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  Not really. If I wanted to finish playing this piece on my own, I'd have to play it at least 10x as fast

zellyn 3y ago

I mean, you could play his piece at a speed designed to spread it out evenly from the present until the (predicted) moment when the universe can no longer support the mechanism used to play it. That would literally be "as slow as possible", and seems technically fine.

d1sxeyes 3y ago
It's technically fine, but tempo instructions such as this are often just rough guides, rather than an accurate BPM target. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings If you check the Wikipedia article for the piece itself[0], it explains: > Musicians and philosophers discussed Cage's instruction to play "as slow as possible" at a conference in 1997, because a properly maintained pipe organ could sound indefinitely. The John Cage Organ Foundation Halberstadt decided to play the piece for 639 years, to mark the time between the first documented permanent organ installation in Halberstadt Cathedral, in 1361, and the originally proposed start date of 2000. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Slow_as_Possible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Slow_as_Possible