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17 months. But in what sense isn’t this a genuine peice of music? It certainly meets Merriam-Webster’s definition: a: vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds
by robin_reala 2y ago
17 months. But in what sense isn’t this a genuine peice of music? It certainly meets Merriam-Webster’s definition:
a: vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony
b: the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity
- cwillu 2y agoAn exploration of what is and is not a piece of music, like this work explicitly is, needs to acknowledge the possibility that the answer might be “no, this isn't”. Dictionary definitions are entirely irrelevent except insofar as they provide the inspiration to ask “wait, but is that _really_ all a work of music is?”
- trbleclef 2y agoOne of HN's few(?) music appreciation professors here: in fact, I start every term posing this question. It's hard to teach music appreciation before a group of humans can agree where music begins and ends :) At the end of the day, like everything else it's a certain degree of statistics and a certain degree of subjectivity.
- lmm 2y agoDoes it in fact have rhythm, melody, harmony, unity, or continuity? If it's too slow for any human to actually observe those qualities in it then I'd argue that it does not.
- robin_reala 2y agoIt’s playing a chord, so harmony exists by definition. It also has 600 years of continuity planned in.
- cwillu 2y agoAnd if a tree falls in a forest with no one to hear it, it makes a sound by definition. …and yet that answer entirely misses the point that the question is about the choice of definition.
- kelnos 2y agoDo photons and electrons not exist, because we cannot observe them directly? You can certainly play a recording of the piece at whatever speed you desire, and decide if it has rhythm, melody, harmony, unity, and continuity. Extremely slowing the piece down does not remove those things.
- dagw 2y agoAre you talking about the composition or this particular performance of that composition. This performance may be too slow for any human to actually observe, but the composition is just a piece of sheet music you can read and judge like any other composition. This is far from the first performance of this piece, it's just that most other performances have been in the 20 minute to 20 hour range.