Ektopia

It was really interesting to watch BBC4’s ‘Here’s A Piano I Prepared Earlier’, especially the parts about John Cage. The aforementioned piano he modified was also really cool, nut, bolts and other bits and pieces shoved between the strings ultimately made it sound very percussive.

A couple of days later I chanced over some more current information about Cage.

“On February 5, 2003, the first three notes of John Cage’s Organ²/ASLSP were played on the organ of St. Burchardi Church in Halberstadt, Germany. However, the performance actually began at the stroke of midnight, September 5, 2001, what would have been Cage’s 89th birthday. And it began with 1 1/2 years of silence.”

ASLSP stands for ‘As Slow As Possible’ and it’s just that, it’s due to finish in the year 2640! If we were listening now we would have to wait till July 5, 2005 just to hear the forth and fifth notes.

As far as I know John Cage is most famous for his composition 4:33 where there’s complete silence for the duration of the tune…minimalist!

I remember seeing a story a couple of years back about an artist (Mike Batt from The Planets) who also had a silent track on their album and credited Cage for co-writing it…he went on to be sued by Cage’s publishers!

After the lawsuit Mike said, “Mine is a much better silent piece. I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and 33 seconds.” Brilliant.