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Short Stuff: John Cage's 639 Year Concert · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's chalk and it's short stuff. Jerry's here too, Dave's
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: here Spirit short stuff. That's right. Shout out to our
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: old friends at houlstuffworks dot com and in particular Michelle Knstantinovski.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Great name, yeah for this piece on the six hundred
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  Speaker 1: and thirty nine year long concert from a very no
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  Speaker 1: longer with us he died nineteen nine two, but a
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  Speaker 1: very avant guard, to say the least composer that you've
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  Speaker 1: probably heard of named John Cage. Yeah, John Cage. I
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  Speaker 1: knew his name sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place
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  Speaker 1: it until I ran across his piece, or mention of
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  Speaker 1: his piece, four thirty three. Yeah, four minutes and thirty
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  Speaker 1: three seconds. And that in and of itself made John
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  Speaker 1: Cage famous, even to people like me who aren't into
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  Speaker 1: avant guard twentieth century American composing. He should say what
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: it is, because it really explains everything we need to
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  Speaker 1: explain about John Cage. So thirty three is a composition
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  Speaker 1: that's just four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence.
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  Speaker 1: There's no instruments playing a single note whatsoever, Like if
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  Speaker 1: you came out on stage and did four thirty three
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  Speaker 1: at a piano, you'd just sit there for four minutes
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  Speaker 1: and thirty three seconds. Have you watched it performed. I haven't.
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  Speaker 1: I'll bet it is really uncomfortable in a lot of ways. Well,
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  Speaker 1: it's interesting. It's it's performance art in a way, because
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  Speaker 1: like you said, it's it's not like you can just
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  Speaker 1: sit in a room and say that's your show. Like
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  Speaker 1: it's it's to be performed. Like the German Philharmonic on
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  Speaker 1: YouTube says, this is four thirty three. The conductor gets
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  Speaker 1: up there, raises his hands, and then no one does anything. Wow.
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  Speaker 1: He goes into the second movement, indicates that with a
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  Speaker 1: hand movement, then goes into the third movement and no
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  Speaker 1: one does anything, and everyone rub you know, burst out
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  Speaker 1: into applause at the end, and you can't help but
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  Speaker 1: just sort of snicker a little bit. The thing is, though,
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  Speaker 1: if you're like, I hate John Cage more than I've
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  Speaker 1: ever hated anybody, just from hearing that, like that's just
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  Speaker 1: so stupid, just stop. You need to hear from a
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  Speaker 1: John Cage interpreter slash enthusiast named rainier O Nugebauer and
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I think how stuff works. Interviewed Nugebauer for this article,
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  Speaker 1: and Nusbauer explains, like four thirty three is not just
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  Speaker 1: some goofy performance piece like John Cage created that, because
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  Speaker 1: to him, that's not silence. It's there's no intentional sounds
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  Speaker 1: being made, but there's plenty of sounds going on around you.
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  Speaker 1: And this is four minutes and thirty three seconds of
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  Speaker 1: hearing completely unpredictable, unplanned sounds in the environment around you
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  Speaker 1: while this composition is going on. And when you hear that,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like, um, it's kind of like that
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: moment when the psychedelics kick in on Homer and that
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Chili Pepper episode. He's like, whoa, that's what happened to
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  Speaker 1: me at least, And I suddenly am like, I like
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: John Cage a lot. He's very neat, and it just
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  Speaker 1: keeps going from there. Really yeah, or in the case
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: of the performance in Journey that I watch, you would
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  Speaker 1: hear right, are you in here? Vs? Dos? Vases dos?
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  Speaker 1: What does that mean? Means? What is that? Okay? And
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  Speaker 1: he also had another quote about him that I think
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  Speaker 1: kind of sums it up to, which is what we
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  Speaker 1: call silence for Cage means only the absence of intended sounds, right,
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  Speaker 1: So that was his jam, and that leads us to
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  Speaker 1: the six hundred and thirty nine year long concert otherwise
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  Speaker 1: known as Organ Squared Slash a sl SP, which stands
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  Speaker 1: for as slow as possible. And if you're like, wait
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  Speaker 1: a minute, just trust us. It stands for as slow
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  Speaker 1: as possible. Yeah, so maybe let's take a break there
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  Speaker 1: and we'll explain all this gobbedygook. So getting to as
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  Speaker 1: slow as possible as LSP. That wasn't the original name
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  Speaker 1: for it. I don't know that there was an actual
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  Speaker 1: name for it. I think in nineteen eighty five when
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: you first composed it, right, it was x y z PDQ,
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  Speaker 1: So I think it was in nineteen eighty seven, two
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  Speaker 1: years after he first composed that, he was like, we're
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  Speaker 1: gonna call it as slow as Possible, and that became
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  Speaker 1: not just the title for this piece, but the actual
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  Speaker 1: purpose of the piece. So it was to take this
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  Speaker 1: eight sheets of music that he composed that was as
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  Speaker 1: LSP and play it as slowly as you could. And
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  Speaker 1: it was very John Cage from what I understand to be, like,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you how slow to do.
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  Speaker 1: Figure out how what that means to you the artist.
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  Speaker 1: You interpret it however you want. The point is just
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  Speaker 1: play it as slow as you can. And that is
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  Speaker 1: one of his I think one of his more famous
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  Speaker 1: works as well too. Yeah, and this was I listened
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  Speaker 1: to a like eighteen minute version today. It is an
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  Speaker 1: organ piece, obviously, it's called organ squared. An organ is
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  Speaker 1: key because you're not You can't count on someone to
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  Speaker 1: blow into a saxophone for thirty minutes or three hours
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  Speaker 1: or six hundred and thirty nine years, but an organ
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  Speaker 1: as it makes a constant, consistent sound. And if you
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  Speaker 1: play this thing over eighteen minutes or whatever, you will
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  Speaker 1: hear chord changes and you will hear something. But it's
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  Speaker 1: still like people like Brian Eno come around and I
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  Speaker 1: get the feeling. John Kade just like you know, here,
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  Speaker 1: hold my absence of beer, my invisible beer. Because you
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  Speaker 1: think you're doing something artsy and weird. Get a load
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  Speaker 1: of this. I will think that probably John Cage is
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: one of Brian ENO's like like gods. Yeah, I think
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  Speaker 1: they were buddies obviously. So so to kind of explain
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  Speaker 1: this asl a s lsp um if you if you
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  Speaker 1: had the notes da da da dah, right, and you
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  Speaker 1: played them normally like that for as LSP that first
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  Speaker 1: uh might last a minute and a half, and then
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  Speaker 1: the next one might last five minutes, the next there
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  Speaker 1: and then they're like you said, there's chord changes, but
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  Speaker 1: they're just not close together. So it's like taking a
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  Speaker 1: compressed like normal song and spreading it out. Um. But
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  Speaker 1: you're doing this in a live performance, so it's really
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  Speaker 1: cool and that's the basis of it. Um. But there's
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  Speaker 1: there was an interpretation that came along of it that
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  Speaker 1: we're talking about today that wasn't actually created by John Cage.
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  Speaker 1: But it is the most John Cage idea that wasn't
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  Speaker 1: created by John Cage. One of the greatest homages I've
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  Speaker 1: ever heard to anybody. Yeah, I mean, if there's an
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  Speaker 1: avant garde music heaven, John Cage is still smiling at
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  Speaker 1: the idea that someone took his as slow as possible
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  Speaker 1: thing and really ran with it. And this was at
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  Speaker 1: the idea was sort of born. It sounds like at
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  Speaker 1: a organ symposium in nineteen ninety eight when people were
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  Speaker 1: kind of saying like, well, again, it's an organ piece,
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  Speaker 1: we can go as slow as we want with this thing,
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  Speaker 1: because you can make that sound forever if you've got,
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  Speaker 1: you know, a can of beans to sit on a key.
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  Speaker 1: And it's not like a piano string or it gets
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  Speaker 1: har string or a woodwind that will eventually fade away
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  Speaker 1: even with the most sustained. So like, where can we
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  Speaker 1: take this thing? Like? How far into the future can
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  Speaker 1: we take it? How long? They said, how far can
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: we take it? How long can we make it? There
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: should have been lyrics to this, and they said, well
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  Speaker 1: how about this. There was this cathedral called Halberstots Cathedral
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  Speaker 1: that was kind of where the organ was born, and
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  Speaker 1: like the modern design for what we know as a
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  Speaker 1: keyboard took place, and they said, what a perfect place
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  Speaker 1: to do this thing. And I will let you explain
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  Speaker 1: why it's six hundred and thirty nine years because that
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  Speaker 1: is super kind of fun and John Cage would love it.
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  Speaker 1: It's very generous of you, Chuck, thank you. Sure, I
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  Speaker 1: will do that. So the reason it was the perfect
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  Speaker 1: place was because that first keyboard was created in thirteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty one and this organ symposium, I guess was happening
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  Speaker 1: around two thousand and they decided that what they would
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  Speaker 1: do is use the millennium as a fulcrum between past
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  Speaker 1: and future. It's a good way to put it. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and so they said, well, thirteen sixty one all the
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  Speaker 1: way to two thousand is six hundred and thirty nine years.
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  Speaker 1: So what we're going to do is honor both John
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  Speaker 1: Cage and the creation of the modern keyboard back in
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  Speaker 1: thirteen sixty one by putting on a performance in Halberstat
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  Speaker 1: where the organ was first created or the modern one
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  Speaker 1: was of as LSP that will last six hundred and
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  Speaker 1: thirty nine years. Pretty great. And again I'm sure John
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  Speaker 1: Cage out there in the in the ether is just
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  Speaker 1: loving this. Just a couple of years ago, in September
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  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty, they were like, it's time to change
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  Speaker 1: the chord. And that's I don't know. Do you know
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  Speaker 1: if they have a set, did they literally divide it out? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they're okay, So it's it's at an exactly timed yes,
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  Speaker 1: interval between this one and the last one. Yeah, under
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  Speaker 1: normal circumstances, if you were playing as LSP, like you
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  Speaker 1: just play it as slow as you wanted to. But
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  Speaker 1: because now they're trying to contain it within a certain time,
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  Speaker 1: they would have had to have calculated ahead of time,
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  Speaker 1: so they did the math to make it even Stephen,
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  Speaker 1: I guess, and the chord change came up, came due
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  Speaker 1: on September five, twenty twenty and a bunch of people.
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  Speaker 1: There's a couple of videos of it, one which is
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  Speaker 1: the real thing. Another I don't know if you saw
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  Speaker 1: this one, but it had the whole ceremony leading up
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  Speaker 1: to it, and right when it got to the chord
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  Speaker 1: change and went to a metal song. Oh really like
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the they overdubbed it. Yeah, I got to see that one.
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  Speaker 1: It's very surprising, all of it. So, yeah, so if
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  Speaker 1: you were in this, if you visit this church in Halberstot,
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  Speaker 1: you're just going to you there's an organ there that's
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  Speaker 1: playing a single note and has been playing it for
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  Speaker 1: maybe years. And actually, Chuck, I saw that the most
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  Speaker 1: recent chord change was February fifth, twenty twenty two. So
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  Speaker 1: there's been a more recent one. Okay, yeah, so the
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  Speaker 1: first one I think seven years before that, and then
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  Speaker 1: two years after that. I'm not sure when the next
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  Speaker 1: chord changes, but I'm sure you could find out. I
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: couldn't find out, but maybe you can. Oh, so it's
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  Speaker 1: not at a regular interval. Then no, so no, I'm sorry,
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  Speaker 1: it's not so they basically are playing it. Yeah, they yes,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: it's not a regular interval. It's they figured out, like
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  Speaker 1: this note should last this long, this note should last
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  Speaker 1: so that the whole piece ends in twenty six forty
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  Speaker 1: six hundred and thirty nine years after it started. Okay, wow, amazing.
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  Speaker 1: It is amazing. Doesn't that make it even more amazing
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  Speaker 1: that it's not at regular intervals? Yeah? I figured it
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  Speaker 1: was like, you know, every one hundred and three years
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  Speaker 1: will change the corrid or whatever. Yeah, no, I'm sorry
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  Speaker 1: I didn't catch that. But that's so you can go
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  Speaker 1: to this church and Halberd Stott and visit this organ.
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  Speaker 1: That's right now as we speak, playing a single note,
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  Speaker 1: and we'll be playing that note for probably years to come,
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  Speaker 1: until the next chord change. I wonder if the interval
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  Speaker 1: was based on the original squashed composition, like I wonder
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  Speaker 1: if there was an interval that Cage had. In other words, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I wonder too. All right, not to look that up,
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  Speaker 1: but it's pretty cool. So so one person put it
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  Speaker 1: that the work is no longer on a human time scale,
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  Speaker 1: and it can't be played by a single person any longer,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: which is really cool because they say, like they likened
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: it to building monuments in cathedrals, that those things took
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: hundreds of years in some cases and now no one,
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  Speaker 1: single person or group of people built them. Generations did
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  Speaker 1: and that's what's going to happen with this composition being played. Amazing.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I think so too. It's good stuff, good pick, Chuck.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: This is one of the coolest how Stuff Works articles
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  Speaker 1: I've ever run across, So thanks for it. If you
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: want to know more about it, go check it out
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: on How Stuff Works John Cage in the six hundred
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  Speaker 1: and thirty Year Long Concert, and then also check out
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Universes in Universe. They have a little article on it
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  Speaker 1: which is pretty informative. And since I said it's premie
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: informative everybody and Chuck said, yeah, that means short stuffs out.
• 12:45
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• 12:48
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