ORGAN2/ASLSP, John Cage (1912–1992)
Welcome to the Sundt Organ Studio at Luther College. If you only have a few moments to stick around, I encourage you to read the “About the Piece” notes on this page. Then, skip ahead to read “Ideas About What to Listen For. ” You can always read the “Personal Thoughts from the Organist” later if you’re still interested.
About the Piece:
John Cage (1912–1992) provides relatively little information to performers of his piece outside of how to read his specific notational style (I have reproduced the score’s entire preface on the next page). To summarize, this score does not have a specific duration, but because of its proportional notation, a duration (at least an approximate one) needs to be chosen before beginning to perform the work. This performance will last approximately 24 hours.
I have reproduced Cage’s explanation for how to read the unique musical notation below. Some may be surprised by the specificity of Cage’s notation very little in terms of when things happen during the piece is left to the performer’s discretion. Because I have chosen to actually measure the lengths of physical space on the score to calculate the proportions of time needed for each musical change, I can already predict (within a margin of about a minute or two error) when every musical action will occur within this 24-hour performance.
The score has 8 sections over four pages (Cage calls them “pieces”). Each section has two lines. Because this performance is 24 hours, each line will take 1 ½ hours, each section will take 3 hours, and each page will take 6 hours. At the end of each section there is a rest that takes somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes. I will use these, and several other moments throughout the piece to get up, stretch, eat, use the restroom, etc. Here is a sample of what the score looks like:
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For this performance, the above excerpt will occur between roughly 3:30 A.M. and 5:00 A.M. The top two staves are for the right hand, the middle two for the left hand, and the bottom two are for the feet. Cage provides no indications for color or dynamics. Therefore, all stop choices and dynamics are at the organist’s discretion.
The piece was originally written for a piano competition, hence the built in variations you will see in Cage’s performance notes below. The piano piece, because of the natural decay of sound produced by vibrating strings, necessitated a much quicker tempo. Usually, the piano version lasts for less than 1 hour. The organ performance has ranged from very short performances to, famously, the 639-year performance currently happening in Halberstadt Germany (you can read much, much more about this online). There have already been many long organ performances. This will be, to my knowledge, the longest complete single performer performance of the work (AllRequest_Live performed part of the work on Twitch for 24 hours in the past).
Here’s what is printed on the front of the score:
Organ2/ASLSP for Gerd Zacher
New York City
June, 1987
Copyright 1987 by Henmar Press
About Organ2/ASLSPCage writes only:
Distinct from Aslsp,all eight pieces are to be played. However, any one of them may be repeated, though not necessarily, and as in Aslspthe repetition may be placed anywhere in the series.
He then reproduces performance notes from the original piano piece:
The title is an abbreviation of “as slow as possible.” It also refers to “Soft morning city! Lsp!” the first exclamations in the last paragraph of FinnegansWake(James Joyce).
There are eight pieces, anyone of which must be omitted and anyone of which must be repeated. The repetition may be placed anywhere (even before its appearance in the suite) but otherwise the order of the pieces as written shall be maintained.
Neither tempo nor dynamics have been notated. Time proportions are given (just as maps give proportional distances). Accidentals apply only to those pitches they directly precede.
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Each hand plays its own part and is not to be assisted by the other. A diamondshaped note indicates a note to be depressed without sounding. All the notes have stems. The stem gives the point in time of the single note, interval or aggregate. Where there is insufficient horizontal space, the stems are splayed to accommodate the note heads. A closed note head tied to an open notehead indicates the end of a sustained sound. Sustained sounds are also notated sometimes with straight line-extensions.
In a performance a correspondence between space and time should be realized so that the music “sounds” as it “looks.”
I have left a couple journal articles about the piece if you’re interested in knowing more about this. Please return these when you’re finished reading them so that others can use them.
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Personal Thoughts from the Organist:
Why Now?
• I’m younger than I will be next year.
Why Luther?
• I work here!
• Sundt is an awesome space that most organ programs in the country don’t have access to. How many organs are in spaces where nothing else needs to happen for 24 hours? We’re lucky to have it, and I wanted to use it!
These notes are a bit stream of consciousness…but when it comes to conversing with Cage, sometimes that’s all I can muster…
John Cage, one of the most influential experimental composers of the twentieth century, has asked so many questions and caused and inspired musicians and artists to ask so many more. ORGAN2/ASLSP has been on my mind for a while, but I never really knew what to make of it. The piece seemed to me to always lay outside of any accessible corner of the organ repertoire. Even the “traditional” (if I can really say that!) 8-hour performances seemed a little silly to me. When would I have time to do that, and who would care to listen? Every time I looked at the score, I was always thrown a bit by just how specific it actually is. Of course, the longer you make the performance, the less exact it becomes as his somewhat traditional notation still has limitations. Still, could I focus for any length of time through that many changes?
Before moving to Decorah to work at Luther, I had already decided that some kind of performance of this piece was in my future. I’m always looking for non-traditional ways (in addition to my duties as a church organist!) to bring the organ to the public. What better way to bring the organ to others than to use its unique characteristics (that it can sustain for as long as the organ is maintained) to question the very nature of performance and listening?
Once I decided I wanted to play the piece, I started asking what questions I could contribute to (question rather than answer used intentionally!). The 639-year performance, as interesting as it is, seemed, at least to me, to be a rather simple concept. The time frame is chosen rather arbitrarily (yes, of course there is a significance, but it is quite external from Cage’s piece). One of the main things that makes it capture the imagination of so many is that by listening to it, you’re experiencing something that will endure cross-generationally. It raises all sorts of questions about our trust in future generations, the human life span, our collective memory, and so much more.
These are truly, truly fascinating. However, is it “As Slow as Possible?” I don’t think so. Theoretically, a dedicated crew of technicians could keep an organ going for as long as people are willing to maintain the instrument and make note changes when they arrive
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in the score. Why stop at 639 years? Well, they had to pick something! Perhaps a more accurate performance would be just holding the first rest (for today’s performance it’ll be about 5 minutes) with the assumption that the piece will continue for forever…oh boy, then we better turn to the physics department for some answers about how time and the universe works… Perhaps then, it would have been easier if Cage hadn’t started the piece with a rest. Because of the rest, we might have a hard time telling when the piece was actually over, one of the key indicators of what makes something a performance (at least as it pertains to art, but even that’s debatable. And some social sciences have really delved into the idea that life itself is performative…so, in that sense we’re always performing). Cage was famously the one who taught us that “silence” in a performance isn’t truly “silence” (look up 4’33”if you don’t know it!). If he had started the piece with a note or two, we would know that such a performance was over when the organ stopped sounding because it wasn’t maintained. While Cage seemed to intend that the piece be played in its entirety, this imaginary “eternal performance” that either ends when the universe ends or when humans stop maintaining the organ assumes that, at least practically speaking, there is no such thing as “As Slow as Possible” when one removes the idea of a single human performer.
So, before returning to the idea of the single human performer, there is still another possibility some have explored that is, a performance that is shared between multiple performers. I’m lucky enough to have a studio of students at Luther College thrilled with the idea (at least they pretend to be!) of jumping in on a tandem performance. We could sub in and out… uh oh… couldn’t we do this until they all graduated from Luther…? Oh we’re good… then the new students could join in. But if I was playing this whole time, who would do the recruiting? Would students enroll at Luther just to participate in the performance? Theoretically, such a human driven performance could go on for as long as the 639-year version, but for anyone who has ever tried to schedule anything, the performance would probably be over the first time someone overslept. Even a shorter version of this seemed to fall philosophically flat for me pretty quickly. As Possible? Couldn’t we at least keep that going for a couple weeks? Shouldn’t I be teaching?
Ok…so back to me. As Slow as Possible. So, for Cage’s piece performed on the organ, maybe the only solution I was interested in was going back to the idea of what is possible for a single performer. But what exactly ispossible for me? Last summer, my older brother rode his bicycle across the entire Erie Canal trail in upstate New York Buffalo to Albany in one sitting (riding through the night). He got off the bike to stretch, but he set the “best known record” with his time (yes, apparently this urge to do ridiculous things runs in the family). He tested his physical endurance. Maybe someone like him should perform the piece? But I’m the one that is supposed to be the musician. Ok, so I need to figure out what “As Slow as Possible” means to me, both personally and as a human. A note I wrote on the score over the summer that always makes me chuckle a bit reads “talk to your doctor.” …because this is what the physicians over at the Winneshiek Medical Center really need to be dealing with…
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The problem remains though with the way Cage’s score is written. Because the notation is proportional, in order to perform it accurately I needed to know how long the performance would be in order define the proportions of the notation. So, I’m back to square one, right? 639 years it is (or 8 hours…that one seems popular for some reason)… Let’s just pick something that while unreasonable, seemed doable. 24 hours would be tough, but I thought I could do it (I won’t get into the debates I had about possible higher numbers), but lower than 24 seemed to be not as slow as was possible. Maybe a more apt title would have been “As Slow As is Difficult but doesn’t Interrupt your Life or your Health.”
Still, 24 hours is an arbitrary time frame, but I was happy enough with this to proceed. In the spirit of testing things. How can I have any idea what this would feel like without doing it? Maybe at hour 18, I’ll realize that I’ve already reached my limit of staring at the music rack of the Sundt Studio organ. Well, at least I’ll know that 24 hours isn’t possible for me. In a sense, I would have still performed the work in its entirety. Perhaps not being able to finish the piece would be the Cageian equivalent of missing my entrance in orchestra? Didn’t the orchestra still perform the piece if I didn’t make my entrance. I guess it sort of depends doesn’t it.
At least if I fail to make it the 24 hours, my notes on the experience could be used by someone else to make a more educated guess as to what time would be possible for a performer. We could as a collective of musicians, by trial and error, move closer and closer to an “answer” to what aspossiblemeans in Cage’s title. But perhaps the answer isn’t ultimately the point, and capturing the human imagination really is the only point. Perhaps the point is examining our perception of time. Perhaps it’s about living in the moment, removing ourselves from the seemingly ever increasing speed of the present. I don’t know. Do you?
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Ideas About What to Listen For:
Cage’s notation is remarkably specific. Once the length of the performance is determined, I can tell you exactly what will happen at any point in the piece. Perhaps not by the second when I’ve chosen 24 hours, but certainly by the minute. That’s pretty cool! Depending on when you’re listening, you might hear almost nothing happen, or, in a few cases, nothing from the organ will happen at all. The longest rest will happen at about 11:00 P.M. and will last about 20 minutes. Alternatively, there are several sections throughout the piece where I will hold a note or a collection of notes for that same length of time without changes. At most times, though, if you stay for about 20 minutes, somethingwill happen, even if its subtle. Usually, the music will change several times within that time frame. Occasionally, many changes will happen.
This is the point where I’d invite you to stop reading if you would prefer to hear the part of the piece in its 24-hour manifestation without further influence from me. If you want more to listen to here are some things I might listen for if I were in the audience:
So, what I’d recommend, is: first, take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Accept that you’re in a room where a four-page piece is going to take 24 hours to play. Things are moving slowly, very slowly. You should move slowly too if you want to hear the music in the way Cage notated it. Now, take that deep breath again…in through your nose and out through your mouth. Try to relax, even if the organ at this moment doesn’t sound like it wants you to. Repeat the breathing and try to ground yourself feel your feet against the floor or your back against the chair. Close your eyes and let everything you carried with you into the space drift away, if only for a few minutes while you’re here.
Now that you’re relaxed, hear the organ where it currently is in the piece. Realize where you are in the scheme of the entire performance. Is the piece almost over? Did it just begin? Is it somewhere in the middle? Think in as large of a scale as you can. What could have happened before you got here? What might happen later?
Now think on a smaller scale. If you’re sticking around just for a few minutes, what kind of segment of something larger might you currently be hearing? Have you already heard changes? What might come next? Was the change you heard what you expected? There are moments in the piece that seem, to me, rather calm. Do you think you’re in one of those? Or, is it more intense? What emotional content do you hear in the music? Anything?
No questions are off limits! In addition to the organ, are there any other sounds in the room (that should be an easy one if the organ is at rest while you’re there). What about what the space looks like? Is the sun doing something? Does the natural light interact with the light in the room?
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Now for the broad ones. What is the nature of music? Of sound? How do we experience time? Do we experience it differently? How? Why? What is time? What other questions can you ask yourself about your experience? What do you think others experience?
I left a book at the entrance of the studio where you can write any thoughts you have. I’d love to hear them, whether they are your thoughts about the performance, the piece in general, or what you felt/heard. Feel free to remain anonymous or write your name.
-Alexander Meszler
January 27, 2023
Luther College
Decorah, Iowa
WhileIwaspreparingthepiecefortoday’sandtomorrow’sperformance(oryesterday'sandtoday’s), I foundsomemomentsthatreallyinterestedmyearwhenplayedquickly.Ibetthey’llbecoolwhenplayed atthisspeed.Innoparticularorder:
Theharmonythatgrowsandchangesforaboutthefirst30minutes;between7:25and7:35 P.M.therearetwostaccatochords(whatdoesstaccatomeanatatempothisslowly?);the longestrestinthepiecehappensat11:00P.M.;perhapsmyfavoritemomenthappensalittle after12:55A.M.,ashortlittlemelodicmomentdevelops;thesectionbetween5:00A.M.and 8:00A.M.istheleastdense;oneofthemostdensesectionshappensat10:55A.M.;themost changesinquicksuccessionhappenalittleafter11:55A.M.;thelastthreehours(2:00P.M.to 5:00P.M.)winddown Iwillimplementalotofregistrationchangesandtherearemany intermittentrests.
A Special Thank You To:
Mick Layden (Digital Media Producer for the Luther College Music Department) and Jay Raabe (Multimedia Lead for Luther College) for designing and implementing a way to stream and archive this performance. They have both gone above and beyond to make this project successful and widely accessible, both now and in the future.
Thank You To:
• Brian Knox (Luther College Keyboard Technician) for his help with the organ and designing key and pedal weights and wedges that would work for the Sundt Organ
• Luther College Safety and Security
• The Luther College Department of Music faculty, staff, and students
• The Luther College Organ Studio for their support and encouragement
• Dale Meszler for his help with the score
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