In the 1980s composer John Cage wrote a song entitled “Organ/ASLSP” – as slow as possible. It was a mere 8-page composition intended to take at least an hour to play.
Well, St. Burchardi Church in Halberstadt, Germany took that to a whole new level.
They built a special organ just to perform the song. Except, instead of taking an hour, it’s going to take 639 years.
You read that right.
The organ began playing in 2001 and is due to conclude the song in 2640. It’s playing the piece so slowly that you’ll only hear a change every couple of years. In fact there have only been 16 note changes since it started playing.
No human will ever hear the full melody produced by Cage’s Organ, which begs the question…
Can we still appreciate its beauty?
The Part vs The Whole
Humans are complicated, messy, and layered. We learn, grow, fall apart, and put ourselves back together.
People constantly come in and out of our lives. Sometimes a new connection lasts mere seconds or minutes, other times a few weeks or months, and in rare cases decades.
But one thing is for sure: No matter how long you’ve known someone, you’ve barely scratched the surface.
Given the infinite depth of our inner lives, you can’t know someone fully. You’ll hear a few note changes. If you’re lucky perhaps an entire line or two…
But you will never hear their whole song.
And that’s okay.
Much like the hundreds of people who gathered in the church on September 5, 2020 to hear D♯4, A♯4, and E5 change to G♯3, and E4, we can admire, appreciate, and love only a small part of someone without ever needing to understand them in full.
The question isn’t, “Will I ever fully understand this person?”
It’s, “Can I understand who they are, what they want, and what they believe in, at this moment in time?”
That’s connection.
Cage’s Organ will change again this February 5, 2022. So if you want to hear it release G♯3, better book your plane tickets to Halberstadt. Otherwise you’ll have to wait 2 more years for the next one.
“But you will never hear their whole song.
And that’s okay.”
Agreed!
There is often value in the humility of realizing you will never fully comprehend or experience the whole of something, but still appreciating what little part you can and do, whether it’s a person or the vastness of the incredible universe we live in.