It doesn't make sense to me that the piece should start with a 17 month rest. Surely it doesn't really start until the first note is played?

Some art-haters in the comments, so to defend this piece of contemporary art for a moment: one thing I love about it is a commitment to the long future of art, creativity, and civilization. What does it take to keep an instrument playing for six hundred years? To commit to that idea -- like the century-long projects of cathedral building in the middle ages, or the idea of planting trees you won't live to see mature -- is (to me) the awesome thing about the Halberstadt performance. All rendered in a medium (church organ) that has existed for an even longer time.

It's a pretty hopeful, optimistic view of the future in a time of high uncertainty, but also represents a positive argument: it's worth doing these things because they are interesting, weird, and fun, and because they represent a continuity with past and future people we will never meet.

Plus, you can already buy a ticket to the finale, so your distant descendants can go see it :)

Remember where you were when the eighth drop of pitch fell in Queensland?

Man, that was wild.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_drop_experiment

639 years? Big deal, The Long Now foundation built a clock to last 10,000 years. I hate John Cage since I got his massive world-wide hit 4′33″ stuck in my head.

I am so happy that this is in my HN feed today.

I wish there was more stuff like this, both in my feed and in the world.