A performance of John Cage’s “Organ²/ASLSP” in Halberstadt, Germany, started in 2001 and is scheduled to end in 2640.
Wacky Facts
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Beethoven kept composing after he went deaf.
He wrote his Ninth Symphony while almost completely deaf, reportedly feeling vibrations through the floor.
1906The first music played on radio was a Christmas song.
Reginald Fessenden is said to have played “O Holy Night” on violin in a broadcast on Christmas Eve 1906.
Mozart wrote music when he was five.
His earliest compositions date from around age five, and he toured Europe as a child performer.
Music can give you “skin orgasms”.
Frisson — chills or goosebumps from music — is linked to dopamine release in the brain.
The sitar can have up to 21 strings.
Only a few are played; the rest are sympathetic strings that vibrate on their own, creating its shimmering sound.
2016The “Happy Birthday” song was under copyright until 2016.
A US court ruled in 2015 that the copyright claim was invalid, and it entered the public domain in 2016.
Indian classical music has ragas for particular times of day.
In Hindustani tradition, ragas like Bhairav are associated with dawn and Yaman with evening.
Carnatic music has 72 parent ragas.
The melakarta system organises South Indian ragas into 72 parent scales.
2009A.R. Rahman won two Oscars in one night.
In 2009 he won Best Original Score and Best Original Song (“Jai Ho”) for Slumdog Millionaire.
Lata Mangeshkar recorded songs in over 30 languages.
Her career spanned about seven decades, and she received the Bharat Ratna in 2001.
The Beatles never learned to read music.
None of the four could read standard musical notation; they composed by ear.
Earworms have a scientific name.
A tune stuck in your head is called involuntary musical imagery; chewing gum may help get rid of it.
The tabla is thought to be around 300 years old.
It became popular in 18th-century north India and is central to Hindustani music.
A piano has 88 keys.
52 white and 36 black keys, covering more than seven octaves.