Comment by kbutler

Comment by kbutler 9 days ago

12 replies

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In a live orchestra performance, the conductor raises his hands. The audience quiets in anticipation.

He gives an up tick indicating the beginning of the music, then the downbeat of the start of the first measure.

No sound is heard.

The conductor continues to mark time. The silence is deep...profound.

The conductor continues to mark the time of the passing measures.

The audience listens.

At some point, positive sound breaks the silence - suddenly, loudly destroying the stillness! Or possibly very nearly silently - at the uncertain threshold of perception, the audible music begins...

lazystar 9 days ago

> the audible music begins...

right, so it begins when the music starts playing?

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  • egypturnash 9 days ago

    It is 1973.

    You go to your hi-fi setup, a veritable temple of sound reproduction.

    You peruse your library and select an album. Or perhaps you have a new one that you have carefully carried home from the store. Whichever.

    You lift up the cover of your turntable.

    Carefully, you extract the vinyl disc from its cardboard and paper sleeves. Taking care not to touch it by its surface, you place it on the turntable. Perhaps you clean its surface with a special lint-catcher designed for this.

    You lift up the needle by its little handle. Delicately, you place it on the disc, in the space between the very edge and the visible band of the first track.

    There is an anticipatory crackle. A fuzzy pop. The sounds of the needle skidding across the smooth surface of the disc, and dropping into the groove.

    A pause.

    And then the music begins.

    Perhaps the music begins loud and fast. Perhaps it doesn't. Perhaps it's a few words from the bandleader, welcoming you to their new album. Perhaps it's a collage of natural sounds that gradually gives way to music.

    When, precisely, did you begin the experience of "listening to music"?

    ----

    It is 2025.

    You take out your phone. You turn off its notifications.

    You find your headphones and put them on. Perhaps they give off a beep complaining of being out of power, and you have to put them on the charger, and dig up your backup pair, possibly along with an adaptor to plug them into the headphone jack that no longer exists on your new phone.

    You open up Spotify, Youtube, whatever you use to stream music. You type in the name of what you want to listen to.

    You hit 'play'.

    Your phone begins downloading music off the internet. Perhaps first there's an ad. Perhaps several ads. Perhaps not. Perhaps it takes a while to buffer. It's an indeterminate thing.

    And then the music begins. As before, perhaps it hits the ground running immediately; perhaps there's some collection of anticipatory sounds, some pause, before the music really gets into gear. Perhaps it's interrupted five seconds in by your discovery that this is actually just the first five seconds of the track followed by an ad for Bitcoin, or the discovery that this is a track with a name similar to what you asked to be played, and you get to go back a few steps. Perhaps you actually get what you wanted.

    At what point did you begin the experience of "listening to music"?

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    • jacobgkau 9 days ago

      You typed a really long comment, but you're not talking about the same thing. Listening to an ad before a song starts is very obviously not part of the music, even if it's part of "the experience of listening to music (on a streaming service)." The ad before a song plays is not included in the song's official runtime.

      You're essentially describing the time the audience sits waiting for the orchestra to walk onto the stage as being "part of the experience of going to the orchestra." Which is fine, but it's not considered part of the song (unless the composer's quirky and writes "walk onto the stage" at the beginning of the music sheets, which is basically what this guy did with the 17-month rest).

      Moreover, nobody was actually sitting in that cathedral for 17 months listening to the first rest. If a 17-month rest is played in the middle of a forest and nobody hears it, was it really a 17-month rest? Who experienced that "experience?"

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  • throwway120385 9 days ago

    The experience begins when the conductor starts marking time.

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    • jacobgkau 9 days ago

      There doesn't seem to be a conductor at all in this performance, and there certainly wasn't one for the entire 17 months that the rest lasted. (The person in charge of this project, Rainer Neugebauer, is not conducting; the linked article makes mention of a speech before the note was changed, but nothing about marking time.)

      Not that I'd expect a conductor to be needed for a soloist performance, but it makes the whole "when the conductor raises his hands" point a little off-topic.

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    • bigstrat2003 9 days ago

      That's like saying "my meal begins from the time I start driving to the restaurant". It's just not true.

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      • p_j_w 9 days ago

        It’s more like saying your meal begins when you sit down at the table, which is a proposition that a lot of people would agree with.

        Reply View 1 reply
      • dontlikeyoueith 9 days ago

        It's nothing like that, but you're entitled to be confused and wrong.

        Reply View 1 reply
        • bmacho 9 days ago

          Technically it's okay to be confused and wrong, but it is not really okay to be vocal about it. It just steals people's time. Maybe it is deliberate trolling, how should we know? Better to be moderated out

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