
A composer wrote a three-hour piano piece using just one note - ahmadss
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/arts/music/listen-to-three-hours-of-music-from-a-single-note.html
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crdb
If you'd like to explore the ideas further:

Carter's 8 etudes and a fantasy's 7th etude is just the note G (1949) and
Ligeti's Musica ricercata's (1951-3) first movement almost only A (the entire
work explores having a limited number of notes).

In terms of playing with harmonics, the spectralists (starting with Grisey and
Murail in the 1970s) originated the idea formally whilst it is informally
explored by many minimalists (the most relevant to this article's piece would
be Terry Riley's In C, 1964).

In terms of mammoth piano works, seek out Sorabji's Opus clavicembalisticum
(1930, 4 hours) by John Ogdon.

~~~
keehun
>> Ligeti's Musica ricercata's (1951-3) first movement almost only A (the
entire work explores having a limited number of notes).

Just to clarify regarding Ligeti's Musica Ricercata, each successive movement
incorporates a new interval. First movement only deals with unisons (and
octaves), the 2nd movement adds minor 2nds, and so forth.

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twic
Meanwhile, at the shallow end of the meme pool, this entry from the baffling
but, to me, fascinating microgenre of "'All Star' by Smash Mouth but", in
which case the entire song is in one note:

[https://soundcloud.com/vagidictoris/all-star-by-smash-
mouth-...](https://soundcloud.com/vagidictoris/all-star-by-smash-mouth-but-
all-notes-are-in-c)

The thing that surprised me is how much it sounds like 'real' music, like this
could have been an entirely deliberate and valid choice by a composer. It has
a sort of surly, menacing urgency to it that i'm sure i've heard in some kind
of rock/metal music, although i can't think of any examples.

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averagewall
It turns out it's really 7 notes, not one. If you're not already good at
identifying tones, there no one-ness about it at all.

~~~
MrDosu
Yeah, this is pure semantics.

We attached certain names to certain frequencies in western culture and made
rules about 'proper music'. It is quite fascinating how culturally influenced
we are on what is beautiful sound. Other cultures will have different
frequencies and composition rules they consider good or artistic. Seven
different D notes is how you say 7 unique frequencies, not one.

~~~
uxp100
Can you point me to a culture whose music doesn't acknowledge octaves? It
sounds interesting.

~~~
watwut
China I think.

~~~
watwut
Why was this downvoted? I was right. Traditional Chinese music is in
pentatonic scale.

~~~
skj
In context, "have octaves" mean treating notes whose frequencies are powers of
two as the "same", just shifted up. I believe the pentatonic scale still has
this feature.

~~~
watwut
Thank you.

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natch
One note? So indulgent. How about zero notes?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage)

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andybak
It's quite pleasant and I can imagine listening to this for pleasure
occasionally.

Equate it with a piece for untuned percussion and then maybe it's not quite so
unusual. The first sections of Steve Reich's Drumming are pitchless and very
listenable. It's composing purely with rhythm.

~~~
logicallee
So, there are two sides to every story and maybe the truth is somewhere in the
middle. What follows is just a counterpoint to your experience:

I put the piece on and after realizing it is quite suited to background music
I switched tasks and did something else, intending to have it on in the
background.

For me it failed this usage, because despite my initial impression I had to
stop it after a few minutes. I rarely have to do that with any music I put on
in the background - so it's not like I have high standards.

On a different note: when I read the title I imagined it being a percussive
use of the note, like drums, with a repetitive techno-like approach - so I
thought it would be quite easy to fill three hours with just the one note.

The part I listened to had no such percussive beat either. So within the
constraints of the I suspect someone else might take a wildly different and
end up with something in some sense better. I know, I know, "everyone's a
critic..."

------
Sevores
Also worth mentioning Terre Thaemlitz, who wrote a nearly 30 hour piece with
two chords.

"The resulting MP3 file is an edit of a 31+ hour piano solo recorded in
sittings averaging 4 to 6 hours in length. The theme is "Meditation on Wage
Labor and the Death of the Album.""

You can listen to an excerpt here:
[http://www.comatonse.com/writings/2012_soulnessless.html#c5](http://www.comatonse.com/writings/2012_soulnessless.html#c5)

And here's the sheet music:
[http://i.imgur.com/DoD1Ew4.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/DoD1Ew4.jpg)

~~~
ajnin
All sound samples on the page start playing at once when visiting it. A bit
disconcerting but I guess that counts as involuntary experimental music in
itself.

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moogly
Along with the other contemporary examples, here's another one, though from a
completely different genre: Spastic Ink's "See, and It's Sharp!" (1994)
consists of only C and C# notes:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY11_tgAhQs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY11_tgAhQs)

------
jszymborski
For a great, down-to-earth discussion on another great minimalist piece,
check-out this great episode of Classical Classroom where they discuss Steve
Reich's "Piano Phase"[0].

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-iIHUBpYTc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-iIHUBpYTc)

~~~
tikhonj
Here's a great visualization of the piece that helps you see the structure:
[http://www.pianophase.com/](http://www.pianophase.com/)

~~~
odbol
It's really funny if you leave that tab and then come back. Probably some
wackiness with Chrome's new disabling of background CPU usage.

------
coldcode
In college orchestration class we were required to write a piece using one
note (octaves like this piece) for whatever instruments we had in the class,
which in this case were three string basses and a violin. It really does
require a lot of thought process with such sparse harmony.

------
Markoff
recommended for fans of minimalistic music, very good to play in background
while working: Arvo part - Alina (1999)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4RmJaP683A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4RmJaP683A)

Can anyone recommend something else minimalistic and so beautiful? I am fan of
instrumental music but it is really difficult to find something really
minimalistic, for instance Max Richter is great (Perfect Sense score for
instance) but far from minimalism.

EDIT: seem Olafur Arnalds is relatively minimalistic, Tony Anderson not so
much but very nice

~~~
nickburlett
It's a different kind of minimalism, but I've found Philip Glass' Akhnaten
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAiv-
LU82t4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAiv-LU82t4)) and Piano Etudes
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pe7Lelts8g&list=PLVyiUXw5ED...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pe7Lelts8g&list=PLVyiUXw5EDNM05LcTmcTtwwn6Rve8gotB))
to be excellent background listening.

~~~
Markoff
I am familiar with Glass, was listening him already like 10-15 years ago, but
it's not really minimalistic as I would like to find

btw. that 1st link you posted is pretty much opposite of minimalism, very
complex

------
gpvos
Bandcamp page with the music:
[http://recordings.irritablehedgehog.com/album/randy-
gibson-t...](http://recordings.irritablehedgehog.com/album/randy-gibson-the-
four-pillars-appearing-from-the-equal-d-under-resonating-apparitions-of-the-
eternal-process-in-the-midwinter-starfield-16-viii-10-kansas-city)

------
b6
Along the same lines, "Four Violins":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY9RTSXki8E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY9RTSXki8E)

IIRC, this stuff influenced the Velvet Underground.

~~~
teh_klev
If you play "Four Violins" alongside Four Pillars you get quite a pleasing
result.

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jancsika
The overture of Wagner's Das Rheingold comes to mind.

Since it's only one chord, it's a great score to read to learn about
orchestration.

~~~
jancsika
Also, Alvin Lucier's "Silver Streetcar for Orchestra" for amplified triangle.
You really have to hear it live to get a sense of what's going on.

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boneheadmed
That's odd. I heard my four year old playing this piece just the other day.

~~~
odbol
Yeah I'm pretty sure I composed this same piece like 30 years ago.

Edit: the real art is being able to get published in the NY Times with this
boring music.

------
blairanderson
I listened for 4 minutes and it sounded like the same note for 4 minutes.

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meggar
It sounds like a recording of a piano tuning.

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phamilton
Looking for a Peano joke here.

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rijoja
Pulse Width Modification

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Kenji
Utterly mediocre. As expected.

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aisofteng
Atrocious title.

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johan_larson
Christ. Grind out two drably mediocre bits of three-chord moon-June-soon pop
for no greater purpose than to fill out an album, and they will be better than
that piece.

~~~
libeclipse
It truly does sound horrid. Not sure why it's noteworthy.

> Let's only use a single note.

> But it might sound terrible.

> Let's do it anyway.

~~~
posterboy
> noteworthy

Even the author thought it wasn't notesworthy. 490

