New Note in Longest Organ Piece
Last week, the pipes on an organ in a420982020 (#10his year)
Wow! Today is hot! I can’t believe it. I always work on the assumption1 that August will be
the hot month and then things will start to cool down. I figure that2 if I can survive3 through that one
month, I’ll be ok. But this year seems to be different. And today, September 8th, is supposed to get up
to 34 degrees! I know I’m writing a lot about the weather, but it really is all that I can think about. I
don’t know how teachers can think about their classes and how students can concentrate. Still, we’ll
do our best. And then I’m going to buy myself an ice cream!
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Something You Didn’t Know (Pipe Organ4)
Pipe organs are the largest instruments in the world played by a single person.
The world’s largest pipe organ is in Atlantic City, USA and has 33,112 pipes!
Organists play the pipe organ with their hands and feet. The pedals are actually another 30 keys5.
Organists wear special shoes so they can play the pedals easily.
The pipe organ was invented in ancient Greece in about 300 BC. Wind was used to make thesound. By the 6th century AD, bellows6 were used to make the sound.

church in Germany were changed so that theorgan could play the next notes7 in the longest
musical piece in the world. The piece is“Organ – ASLSP” by John Cage. ASLSP
stands for “As SLow aS Possible.” The piece
was written in 1993 and was started on 5th
September, 2001, just after John Cage died.
There were no notes until February 5th, 2003!
What? Why? This organ piece is set to last8
639 years! That means it will finish in 2640!
Assuming that9 the organ and the church it isin can last that long.
The organ is inside a medieval10 church inGermany. It plays the same note for years, until themusical score calls for the next note. To play a newnote, the pipes that come out of the organ are

5. The first organ in the UK was in Winchester Cathedral. It had 400 pipes and it needed 2 people toplay it and 70 people to work the bellows!
6. The word “organ” comes from the Greek “organon”, which means an instrument or tool.
7. Pipe organs are very expensive, so many people use electric organs these days.
Last week’s answer
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John Cage was a composer12
and a musical theorist13, as well as aphilosopher14. He composed many
normal pieces as well, but he liked tochanged. The next chord change will be on 5thFebruary 2022. These note changes are a big deal11
for fans of John Cage and a lot of people turned out
to watch the event. Unfortunately, none of them (oranybody alive today) will be able to see the end ofthe piece. I wonder what the world will be like then.

create pieces that make people think.
What does a 639-year long piece makeyou think about? The impermanence15of human life? The upholding of long
traditions? The fact that art outlasts life?
Or something else? Let me know.
1.Work on the assumption that という想定の下に行動する 2.Figure that だと思った
3.Survive 生き残る 4.Pipe organ パイプオルガン 5.Key 鍵盤 6.Bellows 送風機 7.Note 音符 8.To last かかる 9.Assuming that と仮定して 10.Medieval 中世の 11.Big deal 大したもの 12.Composer 作曲家 13.Musical theorist 音楽理論の研究者 14.Philosopher 哲学者
15.Impermanence of human life 人間の無常性

The other day, I was telling the junior high first grade thatsome of them would probably live to be over 200. That
doesn’t seem to farfetched5. However, an animal that
often lives even longer than that is the giant tortoise. Atortoise from Aldabra was 255 years old when it died andwas the oldest known tortoise. Some may live evenlonger. Giant tortoises are making a comeback6 now, butwhen they were discovered in the 1800s, the were huntedand caught for food. They were eaten in such largeWorld Records
This is the perfect record for a hot day like today. Austrian Josef Koeberl spent
2 hours 30 minutes and 57 seconds in a large glass box filled with 200kg of icecubes. At any other time, I would say, “Wow!” But today, that doesn’t seem soimpressive1. I think that I would probably be able to go at least ten hours. Haha. Koeberl was in a lot of pain and he said, “I’m fighting the pain byvisualizing and drawing on2 positive emotions so I can dampen3 this wave ofpain.” That’s something we can all learn from. He has the world record, but heis intending to try and break it again next year. He also said that when henumbers that they were almost extinct7 by 1900. The are
now protected and are rebounding8.

Many people think of the “time of the dinosaurs”
without realizing that the dinosaurs were spreadout over hundreds of millions of years. For
example, many dinosaur movies show dinosaurs
like Tyrannosaurus Rex attacking a dinosaur like
Stegosaurus. In fact, we are closer in time toTyrannosaurus Rex than T-Rex is to a Stegosaurus.
The T-Rex lived about 68 million years ago andthe Stegosaurus lived about 155 million years ago.
That means, from T-Rex to us is 68 million years
and from T-Rex to the Stegosaurus is about 80

came out of the box, “the sun felt really warm.” Yes. I think it probably does
after spending two and a half hours in ice.

Hope, but never expect .
Look forward, but neverwait.
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million years! In fact, Tyrannosaurs Rex wasn’t
even alive in the Jurassic Period, so the movie“Jurassic Park” had no right to use it! Altogether,
the first dinosaurs evolved about 245 million years
ago and they disappeared about 66 million years
ago. That is a span of 179 million years. Humans
have only been here for about 200,000 years.
New words: 1.Impressive 印象的な 2.Draw on ～を利用する 3.Dampen そぐ 4.Expect
期待する 5.Farfetched ありそうもうない 6.Comeback 回復 7.Extinct 絶命する
8.Rebound 回復する