This week’s edition of Slow Digest was written by C21 Graduate Fellow Russell Star-Lack.
This week, Slow Digest examines the concept of “slow” in a more literal sense than most applications of slow knowing. The operative theme for the sources below is slow music. Musicians often receive praise and recognition for their ability to sing, rap, or play their instruments at blisteringly fast tempos. But many musicians will tell you that often, it is much more challenging to play slow than fast. Slow tempos require a unique level of intentionality and feel in order to reach an audience. Having played music since elementary school and learned my fair share of ballads, I can tell you that this is no easy feat.
Adam Neely, “What is the slowest music humanly possible?”
Is there such a thing in music as “too slow?” What is the slowest tempo one can play? Adam Neely, a Berkeley-trained jazz bassist poses this question in the above video essay, pulling from music theory, psychology, and art criticism to come up with an answer. I won’t spoil his answer, but I do want to highlight his observation that the idea of “slow” has to exist in relation to “fast” and is distinct from complete stasis.
Donny Hathaway, “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know”
In R&B, no one mastered the art of the ballad more than Donny Hathaway. Neely references “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know” as a song close to the “perceptual present threshold,” meaning the slowest tempo the human brain can comprehend. But this ballad does not feel like a dirge. Instead, it pulses with energy and emotion, using the vacuum of its slow presentation (and some rhythmic sleight of hand) to highlight Hathaway’s anguished vocals.
Low, “Lullaby”
Low, a Duluth-based indie group, released I Could Live in Hope, in 1994, creating the genre of Slowcore in the process. “Lullaby” is the slowest (and longest) song from that album. Like the genre, it uses sparse instrumentation, slow tempos, and repeated motifs to create a hypnotic effect, almost making you forget its nearly ten-minute length. Low continued to make amazing slow music until vocalist Mimi Parker’s tragic death from cancer in 2022.
John Cage, ORGAN2/ASLSP (As Slow as Possible)
On February 5, 2024, a crowd gathered at St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt, Germany to hear a single note. That note was part of avant-garde icon John Cage’s organ solo composition, ORGAN2/ASLSP (As Slow as Possible), which does not give a set tempo, only noting for the performer to play “as slow as possible.” Completed performances of the piece, which spans all of four pages, have lasted more than 24 hours. However, the performance at St. Burchardi, which began in 2001, is expected to finish in 2640.