John Cage recital set to last 639 years recently witnessed a chord change

It doesn't make sense to me that the piece should start with a 17 month rest. Surely it doesn't really start until the first note is played?

Beethoven’s 5th symphony (da-da-da-DAA) starts with a rest too, it’s not unusual to notate like this. Many pieces have “pickup” measures which are not complete and much shorter than a full measure. But when the pickup is more than 50% of a normal measure, it’s no longer much of a pickup and starting with a rest to make up the complete measure makes sense.

That's all fine and dandy when you're talking about a genuine piece of music. But for something like this, counting a rest that goes for 17 years is taking it way too far.

17 months. But in what sense isn’t this a genuine peice of music? It certainly meets Merriam-Webster’s definition:

a: vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony

b: the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity

Does it in fact have rhythm, melody, harmony, unity, or continuity? If it's too slow for any human to actually observe those qualities in it then I'd argue that it does not.

It’s playing a chord, so harmony exists by definition. It also has 600 years of continuity planned in.