Interesting Musical Facts



  • The earliest known example of musical notation was dated to around 1,800 B.C, found on a clay tablet in Mesopotamia.
  • Every time Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over his head.
  • Elvis recorded more than 600 songs, and composed none.
  • Beethoven composed over 650 songs.
  • An American composer John Cage composed a song called 4 minutes 33 seconds. It had no sound at all. The pianist would sit at the piano and play nothing for exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds.
  • A voice on a phone becomes coded in flashes of laser light since light can travel quicker than electricity and sound waves.
  • The sperm whale uses sound to stun/kill its prey.
  • The first documented conductor, Jean-Baptiste Lullly (1632-1687) pounded a six foot long staff on the ground in time with the music.
  • Mozart wrote 41 symphonies by the time he died at age 35.
  • The shortest national anthem is only four lines long and the longest is 158 verses long. The Japanese have the shortest and the Greeks have the longest.
  • Franz Liszt (one of my favorite composers) had so many requests for locks of his hair that he bought a dog and snipped off the dog’s hair to send to admirers.
  • The world’s shortest opera is only 7 minutes and 27 seconds long. It is titled The Deliverance of Theseus by Milhaud.