A four-minute song may only consist of ten words.

The instrumental part of Oliver Knussen's "Trumpets," a four-minute song for soprano and three clarinets, has an atmospheric energy that is immediately felt.

On Tuesday night he played one tuneful, concise, four-minute song after another.

That explains "Help Somebody," a four-minute song in the imperative mood performed by a 99-year-old named Van Zant.

A 256-megabyte unit, for instance, holds 120 to 170 four-minute songs and has 20 hours of battery life.

Mr. Hitchcock's imagery arrives in music that's a happy throwback to the mid-1960s, when psychedelic bands were packing their ideas into tuneful four-minute songs.

And you have to think like a film director, even though you're working on a four-minute song.

For this album, Oneida cut its extended drones into four-minute songs that only distill their impact.

Then, after devouring the eggs and waffles, this group of strangers broke into a four-minute song.

Broader and more ambitious than the two- to four-minute songs on "Distractions," this piece did not fail to entertain.