Alvin Lucier

Alvin Lucier

One of Lucier's most important and best-known works is I am sitting in a room (1969), in which Lucier records himself narrating a text, and then plays the recording back into the room, re-recording it. The new recording is then played back and re-recorded, and this process is repeated. Since all rooms have a characteristic resonance (e.g., between a large hall and a small room), the effect is that certain frequencies are gradually emphasised as they resonate in the room, until eventually the words become unintelligible, replaced by the pure resonant harmonies and tones of the room itself. The recited text describes this process in action - it begins "I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice...", and concludes with, "I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have," referring to his own stuttering.

Alvin Lucier was born in 1931 in Nashua, New Hampshire. He was educated in Nashua public and parochial schools, the Portsmouth Abbey School, Yale, and Brandeis and spent two years in Rome on a Fulbright Scholarship. From 1962 to 1970 he taught at Brandeis, where he conducted the Brandeis University Chamber Chorus which devoted much of its time to the performance of new music. Since 1970 he has taught at Wesleyan University where he is John Spencer Camp Professor of Music. Lucier has pioneered in many areas of music composition and performance, including the notation of performers' physical gestures, the use of brain waves in live performance, the generation of visual imagery by sound in vibrating media, and the evocation of room acoustics for musical purposes. His recent works include a series of sound installations and works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra in which, by means of close tunings with pure tones, sound waves are caused to spin through space. - from Alvin Lucier's website.

Alvin Lucier: Interview, I'm sitting in a room: note & original 1969 performance

-  Here is the link for Alvin's interview which he talks about what brought him to the realization of his own style and also his thought about music in his contemporary. He also talks about some of his pieces as well.

-  Here is the link for the original performance of his work 'I'm sitting in a room' in 1969.

-  Here is the link for the note for 'Im sitting in a room'.

The piece is quite interesting in term of its process and technology, which is giving an awesome result to the sound. He simply recorded himself narrating the text ("I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound..."), in a room. Then, he played it back and re-recorded it again and so on. The outcome of this process results in the synthesis of resonances' sound distinctly replace the narrating sound. And since, naturally, each spaces - a room in this context! - has its own resonate characteristics, it is really exciting to listen to this piece - especially the original performance when the equipment at that time is not still advanced as now.

- THATCHATHAM SILSUPAN 

Link to Notes for Alvin Lucier: Still Lives

The introduction explains the background that Alvin Lucier composed this piece and the genaral style of his compositions. He used "Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Oscillators" as an example to show the details of electronically generated pure waves in conjunction with the instrumental sounds. And also, it tells audiences where the title comes from. It is important for us to know about the background of the piece, esepecially articles produced by the composer themselves, so that we may understnad their music better.

- Zhang Duomi

I actually found this information on facebook notes. It is an exerpt of Alvin Lucier's lecture notes on August 13, 2003. I think this information might be interesting for those who are curious how Lucier would give a lecture.

- Tarin Supprakorn

I found some things in this wiki , I think it very important, It is introduced Alvin's life, works and something else.

- Danning Chen

Alvin Lucier's Music for Solo Performer

This is a link to a performance on youtube of Alvin Lucier's Music for Solo Performer. ( I previously embedded the youtube video here, however it did not play in our Wiki. Only linking could work. )

This piece by Lucier, composed in 1965, is an example of his exploration of unusual sources of sounds. In this case brainwaves are amplified and the resulting electrical signals are used to vibrate various percussion instruments.

In many of Lucier's compositions, we see technology being manipulated to create, or 'reveal' sounds. In other words, his pieces are dependent on advancements in the sciences. In this instance, if biology and physics had not unveiled the existence of brain waves and the various techniques of measuring them, the composition would never have become a reality. It is fascinating to me to see such intimate interplay of the arts and sciences. In using scientific techniques, Lucier has come up with innovative ways to create music away from traditional Western systems of harmony and rhythm. I appreciate his broad vocabulary of non-ethnocentric sound.

- Bertrand Lee.

Alvin and his thinking

This is the Link that introduce Alvin's life, his representative works and short explanation of his different styles of different periods. Especially there are several summaries of composer's thinking and ideas about different pieces were quite interesting. He had lots of amazing and unbelievable imaginations of the sound and had a good talent to charge it. Such as  Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators, it talks about how one note ("two drones with no overtones") returns back to this note on piano over and over with different effect.

---Wu Na

Alvin and His Concept of Sound Art and Music

Here is a link of an interview with Alvin Lucier, where he commented on his idea about sound art and music. There he stated that he did not separate sound art from music, since he is one person and his idea was coming from the same person, therefore, can't be separated. I guess this explain a bit at least, on his interest in exploring the sciences and to bring it to arts. In terms of combining the 'physical' aspect of music, such as pitch, time, space, in my opinion, he succeed in combining those aspects in his composition. However, this exploration also showed how the definition of 'music' has changed over time. If the music should be created in order to give certain message to the listener, then this music may be a challenge for the listener.

Imma

In a follow-up to Bertrand's post, I found this link, that has Lucier explaining how he was led to the genre of Sound Art, of which _Music for Solo Performe{_}r is a fine example. It is interesting to note how he talks about Sound Art and "music" as different genres, one with a recognizable language and the other without. Yet he also sees them as essentially not so seperate in the sense that they are both involve ideas, conceived in the mind of an individual, that must be executed or fleshed out in real time. This written statement by the composer helps us to understand his unusual approach to composition and the role of the composer.

-Abigail

Dang, imma. We posted the same thing minutes apart.

here's my new post then: link It's a fairly extensive interview with Alvin Lucier, discussing his work for Cello and Amplified vases and articulating some of his ideas about composition. I love his saying that the nature of sound is univsersal but music is not univsersal. I think this is a really profound statement that explains what he is trying to explore as a composer, avoiding pre-existing musical languages and structues while creating music that is still "expressive". Note that he defines expressiveness as a quality which shows something about its nature but which is unintentionally produced.

Here is an interview with Alvin Lucier by John Ruscher in 2006: http://www.johnruscher.com/published-work/an-interview-with-alvin-lucier/

In this interview the composer talks about his own perspective of music according to what’s going on in the world, as well as the experimental music field that he is indeed involved in.

-- Akkra Yeunyonghattaporn --
----

Examples of Alvin's music style:

Here is the link to one of the Alvin's famous piece, I am sitting in the room, including the content of this music, and some introductions:

http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/~cburns/realizations/lucier-1.html

Another link to the video of Alvin's:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QPUnmgR6oI&feature=related

Dai Xuan

I think the best way to know the composer is to listen his music. I think Lucier is a musician who between classical and experimental style. One of Lucier's most important and best-known works is I am sitting in a room (1969), in which Lucier records himself narrating a text, and then plays the recording back into the room, re-recording it. The new recording is then played back and re-recorded, and this process is repeated. Since all rooms have a characteristic resonance (e.g., between a large hall and a small room), the effect is that certain frequencies are gradually emphasised as they resonate in the room, until eventually the words become unintelligible, replaced by the pure resonant harmonies and tones of the room itself. The recited text describes this process in action - it begins "I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice...", and concludes with, "I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have," referring to his own stuttering.

--Wang Han

Although I wasn't in the class, I never heared him before I had do the make up works about listening(his piece " I'm sitting in a room" and....) and reading about him on this page and some resource on the internet. He is a very famous composer.

Hou Chuan-An