Alvin Lucier blurs the line between art and science. His seminal work, I Am Sitting In A Room, is the quintessential example of this. Clocking in at over 40 minutes long, you hear the slow transformation of Lucier's voice into an etherial almost-music. Essentially Lucier played a recording of himself speaking into a room of his choosing, recorded it, and then played that recording back into the room while rerecording it. He continued this process over and over until his voice was subsumed by the resonant frequencies of the room itself. The result is unlike anything I have heard before or since. The beauty of it is that anyone can do this with any kind of text in any kind of room. This is one of the works that solidified my own conception of the universality and inescapable nature of music.
This is not music per se (at least in the conventional sense) nor is it something that you can just leave going in the background as ambience. Try out some focused listening; sit down and experience this work of beauty.

""I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now." So begins one of the masterpieces of 20th century music merging processed music, minimalism, and self-reference into an utterly amazing and ultimately beautiful work. The instructions for producing the piece are, in fact, the piece itself. The composer sits and describes what will happen, and then it happens. Lucier tapes these instructions (about 80 seconds worth), tapes it, replays that tape into the room, tapes that, plays the second tape into the room, etc., and so on. Little by little, the "natural resonant frequencies of the room" erode the source material, softening hard edges, blurring boundaries between words. Different rooms will, presumably, give different results depending on their individual architectural properties. After ten or 12 repetitions, the listener already has difficulty distinguishing individual words, though the rhythmic pattern remains. But, and this is one of the cruxes of the work, all is not entropy. As the text becomes indecipherable, elements of undeniably musical tones emerge from nowhere, as though they were embedded in the original speech and only came to light after the surface structure was eliminated. Indeed, small melodies can actually be heard and the effect is absolutely magical. Fifteen minutes into the composition, Lucier's speech has become a hazy cloud of wavering, bell-like tones interrupted by the occasional sibilance, the latter generated by the composer's stutter, which adds an element of poignancy to the piece's conception. Halfway through, no aspect of the speech can be gleaned except a rough cadence; instead, the listener has been transported to a sound world at such a far remove from the initial text as to leave one both baffled and awash in wonder. I Am Sitting in a Room is a unique, extraordinary idea/composition, a landmark among late 20th century avant-garde music and a touchstone for a generation of composer/theoreticians. It's a rare combination of sensual beauty and intellectual rigor, and should be heard by anyone interested in contemporary music."
-Allmusic
Here
This is not music per se (at least in the conventional sense) nor is it something that you can just leave going in the background as ambience. Try out some focused listening; sit down and experience this work of beauty.

""I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now." So begins one of the masterpieces of 20th century music merging processed music, minimalism, and self-reference into an utterly amazing and ultimately beautiful work. The instructions for producing the piece are, in fact, the piece itself. The composer sits and describes what will happen, and then it happens. Lucier tapes these instructions (about 80 seconds worth), tapes it, replays that tape into the room, tapes that, plays the second tape into the room, etc., and so on. Little by little, the "natural resonant frequencies of the room" erode the source material, softening hard edges, blurring boundaries between words. Different rooms will, presumably, give different results depending on their individual architectural properties. After ten or 12 repetitions, the listener already has difficulty distinguishing individual words, though the rhythmic pattern remains. But, and this is one of the cruxes of the work, all is not entropy. As the text becomes indecipherable, elements of undeniably musical tones emerge from nowhere, as though they were embedded in the original speech and only came to light after the surface structure was eliminated. Indeed, small melodies can actually be heard and the effect is absolutely magical. Fifteen minutes into the composition, Lucier's speech has become a hazy cloud of wavering, bell-like tones interrupted by the occasional sibilance, the latter generated by the composer's stutter, which adds an element of poignancy to the piece's conception. Halfway through, no aspect of the speech can be gleaned except a rough cadence; instead, the listener has been transported to a sound world at such a far remove from the initial text as to leave one both baffled and awash in wonder. I Am Sitting in a Room is a unique, extraordinary idea/composition, a landmark among late 20th century avant-garde music and a touchstone for a generation of composer/theoreticians. It's a rare combination of sensual beauty and intellectual rigor, and should be heard by anyone interested in contemporary music."
-Allmusic
Here
Leave a comment

grumpy


bouncy
energetic
crazy
cheerful
nostalgic

apathetic

full




sick
annoyed


relaxed
sleepy
calm
flirty