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Alvin Lucier: Nothing is Real

 

Melanie Diehl (6887890)

Prof. Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath

Winter Semester 2022/2023

The Future of American Music

Independent Study – 21.02.23

Alvin Lucier: Nothing is Real

It took me a few replays and a few other covers of understanding how Lucier’s amplified tea pot theory works. I was baffled that a teapot could even do that. I thought it was converting the same sounds played on the piano then transported into the teapot? What? How? I know we are not supposed to ask questions in an essay, but I did not understand it. So, it took me a few replays.

I went on to search for any covers of Lucier, and there were a ton, some even explained it. Then I got it. Should have come to class that day, I guess. I started to research on Lucier and I t did not take me long to realise that he was inspired by John Cage and Pierre Schaeffer. During my time in the seminar, I studied that all the composers we have discussed are linked, intertwined, and inspired from each other’s. Since Cage, there have been a vast majority of composers who continue to break the boundaries of music.

I have never thought of using a teapot for musical purposes because, our generation has more of less grown up with electro music. The use of electronical instruments to amplify music or the use of pc software for music, that help us tune in music or turn people who can’t sing into singers, is essentially nothing new to us. However, it is very educative and interesting to see where it all started. Who thought of amplifying a teapot? Experimenting to see if sounds can be produced or reproduced? Who comes up with that? My man, Alvin Lucier did!

It is because of these late composers, that we have our gratitude to thank for giving us experimental music and allowing us to explore what else is possible. You do not have to have a musical instrument to create sounds or music. I dare to even say that it is still shifting and evolving. Lucier’s Nothing is Real, was long and confused me as well, but ultimately I find it amazing that you can use a teapot, amplify it, and it gives you sounds, like crazy but so cool!

P.s.: you said we can be colloquial.

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