I can really hear how much Cage has influenced Lucier in his life.
Especially the teapot on the piano piece heavily leans onto John Cage’s works.
Of course, Alvin Lucier experimented further as well. His piece "I Am
Sitting in A Room" was very interesting to listen to. We listened to the
whole thing in class, and I have to say, by the end, my ears were ringing from
all the screeching sounds.
Now, that might have been because of the speakers in the room. When I
listened to it again at home with my headphones, it wasn’t so bad. Now that I
could actually concentrate on the words being said and experience the meaning
behind them, I find it really fascinating. On the track, Lucier says that
everything except rhythm is destroyed. And that's exactly what happens. With
every loop of the sound being played back into the room and recorded again, the
speech in the empty room becomes more and more fluent – literally. So, as his
stutter slowly fades into the waves of high and low tones. About halfway into
the recording, I closed my eyes, and the sound almost made its way through my
head in waves. At least that show I imagined it.
By then I had heard the text enough times to know what he was saying,
and in class, I actually read over the text throughout the whole track. Maybe
that was a mistake, though. Because looking back at it now, I always knew what
each swell of the sound meant and always saw it as that: the words (even if I
couldn’t hear them clearly anymore). When the actual aim of this experiment was
to experience how the sound changed and what difference it made or how it made
me feel different.
Luckily, I listened to it again, as I already said, without reading the
text. And it really made me realize how trance-like the track becomes. It
almost made me forget that I too was sitting in a room – different from the one
he was in. And when it was over, and I opened my eyes again, I needed a
minute to check back into reality.
I think it’s fascinating, though. And also, very impressive that he
created something with such a great influence on the listener (given they are
prepared to fall into this piece like I tried the second time). It was a crazy
experience.
Comments
Post a Comment