This piece of music with the
interesting title Nothing is real puts me in a sad and melancholic mood
at the beginning. Somehow, I immediately tend to sink into my thoughts, and I
am absorbed by the dark atmosphere evoked by the deep sounds. The title alone
gives me a depressed and gloomy feeling; it makes you question life and your existence
in general. The short sounds of the keys feel to me like fragments of
unfinished pieces of music that have been put together like a puzzle or a
collage. As if the individual parts don't really belong together, but Alvin
Lucier wanted to put together a variation of different sounds from a piano to
cover as many tones as possible. Even though we had talked during the seminar
about the fact that this piece is based on the Beatles' Strawberry Fields
Forever, I did not have it in the back of my mind when I listened to it
again at home.
Despite the murky feeling that the
piano piece gives me, it is fun to listen to. The melancholic melody somehow
spoke to me. This piece of music made me curious about the unusual ways you can
play music and sounds. It also told a story, although I could not tell
immediately what kind of story. There was never a clear picture in my head,
unlike in other pieces. It was more like a mix of bright and gloomy colors and
flabby shapes.
The moment when the teapot came in
was strange at first, but it made for an exciting change and somehow made the
whole thing more curious to me. This time I have caught myself trying to sort
of imagine the sounds inside the pot bouncing back and forth. The teapot has
changed the tones in a way that is hard for me to put into words. While
listening I wondered how well the recording would have sounded in other vessels.
I asked myself in what way have the shape and the different openings of the
teapot influenced the sounds. For example, would a ceramic vase with only one
opening at the top have produced different sounds or what would the recording
have sounded like in a glass? I am still very curious about the fact that the
high and the low tones sounded diverse in the teapot. I had the feeling the
high notes were barely audible and the lower ones were a bit clearer. As if the
teapot had swallowed some of the high notes and made the lower ones even
deeper. But it could also have been due to the quality of the video recording. This
piece somehow stands out more because it doesn't remind me of other already
better known pieces of music. This one stands for itself and has more
uniqueness.
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