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Listening Report to Alvin Lucier – Project 76 Nothing is real

 

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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