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Nothing is Real (1990) by Alvin Lucier

Alvin Lucier's Nothing is Real (1990), based on the Beatles' song Strawberry Fields Forever (1967) is a piece of music (or rather: sound production) that is intriguing on various levels.

On first watching the video, I did not realise where the sound that the teapot made in the second half of the work, emerged from. Only when I replayed the video at home did I realise that he had played and simultaneously recorded the Beatles' song with the tape recorder to be played and used as the basis for the (amplified!) teapot performance in the second half of the piece.
        From the video it is not clear to me whether Lucier uses the damper (or sustain) pedal or the sostenuto pedal to keep the vibration of the note(s) played going. What is obvious, though, is the fact that that vibration, that production of sound is the main element of his work. Later, he uses that emerging sound for his performance with the teapot. That sound is the one natural product in this piece. Albeit produced by pressing a key on a piano, it will eventually – with the help of the teapot – come to be fully developed in its entirety. In a way, this is the progression of his Sitting in a Room piece from 1969: Not only extracting and underlining the essence of sound, of natural acoustic from distractive elements surrounding it, but also to emphasize its ability to be used in a performance.
        What I also found rather interesting was Lucier's planning. He had sheets of paper which I assume were the notes for Strawberry Fields Forever and his own changes to the piece, and later sheets of paper to “play” the teapot. I was reminded of John Cage's 4'33'', or rather: this piece was, essentially, the opposite of that piece in that it was played exactly the way it was planned while Cage's piece was based on the fact that it could never be the same due to the very nature of 4'33''.
        Standing ovation at the end of his performance with the teapot. Alvin Lucier was a star of avant-garde music. It is a bit ironic if one thinks about it. Similar to other composers of his ilk, such as John Cage, he was probably not keen on the popular or classical version of music, and yet, here is a relatively large audience listening to his performance in a similarly reverential way as people who attend classical concerts. In a sense it is an audience that listens to his avant-garde music as if it was any other mainstream popular or classical concert. From his Sitting in a Room piece, together with this uncharacteristic way of performing music (or rather: sound) it might be imagined that he does not care for the classic concert venue, and would prefer to perform in unusual locations. The sound space is more important to him than the sound itself, judging by the way he relies heavily on the sustain pedal of the piano (or maybe the sostenuto pedal – I have no knowledge of the intricate workings of  the instrument).
        While the subtitle is clear – mentioning the instruments or devices to be used in this performance, the title itself is puzzling. Nothing is real. Is it a wordplay on the song he uses, Strawberry Fields Forever? That 1967 Beatles' song seems to have heralded the start of the psychedelic era of the late 1960s and 1970s – at least that is what the song is known for nowadays (two people independently told me this when I mentioned the song). Nothing is real because everything is under the influence of drugs (and the word “tea” is apparently an outdated term for marijuana) – in a literal sense. It can be supposed, though, that Lucier's meaning is more about sound, namely the fact that none of the sound produced inside the piano or the teapot is natural but man-made (by pressing keys, and then replaying recorded sound to be used for producing acoustics). This would contradict the assessment I made earlier that the one natural element in this performance is the sound produced by the teapot. Therefore, there would be no natural elements involved in this performance. Or maybe my thought process is completely misled. Who knows?
        In any case, it is a performance which one has to get used to – an acquired taste, so to speak.
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