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Pauline Oliveros with Goddard in the Dan Harpole Cistern

 

Reem Zedan 7711552

Prof. Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath

The Future of [American] Music

02 February 2022

 

Pauline Oliveros with Goddard in the Dan Harpole Cistern

The video starts with a couple of musicians talking in front of a ladder. Throughout the chatter, you can not help but notice the echoing effect in their speech. Yet, this kind of echoing  is a familiar sound. The location of the video is in front of a water tank and the purpose of the ladder is for the musicians to enter the water tank and make music inside of it. The result of this experiment and/or method are definitely eccentric and special.

I was a bit taken back when the singing inside of the tank occurred; even though I was expecting a new sound and prepared for something different. I do not possess the right musical vocabulary to describe it but the echoing had so much depth. The laughter of the camerawoman that followed the singing confirmed to me that the sound that was produced was more objectively than subjectively eerie. For me, it sounded like a reverse-echo effect, a vibration of sound that was coming out from within the source, instead of just repeating the properties of a sound in a slightly different manner, which is what I perceive as “normal” echoing effect.

The final singing segment of the video was definitely my favorite part. I would go as far as describing it as angelic. It was evident that the musicians took their time to understand how the properties of sound change inside of the tank and then used it to their best advantage. This made me perceive the tank not only as a setting for the experiment, but also as a musical instrument. I can not help but remember and draw connections between this and Lucier’s teapot analogy. Both Oliveros and Lucier excessively thought of how the setting influences sounds/music through unconventional methods and ideas and it is equally intriguing and entertaining to hear and see their visions come to life.

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