ALVIN LUCIER: SONIC PHENOMENA The brunt of our audile experiences are compromised and constantly scrambled by the complexity of sound itself. To function in daily life, our ears have become adept in filtering the spectrum of noise pouring out of every crevice in space[1]. Whether ignoring the ambient sounds of the street, focusing on someone speaking, or letting music recede to the background, listening is relegated to the mundane task of identifying rather than appreciating the qualities and properties of sound. I hear birds chirping. Is that a train passing in the distance? That music is playing too loudly. Whether conscious or not, language imposes itself over volume, form, and texture of sound environments. The conceptual composer Alvin Lucier was not so concerned with the traditional notation (flattening) of music, but rather tracing the invisible phenomena embedded in properties of acoustics in its relation to space. This investigation of sound phenomena led him to create scores that asked listeners to intuitively feel the fibers of frequencies and wavelengths that are taken for granted. Analysis of select works demonstrates his ability to extract natural happenings for aesthetic purposes. Alvin Lucier received his education at the Portsmouth Abbey School, Yale, and Brandeis University. Born in 1931 and raised in Nashua, New Hampshire, he was an educator at Bradeis between 1962 to 1970,[2] where Lucier had created many of his seminal works including, Music for Solo Performer [1965], I am Sitting in a Room [1968] and developed initial ideas that he continues to explore today. Following 1970, he has taught at Wesleyan University while lecturing, performing, and exhibiting worldwide. In a scene from the novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne, a man walks along the ocean floor holding a conch shell over his head in order to suck air from its pearly folds. This imagery struck Alvin Lucier, and while he was travelling through California in 1968, he was delighted to come upon a store that sold a variety of conches. The owner had revealed that these discarded shells were often used as a blowing tool. During his research, Lucier had discovered that Tibetan chants had indeed used the conch’s moan. This chain of events led Lucier to conceptualize the piece, Chambers, later that year. Initially, he was interested in the pitch of nature’s horn and the way contrasting pitches would create beats against one another. This expanded to a group of players blowing in the their shells and spinning in circles to create a subtle Doppler effect (Lucier and Douglas 7). Lucier then developed the idea to have his choir of conch crooners slowly move away from each other while spinning. The first attempt launched in La Jolla, California in an unannounced outdoor performance. The group began playing in close proximity to one another while slowly moving outwardly into the environment. The players would breathe different pitches, not ending the performance, “until they reached the threshold of hearing at least one other shell.”[3] This piece was repeated in Steinway Hall, New York, where the musicians began inside the concert hall and floated out onto the streets of Fifty-Seventh Street. The surrounding sounds of the city would begin to take on the tonality of the shell; that is, the sound of the conch would attach itself to the sound of a passing truck, other people, buildings swaying the breeze. Alvin Lucier compares this simple phenomenon to the percussion section of an orchestra taking on “the pitch of the fundamental chord that the orchestra is playing.”[4] When he was asked to write the actual published score for Chambers, he opened up the specificity of both the sound (blown pitches) and resonating environment (conch shell) to form innumerable combinations. The composition offers some suggestions such as making “Cupped Hands, Subway Stations, Shoes, Tombs, Bottles, Wells, Bones” to take on the sonic characteristics of “Rubbing, Melting, Jiggling, Talking, Ignoring, Spraying, Praying.”[5] This generous set of possibilities signifies two important points about Lucier’s ideas: sound is a fluid and malleable substance, and anyone can make music. To touch on the first idea requires the explanation of what a resonant frequency is. Every space and object paints its personality onto the jets of sound constantly bouncing off of it. The various measures and structures of wavelengths give sound a color, timbre, and tone quality which is made unique by the environment it inhabits. Lucier mentions the subtle observation of footsteps changing in sound when walking between different spaces, for example, from a narrow lobby into a vast empty theater. Therefore, just about any fixed space (canyons, tunnels) and handheld object (teapots, bowling ball) can be described as a resonant environment. By using different combinations of found[6] sounds and spaces, one can reveal sound to mimic just about anything. In 1969, Lucier further demonstrates the strata of resonance in his piece, I am Sitting in a Room. Using two tape recorders, a microphone, loudspeaker, and an amplifier, he recorded a paragraph of his speech, played it back to make a further recording, and kept repeating this process. After multiple generations, his copy of a copy of a copy of his voice had melted away from organized language into music, dictated by the resonant frequencies existing in the room. What is heard, is not the degradation of each dubbing, but the playback of speech into the space. Electronics and acoustics keep filtering the recording into new sounds.[7] This is key in realizing that process is often more important than product in Lucier’s work. He mentions that an engineer could have produced the same effect in a single generation, but the transformation of his voice into a natural abstraction is what interests him most. Returning to my earlier point about everyone as musician, the score for, I am Sitting in a Room, asks performers to try this process in any room for any recorded sound. After all, this is a relatively simple way of working, and no musical virtuosity is needed to successfully ‘play’ his piece. Various versions encourage experimentation because Lucier wants his listeners to make connections between everyday objects as potential instruments and neglected noise phenomena as beautiful music. One can also feel an insistent urge in Lucier’s scores to transport senses into otherworldly growth. By asking performers to play with countless variables and impossible situations, he hopes that one day our senses will be so finely evolved, that sound experiences will become more self-aware and intimate.[8] One can imagine an enthused Lucier waiting for people to possess the ability to perceive shifting resonant characteristics of a room. That would allow us to find the perfect spot in any space that would most aesthetically elevate our voice (Krosen, Jill 89). Although many of his pieces rely on technology and experimentation, Alvin Lucier’s intentions are distinctly beyond the scientific. His working method clearly pardons him of any impartial rigidity. Most of his pieces are actually performed before an official score is outlined, and after the performance, he expands upon what has already happened.[9] This differs from most scientific processes of using specific hypotheses that are tested and further confined into true and false findings. Instead, Lucier uses current technology as a tool to distill beauty out of the chaotic sound jungle. He creates ideal scenarios where an awareness of sounds’ diffracting movements can be achieved in our lives. Beyond a mere perception exercise, a serious engagement with the work proposes to enhance our daily enjoyment of hearing. [10] In an interview with Jill Kroesen, she makes the observation that much of the earlier work presents the revelation of a phenomenon to be art. Later on, however, the composer harnesses this revelation (while already existing as art) to make the art as well. He begins to edit, make changes, and break his rules – an indication that he is evolving as an artist. [11] For instance, contrast Gentle Fire, a piece from 1971 to a much more recent piece, Clockers (1991). Gentle Fire premises that any unpleasant sound can be processed into something enjoyable. Again, as in Chambers, a prosaic list is assembled: “Collect, on tape, examples of ambient sound events such as those made by Screeching brakes, Chattering guests, Warring gangs, Rioting prisoners…” which are then to be converted into “Ocean waves, Wind in trees, Flowing streams, Boiling tea, Cooing doves” by means of electronic components such as a synthesizer. The phenomenon in this work is to use tools to show the elusive, chameleon quality available in every sound. How easily an infant’s cry can allude to singing dolphins. Also, note the evolutionary charm this piece implies. Will our finessed ears one day convert displeasing sounds into lovely music at will? Clockers , recognizes the phenomena of how emotions can alter imagined time (whether speeding or slowing down). This occurrence is used to create a sound piece where the ticking of a clock is controlled by contractions in the skin. Lucier used a GSR (galvanic skin response sensor) to “measure differences in skin resistance caused by changes in emotional state.” A current which runs through the body is amplified into voltage that can “be used to control various devices.”[12] After connecting a Digitech recorder to a clock and feeding ticks into a digital delay system, Lucier was able to control the device by voltage produced by the GSR. Electrodes taped to his fingers sent signals to the GSR that measured skin movement, creating varying amounts of power that altered the tempo of the clock. With help from sound artist Nicolas Collins, Clocker was first recorded at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts. Instead of just demonstrating this interesting relationship, multiple speakers and additional delays were added to change the style and sound of the piece. He composed with this phenomenon whereas in the past he let the inherent sounds play itself. Alvin Lucier’s conceptual endeavors have been creatively ambitious while being deceptively simple. A ghost hunter of audile specters, his life’s work has produced minimalist sounds reflecting Duchampian efforts of fashioning found noise and resonant environments into art. He is not afraid of technology; rather embracing it as a tool that will uncover new sensations. Much like Muybridge’s stop-motion camera astounded naked eyes of the past, Lucier is attempting to wow our unclad ears. Perhaps the composer, in his own words, puts it best, “I guess I’m trying to help people hold shells up to their ears and listen to the ocean again.”[13]
[2] Biographical information from Alvin Lucier’s official web site: “http://alucier.web.wesleyan.edu/bio.html” [3] Lucier, Alvin and Simon, Douglas. Chambers. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. P. 9 [4] ibid. P. 9. [5] Taken from the original score. [6] He preferred “found” environments because that taught him about existing traits; he didn’t want to change, rather discover. ibid. P. 13 [7] ibid. p.34 [8] Revealed in an interview from Kroesen, Jill. et al., “Stretching Our Imagination,” Music with Roots in the Aether. Germany: MusicTexte, 2000. [9] ibid. P.89 [10] Ashley, Robert. “With and without a purpose,” Music with Roots in the Aether. Germany:MusicTexte, 2000. P.81 [11] Kroesen, Jill P. 90. [12] Compositional notes from Clockers audio CD insert, Lovely Music, Ltd., 1994. [13] Lucier, Avlin and Douglas, Simon P. 14 |