So I already have 'I am sitting...' - its time to cover everything else.
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 15:24 (nineteen years ago) link
― Snappy (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 15:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 15:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jena (JenaP), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 15:37 (nineteen years ago) link
― wordyrappington (wordyrappington), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 16:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― BlastsOfStatic (BlastsofStatic), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 17:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Stephen Boyle (SBoyle), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― E. Hammer (E. Hammer), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― E. Hammer (E. Hammer), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 18:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― pdf (Phil Freeman), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 19:58 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― Nimrod Kovacs (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 20:07 (nineteen years ago) link
I Am Sitting In A Room - (really wish the CD had seperate indexes for each iteration, instead of just a single track -- the original LP was ideal, you'd just play side 2 over and over --original cover art was better too). The original 1966 mono version is available on a compilation called "With A Minimum of Means", not as colorful but also interesting. This is an easy piece to perform; two boomboxes with condenser mics and you're good to go, especially if you can find a good stairwell or freeway underpass.
Music On A Long Thin Wire - one tone, pure minimalism, sounds fantastic loud.
Music for Solo Performer - brainwave scans trigger percussion instruments. lots of silence, tapping, rumbling, then loud explosions: Oliveros' brain is apparently a lot more violent than Lucier's. I'm waiting for a CD reissue of this.
Clocker - the idea of the piece is great but all the sound amounts to is the sound of a ticking clock fed through a lo-fi digital delay, didn't work for me.
Silver Streetcar for the Orchestra, Sferics, Bird and Person Dyning - the last I hear is fantastic, I'm waiting for the CD
― (Jon L), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 21:28 (nineteen years ago) link
Still and Moving Lines of Silence in Families of Hyperbolas was the first record to do this. sinewaves hold a single tone, and instruments hold single tones against them, creating wild pulses and beating patterns against each other. takes patience; I don't play this one often. mp3 here.
Crossings, the sinewaves begin sweeping, from low to high over the course of twenty minutes; the instruments hold single tones, moving up half steps, following the sine wave. more a physics demo than a piece of music, but the way the beating pulses accellerate, stabilize, then pull away, is pretty crazy... you still need to be in the mood for this one... mp3.
Panorama is more of the same, slightly more refined, though the trombone sounds better for this than the clarinet. This one's worth buying entirely because of the _outstanding_ piece "Music for Piano with Amplified Sonorous Vessels" -- microphones placed deep inside of sea shells that are mounted on a piano keyboard. Feldmanesque chords held forever, but the core of it is the _sound_, which is something you just have to hear, muted and obscured but still right next to your ear. It's 14 minutes long -- I've burned a CD consisting of just this piece 5 times in a row.
Navigations for Strings; Small Waves, same approach, this time for string quartet & piano; closely grouped tones, held forever; not unlike a less-massively-overdubbed Niblock. uneasy textures, not my favorite, but would love to hear this live. mp3's
Theme branches out with settings of John Ashberry poems recorded in similar filtered ways, wispy speech patterns atop the sinewaves, also a piece for Gamelan I need to check out again, but --
Still Lives is the late period masterpiece which takes everything he's learned from the above discs and makes them into music; here, two sinewaves slowly move up and down in pitch, and a piano occasionally intersects their glissandos with held tones, causing beating pulses as always. but the glissandos aren't simply mechanically ascending, they're erratically moving back and forth, unpredictably wandering, and as the piano follows them, a beautiful melodic line begins forming out of nowhere. an incredible tension between what's dictated by the sweeping sine tones and the increasing _surprise_ every time another note sounds and turns a natural corner. I can't think of another piece like this, or anyone else who could have written it.
'i am sitting...' on a long-distance train journey sounds gd. might do that when I have to make a trip.
milton (or anyone) have you seen any of this stuff live? some of this just sounds awesome.
prob get 'still lives' next but thanks again to everyone for their posts.
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 21:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 21:49 (nineteen years ago) link
Charles Curtis and Anthony Burr are performing some Lucier, including a couple of the "Still and Moving Lines..." pieces, at Tonic in New York this upcoming Monday.
(Just to continue introducing myself- my first name is Erlend, I'm in Bergen, Norway and I'm currently writing a thesis on La Monte Young's Dream House.)
― E. Hammer (E. Hammer), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 22:55 (nineteen years ago) link
Lucier is performing "I Am Sitting in a Room" LIVE this Saturday at 7 at Wesleyan University. Be there.
― soultr0n, Wednesday, 2 February 2005 23:47 (nineteen years ago) link
She's studied martial arts.
― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Thursday, 3 February 2005 02:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Thursday, 3 February 2005 02:55 (nineteen years ago) link
back around 1983 a friend and I called 411 and got his home phone number and he was gracious enough top grant a couple of obnoxious kids an interview for our fanzine. we later met up with him at Cal Arts for a performance he was doing. It involved four parade sized bass drums with ping pong balls on fishing wire dangled in fron of the heads..very low pitched square waves were played via speakers into the open end of the drums causing the ping pong balls to swing at various speeds. created a sort of sparse polyrhythm free of human hands and looked amazing.. wish i could remember the name of it, i'm pretty sure there's no available recording. also got him to sign my copies of 'bird and person dyning' and 'music for solo performer'. cherished posessions to be sure.
― Brad Laner (Brad Laner), Thursday, 3 February 2005 04:18 (nineteen years ago) link
Has anyone ever heard a recording of 'the only talking machine of its kind in the world'? It preceeded 'I am sitting in a room' but exploring similar aspects of sound.
I'm gonna perform a Lucier piece in one of our lunchtime recitals at uni, should be funny, people on my course find it hard enough to listen to some pretty minimalism like Reich or Riley.
― TomB (TomB), Thursday, 3 February 2005 18:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― Snappy (sexyDancer), Thursday, 3 February 2005 18:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― and i don't care, Thursday, 3 February 2005 18:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― Stephen Boyle (SBoyle), Thursday, 3 February 2005 18:43 (nineteen years ago) link
http://research.umbc.edu/~tmoore/interview_frame.html
― (Jon L), Thursday, 3 February 2005 20:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― Beta (abeta), Thursday, 3 February 2005 23:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― Snappy (sexyDancer), Thursday, 3 February 2005 23:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 3 February 2005 23:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― Snappy (sexyDancer), Thursday, 3 February 2005 23:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― Snappy (sexyDancer), Thursday, 3 February 2005 23:53 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 3 February 2005 23:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― Snappy (sexyDancer), Thursday, 3 February 2005 23:58 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.newmusicbox.com/page.nmbx?id=72fp01
― milton parker (Jon L), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 22:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 08:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 08:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― Raymond Douglas Dadaismus (Dada), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 08:47 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.instal.org.uk/
Fri 14 OctDoors 7pm (first act on 7.15pm)
JandekJOJO Black Boned AngelUP-TIGHT
Sat 15 OctDoors 4pm (first act on 4.30pm)
Tetuzi AkiyamaBirchville Cat Moteldirecting handRauhan OrkesteriSun City GirlsHijokaidan
Sun 16 OctDoors 4pm (first act on 4.30pm)
Ingar Zach + Rhodri DaviesTom BrunoLoren Mazzacane Connors + Alan LichtChie MukaiHenri ChopinPauline Oliveros + David Dove
― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 10:29 (eighteen years ago) link
if you go you MUST see henri chopin (I haven't but spent time wondering what it must be like). there are lots of ok, and some wonderful sound poetry but he's so much better than any of 'em.
that's my pick
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 14:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Beta (abeta), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 14:52 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.ubu.com/sound/aether.html
I watched 1, 3 and 4 last night (had already seen 2)
they're incredible for the patient
― milton parker (Jon L), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 17:29 (eighteen years ago) link
This event will be archived online.
Yay!
― Gerard (Gerard), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 18:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― SoHoLa (SoHoLa), Thursday, 15 September 2005 03:45 (eighteen years ago) link
I tried watching the Mumma episode of Aether tonight and instead I'm just watching the Lucier episode again
it's impossibly great
― milton parker (Jon L), Thursday, 15 September 2005 05:54 (eighteen years ago) link
www.unstcollective.com www.resonancefm.com
― gubbins, Thursday, 15 September 2005 12:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 16 September 2005 07:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 16 September 2005 07:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― Raymond Douglas Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 16 September 2005 08:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 16 September 2005 10:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:08 (seventeen years ago) link
The Only Talking Machine of its Kind in the World
This is probably the most moving and beautiful of all of Lucier's pieces.
― I know, right?, Thursday, 28 August 2008 00:28 (fifteen years ago) link
Interview with him on UBUWEB is brilliant. I nearly crack up everytime he says "I mean, that's fascinating, don't you think?" forcing the interviewer to be all "Uh, yeah, definitely"
― I know, right?, Friday, 29 August 2008 01:01 (fifteen years ago) link
Did everybody see this yet? Pretty cool.
http://gawker.com/5554154/what-does-a-video-look-like-after-1000-youtube-uploads
― The Clegg Effect (Tracer Hand), Friday, 4 June 2010 12:23 (thirteen years ago) link
Let's see the CSI:Miami crime lab restore that video!
― Scelsi Hotel (Paul in Santa Cruz), Friday, 4 June 2010 16:30 (thirteen years ago) link
lucier-mania at wesleyan!
http://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/lucier.html
― scott seward, Thursday, 3 November 2011 16:08 (twelve years ago) link
The Wesleyan University Orchestra, Gamelan Ensemble and Collegium Musicum perform Alvin Lucier's ensemble works Music for Gamelan Instruments, Microphones, Amplifiers and Loudspeakers (1994), Six Geometries (1993), Panorama 2 (2011), Exploration of the House (2005), and Shadow Lines (2008).
― scott seward, Thursday, 3 November 2011 16:09 (twelve years ago) link
serious brainpower
Panel to include Robert Ashley, David Behrman, Paula Matthusen, Gordon Mumma, Pauline Oliveros and Christian Wolff. Moderated by Anthony Braxton, Professor of Music.
― scott seward, Thursday, 3 November 2011 16:10 (twelve years ago) link
holy moly
― vitameatawalloginavegamin (donna rouge), Thursday, 3 November 2011 16:14 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, i got the schedule for this. wish i was there. as usual, all the interesting stuff in new england happens the minute i leave town.
i will be interviewing him, though!
― geeta, Thursday, 3 November 2011 16:16 (twelve years ago) link
hey geeta
good imdb review of one of the 'Dr. Chicago' series of films I brought up in the subway: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0203426/
I haven't seen it myself, sure want to.
http://georgemanupelli.com/
The Chicago films do not use actors. Instead, the main characters are played by major avant garde talents from other creative fields. Dr. Chicago is played by renowned composer Alvin Lucier whose stream-of-consciousness soliloquies in the films are punctuated by his ferocious stutter. Painter and performance artist Mary Ashley, a primary member of the legendary ONCE Group, smolders throughout as Chicago's girlfriend, Sheila Marie.
― Milton Parker, Thursday, 3 November 2011 17:59 (twelve years ago) link
you know me! in the subway, bringing up things
― Milton Parker, Thursday, 3 November 2011 18:00 (twelve years ago) link
yeah I really can't believe I haven't seen these yet:http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/2009/07/the_return_of_dr_ch-ch-ch-ch-c.html
― Milton Parker, Thursday, 3 November 2011 18:15 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icruGcSsPp0
― Pauper Management Improved (Sanpaku), Friday, 23 March 2012 22:21 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/orchestras/events/1369
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 6 February 2013 18:18 (eleven years ago) link
There is nothing else like 'Still Lives' and any chance to physically hear it with the use of your body shouldn't be missed
looking forward to this on sunday: http://www.thelab.org/index.php/schedule/events/648-charles-curtis
― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 6 February 2013 18:38 (eleven years ago) link
^kinda how I feel about "bird & person dyning", went to a performance of it when I was 19 & have wanted to hear it again ever since. Talked to lucier afterwards, really nice man!
― ☯ t (wins), Wednesday, 6 February 2013 18:42 (eleven years ago) link
Ward u r in for a treat!
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 6 February 2013 19:31 (eleven years ago) link
ty guys, i will be there
milton that curtis gig looks sweet - are there any particular charles curtis recordings you wld rec - i remember seeing a dbl alb (?) w/ a helix cover (??), that wld prob be the most common item here in the uk
xyzzzz - come to glasgow!
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 6 February 2013 19:34 (eleven years ago) link
Ward - re: Curtis, see my post from 2006 with Charles' recording, the link still works.
Have to say that Glasgow gig looks amazing and worth the trip. Let you know if I can make it near the time.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 6 February 2013 19:45 (eleven years ago) link
xp
you're talking about this one: http://www.discogs.com/Anthony-Burr--Charles-Curtis-Alvin-Lucier/release/776910
I like it -- good overview of the oscillator + instrument beating pieces, well recorded. gotta say the packaging is unusually good, not only beautiful but really re-enforces the music.
These worth checking out too:http://www.discogs.com/%C3%89liane-Radigue-Pour-Charles-Curtis-Naldjorlak/release/1542131http://www.discogs.com/La-Monte-Young--Marian-Zazeela-Just-Charles-Cello-In-The-Romantic-Chord-2002-2003/release/1059636
my favorite of the oscillator + instrument pieces is probably Lucier's ground-zero recording - http://www.lovely.com/titles/cd1015.html -- each instrument acts so differently with the sine wave, you get a lot more variety than you do when two dedicated instrumentalists do their thing for two whole discs. my second favorite is 'Panorama' - http://www.lovely.com/titles/cd1012.html
― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 6 February 2013 19:50 (eleven years ago) link
xyzzzz,i am in NYC the week before the Lucier weekend, la-di-da - (and def gonna go to the Dream House on one day of my trip) - but you wld of course be a welcome guest in the dream house here - now, to read yr post above
ty again milton, will study
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 6 February 2013 19:53 (eleven years ago) link
OK, so the performance of 'Bird & Person Dyning' was def the highlight of this weekend, for me - sort've reminded me of Ashley's Automatic Writing in that it had the almost subliminal feel/effect of being whispered to, throughout. In fact, seeing the Lucier works performed made it clearer to me that his project is, at least in part, an attempt to bring to light the 'hidden' language of feedback, electricity, amplification, etc - a secret sound world that we don't normally hear or recongise, in the course of the everyday, but that runs perpetually, just out of reach. The piece for cello and amplified vases also illuminated this, with the cellist almost coaxing sound from the pots, like a snake-charmer. 'Still Lives' wasn't quite as effective, this time; the drones didn't seem to be loud enough, and funnily enough, a lack of volume was also the problem w/ the o'malley/ambarachi performance, both of them playing their amplified guitars flat on a table using e-bows, opposite each other, but not really generating enough of a noise to get the full speaker/feedback interaction-thing going. O'malley later got the chance to bring the skronk on a massive Dumitrescu piece for orchestra and electric guitar that closed the fest - lots of metal bashing, percussion, cosmic cataclysms, stirring stuff.
It involved four parade sized bass drums with ping pong balls on fishing wire dangled in fron of the heads..very low pitched square waves were played via speakers into the open end of the drums causing the ping pong balls to swing at various speeds. created a sort of sparse polyrhythm free of human hands and looked amazing.
This was also in situ throughout the fest, and was great to watch and experience - there was also an element of suspense or surprise, wondering when the ping pong balls would stir against the drums. Took a couple of pics of this on my phone, hope to upload them later.
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 13 May 2013 07:56 (ten years ago) link
http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc497/WardFowler/Photo0061_zps74c62541.jpg
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 13 May 2013 22:39 (ten years ago) link
sounds like an amazing show
found a copy of this recently: http://www.amazon.com/Chambers-Scores-Alvin-Lucier/dp/0819550426/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368553358&sr=1-2
worth it. the early scores are all prose, pointing at and digging around the ideas behind the music; I found it as inspiring as Silence or A Year From Monday
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, 14 May 2013 17:45 (ten years ago) link
Fantastic report Ward, real shame I couldn't be there.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 14 May 2013 20:27 (ten years ago) link
http://www.alvin-lucier-film.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZahY5IjbkZU
― j., Saturday, 4 January 2014 01:46 (ten years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGtS2mnYFQw&feature=youtu.be
― Onan Pullett (wins), Thursday, 25 September 2014 23:54 (nine years ago) link
5 year anniversary
https://twitter.com/alvinlucier
― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 1 July 2015 01:34 (eight years ago) link
Follower #250.
― We'd like to conduct a wobulator test here (Sanpaku), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 03:06 (eight years ago) link
This looks positively amazing. Stoked for the 120 page book(let) alone.
This compilation, if it can be called that, sorely misses 'Still and Moving Lines of Silence in Families of Hyperbolas', 'Music On A Long Thin Wire' and especially 'Bird and Person Dyning', but perchance it's the best Lucier compilation out there. Can't wait for this box to be dropped at my doorstep.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 22:15 (five years ago) link
wouldn't call that one a comp. new performances of older works are reboots. saw the sonic arts union show at issue project room a few months ago and lucier's new works for sinewaves were new territory; instead of keeping one or two slow moving sinewaves as foundational sounds to prompt the acoustical beating of the live instruments, there are quite a few sinewaves in motion, each with diverging / converging trajectories, so the latticework / beating coming from the electronics are already completely busy - not minimal at all, crazy sounding. like some kind of audio illusion bridge between radigue and amacher. it was amazing lucier was even there in person for the show - walking very slowly now, but on top of it, black lives matter t-shirt, surrounded by old friends
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 22:30 (five years ago) link
Ha, that's amazing, and heartening to hear. The guy's 87 and wearing a BLM shirt! Good for him.
Call it a comp, call it a reboot: I'm excited about it either way.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 22:40 (five years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-Pnb_ZE7Hs
Lucier is compelling throughout. Majestically ignores the interviewer for much of the interview. (I hate this interviewer but he gets good results so maybe he is good?)
“How do I get in touch with John Cage?” “Have you tried calling him?”
AL: [Fascinating detailed explanation of upcoming piece]Interviewer cuts him off: [bored and unimpressed] “Okay. Something to look forward to.”
― lukas, Sunday, 10 March 2019 06:01 (five years ago) link
has anyone figured out why red bull boosts avant garde music
― global tetrahedron, Sunday, 10 March 2019 17:49 (five years ago) link
RIP
― global tetrahedron, Wednesday, 1 December 2021 17:18 (two years ago) link
RIP. I kind of guessed this when I saw this thread bumped.
― jvc, Wednesday, 1 December 2021 18:22 (two years ago) link
:(
― huile about oeuf (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 1 December 2021 18:24 (two years ago) link
It is a cliche to name a "genius" who "changed" music, listening or recording for everyone who followed. Often it is a bullshit honorific. I am however sincere when I say Alvin Lucier, genius, invented new ways to hear, execute, record and think about music and sound. Requiescat.— steve albini (@electricalWSOP) December 1, 2021
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 1 December 2021 19:34 (two years ago) link
― emil.y, Wednesday, 1 December 2021 19:40 (two years ago) link
Oh fuck I’m glad I saw at 2019 Big Ears.
― A Pile of Ants (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 1 December 2021 20:05 (two years ago) link
Also in a recent documentary I discovered he used the same brand of crushed tomatoes to make marinara sauce as my family does.
― A Pile of Ants (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 1 December 2021 20:06 (two years ago) link
:-(
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 1 December 2021 20:50 (two years ago) link
Was so lucky to see him do Music for Solo Performer. Just a little old man sitting quietly while everything erupted around him.
― lukas, Thursday, 2 December 2021 00:02 (two years ago) link
First mention of Alvin Lucier in the NYT, August 28, 1963 pic.twitter.com/Ni32QySlCP— Marc Masters 🌵 (@Marcissist) December 2, 2021
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 2 December 2021 15:45 (two years ago) link
Uh
Hey, um, can we talk about this factoid in the art forum Lucier piece? pic.twitter.com/t31bE1laSh— Unseen Worlds (@Unseen_Worlds) February 3, 2022
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 3 February 2022 22:34 (two years ago) link
waht
― bad milk blood robot (sleeve), Thursday, 3 February 2022 22:42 (two years ago) link
"I Am Being Cloned In A Room (In Perth)"
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 3 February 2022 23:50 (two years ago) link
"I am sitting in a body different than the one I was in before"
― bad milk blood robot (sleeve), Thursday, 3 February 2022 23:55 (two years ago) link
"I am recording the sound of my soul and am going to play it back into the body"
― bad milk blood robot (sleeve), Thursday, 3 February 2022 23:56 (two years ago) link