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Alvin Lucier (May 14, 1931 â December 1, 2021) died this week.
Lucierâs I Am Sitting in a Room had a significant impact on my life. While I was in high school, I heard the piece on the radio and was compelled to try it for myself. The recording I made became part of my successful university applications.
The stockroom of my high schoolâs chemistry lab had shelves from floor to ceiling filled with lots of different types and sizes of glassware, with many different resonant frequencies. I positioned reel-to-reel tape recorders at opposite ends of this very long and narrow room. On the first machine I placed a reel of recording tape. On the second machine I placed an empty take-up reel. I ran the recording tape under the tape heads of the first machine, across the floor of the stockroom, under the tape heads of the second tape machine, and onto the take-up reel.
I started the first machine in record mode. I started the second machine in playback mode. As the tape traveled the rather long distance from the recording machine to the playback machine, there was a delay of about 30 seconds between the sound recording and the playback.
With both machines running, a friend of mine (with a wicked sense of humor) recited an off-color joke into the microphone of the first machine. He timed his recitation so that the beginning of his joke arrived at the playback machine just before he would have told the dirty punchline; and then he stopped speaking. At this point, the second machine began to play back the joke that had been recorded on the first machine; and the first machine began to record the playback from the second machine.
With each successive playback of the joke, the quality of the sound evolved a great deal. Some frequencies were absorbed by the surroundings and others were amplified by the resonances of the various glassware in the room. After a few iterations, the original joke was barely discernible except as a kind of rhythm in the emerging sound.
Unfortunately, I no longer have this recording. However, you can get an idea of the quality of the sound by listening to a glass harmonica. Of course, my recording didnât have Mozartâs harmony or melodic structure.
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Spanish flamenco singers MarĂa JimĂ©nez and Miguel Poveda
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The only dance I got any mileage out of was the Y danceâŠ
Take her out on the dance floor⊠hold her close (enough)⊠then ask âY Dance?â
Besides, CCR was more my dance music⊠
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almost album of the year:
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