Several more compositions – including, but not limited to the proto-vocoder piece North American Time Capsule (1966), Vespers (1968) and the amplified oscillator and piano-wire piece Music on a Long Thin Wire (1977) – speak to Lucier's early innovation, but he never stopped working. Definitive, that is, unless you make your own performance - which is, of course, quite possible and would likely be welcomed by Lucier." There is nothing like I Am Sitting in a Room and Lucier's own recording is a definitive version of a modern masterpiece. "Words become music, sound becomes shimmer, and the natural process of acoustics is demonstrated in the most elegant manner. "What may initially seem intolerably arch and arty (not to mention dull) metamorphosizes into a listening experience that is, in fact, deeply engrossing and, ultimately, eerily and arrestingly beautiful," music critic Tim Page wrote in his 2002 book Tim Page on Music. Each subsequent playback of his taped voice degrades in texture, acclimating and fighting against the space into which it exists. It's a piece of music – sometimes called sound art – that reinforces its premise not through repetition but experience.
I am recording the sound of my speaking voice, and I am going to play it back into the room again and again, until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed." "I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. On it, Lucier recites the following monologue as its instructions and score:
I Am Sitting in a Room – first recorded at Brandeis in 1969, then again in his Middletown, Conn., home in March 1970 – is a study in resonance, decay and time. Archival Recordings 1969-2019 by Alvin Lucier
And once he saw performances of John Cage and David Tudor, Lucier knew this was not only the music he was meant to make but the sound he was made to study, alter and explore. Studying under Aaron Copland and Lukas Foss, Lucier initially favored a neoclassical style, but discovered the avant-garde works of Luigi Nono, Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen while in Rome on a Fulbright Fellowship. Lucier was born in Nashua, N.H., to a musical family, an environment that, in time, led to his studies in music theory and composition at Yale University and later Brandeis University. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease a little over a decade ago NPR confirmed the news of his death with Amanda Lucier, his daughter. Lucier changed the way we think about sound through monumental works like I Am Sitting in a Room and Music on a Long Thin Wire. From music made from brain waves to gamelan instruments reworked for amplifiers and loudspeakers, Alvin Lucier rewired how we heard sound.Īlvin Lucier, the groundbreaking American composer and educator, died Wednesday at his home in Middletown, Conn.