A tricky composition: Alvin Lucier’s I am sitting in a Room

 Alvin Lucier’s I am sitting in a room, arguably his best-known composition is one of those deceptively simple pieces that catch the listener unawares somewhere in the middle. The piece begins with a recorded voice speaking about the natural resonant frequencies of the room and how the physical act of speech articulated these frequencies. The key to I am sitting in a room is that the recorded voice played is re-recorded and so on and so on until the resonant frequencies form what could be considered as ‘music’.

I listened to two versions of I am sitting in a room. What I found fascinating is how even the slightest change in speech pitch had an impact on the overall recording, which I was able to detect in both recordings. The first was an old one, played on a gramophone. The recorded speech slurs slightly at the end which has an effect on the piece as a whole. What was interesting about this particular recording is how the recorded speech formed a melody that could be described as electronic. I was reminded especially of the works of Cliff Martinez while listening to this.

The second recording I listened to is a performance by Lucier from his 2016 album, Alvin Lucier: Two Circles. This version was recorded during the 2012 Venice Biennale Musica at the Teatro alle Tese.  Perhaps it was the setting, the room where the recording was done or maybe that Lucier was in his 80s when he performed, but the overall effect of this recording was remarkably different from the earlier one.

Several aspects influence this effect. For one, the background feedback, indiscernible in the first few recorded iterations, effectively forms the bass section of the piece. After several iterations, the feedback has a choral effect (reminiscent of Messiaen) with Lucier’s voice, aged and wobbling, serving as the main tone that breaks through this ‘choir’. The echoes of Lucier’s voice are also captured in the recording adds to this ‘Wall of Sound’. 

Somewhere around 10 minutes into the 18-minute recording, a melody emerges, which seems to be in D# (it took me some time before I could make out what the key was). As the recording loops continue, Lucier’s voice transforms into something resembling a gentle string instrument like a harp, mandolin or a shamisen. The ‘melody’ here takes on a D#-F-D#-C-Bb progression, as the piece continues to sound less like voice and more like music.

I think what is really interesting is that Lucier somehow tricks us into imagining other sounds added to form a fully realised piece of music. To me, it seemed as if instruments were being played - certain sounds in the background sounded like horns and thumps that sounded like percussion.  What starts out as speech recorded, transforms into something like orchestral ambient music, with the choir, strings and light drumming.

But this transformation doesn’t end there. The piece somehow slowly evolves into something more majestic as the iterations continue. In many ways, it feels like Lucier is rewarding the listener for being patient with the buildup and he concludes it with a grandiose symphonic end, like a Mozart symphony.

Having listened to Cage, it’s interesting to note that Lucier seems to have the same goal in mind: to make listeners listen to the sounds. But I think he goes one step further by encouraging us to imagine and draw from our listening experiences to cognitively comprehend and appreciate I am sitting in a room.