Alvin Lucier and the magical teapot

 

Alvin Lucier´s music can be best described as “meditation music” or “heavy avantgarde”. Moreover, he was fascinated by space and objects which also explains why he was captivated by the teapot. I think his music really has meditative characteristics which had also a calming effect on me. While I was listening to his piece “Nothing is real” I was surprised about the effect that a simple teapot could have on the sound. To me, it felt as if the sound was coming out of the teapot while the sound was actually caused by the piano. Lucier describes the teapot as a kind of “small house”. To be more precise, he regards the dimension of the teapot as an architectural space. “Nothing is real” stands out with its high-pitched tones at the beginning, whereas these tones then become lower towards the end. I noticed in particular that these tones often sounded very similar and were quite simple tones. The piece had also a melancholic touch, but the melody was somehow still hopeful but in a bittersweet way. Before the teapot was used, there were also certain gaps between the tones. This way the listener had time to think and interpret in between the tones. Lucier then begins to use the teapot and the melody changes. By opening the lid, the tones of the piano seem higher and thus fill out the previously created “pauses”. Thus, the piece sounds more like a complete work than it did before using the teapot. It seems as if the teapot is “sucking in” the melody but when he opens the lid a different melody comes out. I think that the usage of an everyday object such as a teapot to create music is something very fascinating. As Pauline Oliveros, Lucier also uses the space and dimensions of the object to develop unique melodies. However, the difference here is that the dimension of the teapot is much smaller than the dimension of a water tank. However, the result is equally astonishing.

The second composition of Lucier is “I Am Sitting In A Room” but it could also be seen as an experiment because in my opinion, it is neither a real piece of music nor anything similar. In this piece, he reads a paragraph aloud which starts all over again after he has finished reading it. It is also noticeable that Lucier starts to stutter in some places of the paragraph. After the third repetition, it sounds as if he had recorded the paragraph in a bathroom since I could hear some sort of echo. The fourth repetition does not sound as if a human is reading the text, but rather a robot. Additionally, the text is no longer understandable. After another repetition, it is nearly unrecognizable that someone, robot or not, is talking behind all that “rustle”. If I had not heard the piece at the very beginning, I would not have believed that a person was speaking. The listener can no longer recognize the stuttering, but the sound has also become constant and monotonous. While listening to it for the sixth time I was only able to hear a high tone and for the eighth time, the tone was so loud that it was uncomfortable to continue listening to it. My honest opinion for “I Am Sitting In A Room” is that I did not enjoy listening to it, it was not pleasant at all. However, I still think that the piece successfully demonstrates what tones or even the spoken word can develop into. Nevertheless, I would not want to listen to it voluntarily again.