Write By Example Of This Music Essay

The first musical piece Alvin Lucier: Exploration of the House gradually develops from the beginning, starting with a low peal of bells. It is difficult to follow the motive of the musical piece throughout the melody as it changes constantly, losing its reiterative process and becomes unrecognizable from the third minute. The rhythm alters to charming sounds of tender tones and then changes again to the other melody at 5.50 minutes.
In the modern world, there are so many contemporary concepts of the art that it becomes complicated to determine what art is. The process of art is something untouchable by our body but can be perceived by the human mind, especially by a person who values art. There is no doubt that this piece is a clear example of process art: it conveys different melodies as allegedly transferring to the audience the existence of various forms, states, shape, mode and format of art. For some people it can be charming while to others it appeals disgusting. There is no middle ground when it comes to tastes. This first musical piece by Alvin Lucier takes a very appropriate name - Exploration of the House and this allegory transmits the notion of differences, as we walk from one room of the house to another. Letting the imagination run wild, we can envision a sound of different lives and destinies of the house’s inhabitants.
The second piece features Lucier's records of himself narrating a text I am sitting in the room. He adopts the reiterative process in which he plays back what his speech and records it on the tape and then plays again his recording to make another record. The first record is clear and audible, but as we move forward, we can notice a slight impairment somewhere starting from the third repetition (5:23) as the recording tape has its drawback: for instance, it record echo and becomes a deteriorated copy of the copy. Eventually, it gets difficult to make out the words of Lucier (from 10:55 minutes) when they become obscure and totally inaudible (12:25 minutes).
I reckon that repetition is an engrossing trick of art. It builds patterns and creates the sensation of utter infinity. One of the other forms of art in which such reiterative process can be developed is images. For instance, when an artist draws an object with a framed images that depict the same scene. The images are getting smaller and smaller. The same process can be achieved when we put a mirror in front of another mirror.
The relationship between meaning and sound is very important part of these musical pieces. The repetition of rhyme makes them replete with meaning: in these pieces, the following parts resemble the original one, and previous becomes original for the next. One, that was copied, can become an original for the following - this is the concept of these two pieces.
Alvin Lucier made a huge contribution to the contemporary music playing with rhyme and using frequencies and playback process. He loops, repeats and reiterates musical tones, creating a good balance between sound and meaning. indeed, Lucier's work I am sitting in the room is a very notable piece but I would not define him as a usual composer. I would rather define him as a sound installation experimenter who vigorously explored acoustic phenomena in music.