mucp 4670 week 6 listenings
I am sitting in a room – alvin lucier
This is a piece that uses a looped audio track of a human reading the same phrase over and over. As the piece progresses, more and more reverb is added to the voice in order to distort it and make it sound like it is getting further away. The strengths of this work comes from the narrative that the voice is explaining. The voice explains the process of what the song is doing, breaking the voice down into resonant frequencies and to make the voice inaudible. The work however, is slightly boring. There aren’t any changes to the voice, and it just slow degrades. I think the way the idea behind the work is innovative, although it is slightly boring. The aesthetic intention of this work seems to be almost that of a horror movie. When the work starts, the voice sounds normal and that it is in the same room as you are, but as the work progresses, it becomes more echoed and more creepy. Eventually the sound is so distorted that you cannot make out the words, but only the tones of his voice. This degradation helps to achieve the aesthetic the composer is going for. Although this piece only uses one audio sample, he achieves an interesting composition. This simplicity is very interesting, because it creates an entire work out of only one phrase.
Cricket Voice – Hildegard Westercamp
This piece uses very organic sounds that sound like they come from nature. The sample seems to be a crickets, frogs, and other nighttime insects. It is unclear if these are actual samples, or if they have been manipulated to mimic these sounds. There is also a great use of stereo imaging, making the sounds seem like they are coming from different areas through the speakers. The piece also builds, it starts out quiet and keeps adding in new sounds. This work is innovative because it combines these natural elements with some obviously created human elements. Narrative is also an innovative element of this work. There is clearly the feeling of a journey, or of going from one place to another in this work. There is a constant rhythm throughout the piece, created by what seems to be a frog croak or something similar. The composer seems to be going for a sonic representation of a swamp or some other kind of night scene. The work is very convincing and creates a very believable ambient feeling of being outside in a swamp. I think this is a very interesting way of approaching creating a piece. Trying to replicate something that is familiar to people may seem easy, but it is hard to accomplish this by manipulating other sounds to emulate these natural elements.
