A virtually complete collection of composer Alvin Lucier's major works from 1965 to 1977, interspersed with twelve interviews with the composer by Douglas Simon. Each score is written in prose and may be read by musicians as instructions for performance or by general readers as descriptions of imaginary musical activities. In response to Simon's searching questions, Lucier expands on each composition, not only explaining its genesis and development but also revealing its importance to the vigorously experimental American tradition to which Alvin Lucier belongs. Many of his compositions jolt conventional notions of the role of composer, performer, and listener, and the spaces in which they play and listen. His works are scored for an astonishing range of instruments: sea shells, subway stations, toy crickets, sonar guns, violins, synthesizers, bird calls and Bunsen burners.
The first work in history to use brain waves to generate sound. It was composed during the Winter of 1964-65 with the technical assistance of physicist Edmond Dewan. The first performance was on May 5, 1965, at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University with the encouragement and participation of composer John Cage. Since then, it has been performed many times by Alvin Lucier in solo concerts and on tours in Europe and America with the Sonic Arts Union.
Twelve short pieces in which musicians create interference patterns between their sounds and those of pure waves flowing from loudspeakers.
Also a contributor in SOURCE Magazine. Please refer to SOURCE heading (in Rare Collector's Items section) for details.
Born in Nashua, New Hampshire, Lucier attended the Portsmouth Abbey School, Yale and Brandeis universities. He lived in Rome for two years on a Fulbright Scholarship. He has performed extensively in the United States and Europe in solo concerts and with the Sonic Arts Union, which he co-founded with composers Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and Gordon Mumma. He is currently professor of music and former chairperson of the music department at Wesleyan University. Lucier has pioneered in many areas of music composition and performance, including the notation of performers' physical gestures, the use of brain waves in live musical performance, the generation of visual imagery by sound in vibrating media, and the evocation of room acoustics for musical purposes.
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