I Am Sitting in a Room

Editorial Reviews
David Sterritt, The Christian Science Monitor
"It's one part recital, one part physics lesson, and one part magic, concocted by an offbeat but most inventive composer."

Album Description
In I Am Sitting in a Room, several sentences of recorded speech are simultaneously played back into a room and re-recorded there many times. As the repetitive process continues, those sounds common to the original spoken statement and those implied by the structural dimensions of the room are reinforced. The others are gradually eliminated. The space acts as a filter; the speech is transformed into pure sound. All the recorded segments are spliced together in the order in which they were made and constitute the work.

I Am Sitting in a Room was composed in 1970 and was first performed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City that same year. A second version was made in 1972 to accompany the dance, Dune, performed by the Viola Farber Dance Company at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Since that time, numerous versions of this composition have been realized in various ways by other musicians, including a Swedish radio broadcast version.

This recording was made by Alvin Lucier on October 29th and 31st, 1980, in the living room of his home in Middletown, CT. The material was recorded on a Nagra tape recorder with an Electro-Voice 635 dynamic microphone and played back on one channel of a Revox A77 tape recorder, Dynaco amplifier and a KLH Model Six loudspeaker. It consists of thirty-two generations of Alvin Lucier's speech and was made expressly for Lovely Music, Ltd.

Tracks:

I Am Sitting in a Room (45:21)

Album Description

In I Am Sitting in a Room, several sentences of recorded speech are simultaneously played back into a room and re-recorded there many times. As the repetitive process continues, those sounds common to the original spoken statement and those implied by the structural dimensions of the room are reinforced. The others are gradually eliminated. The space acts as a filter; the speech is transformed into pure sound. All the recorded segments are spliced together in the order in which they were made and constitute the work.

Customer Reviews:

..different to the one that you are in........2006-02-01

Having seen Alvin Lucier live I have since been interested in his sound in space experients. I enjoyed 'Nothing is Real' (the concert hall to teapot performance) but had resisted this title. I know it his considered a classic piece and I took the plunge.

As the passes of the recorded text increase so the 'music' is revealed. This is a remarkable piece and you are soon into waves of sound as the speech 'deteriorates' exposing as if by magic the effect of the resonances of the room on the repeated recording.

The resistance was based on the assumption that it would be similar to other tape manipulations - it is not and Lucier has produced a unique work of exquisite beauty.

All I want now is 'Bird and Person Dyning' on CD!!

Conceptual art, in sonic form.......2001-05-29

If you are into abstract art, and minimalism, then I highly recommend this work. But I have to admit I prefer Crossings, also by Lucier.

Let's see, below is a list of works related to, or similar to I Am Sitting in a Room: perhaps It's Gonna Rain, by Reich; Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me yet, by Bryars and a hobo; maybe some poetry by Brian Gyson; John Cage; something by Robert Ashley, somewhere? Help me!

A Beautiful Classic.......2000-06-08

At the recent Whitney Biennial exhibition on 20th century art, the section of the exhibition devoted to "sound art" was titled "I Am Sitting in a Room" after this work. It is an absolute classic, a beautiful piece of work that remains true to a rigorous compositional device but manages to contain many layers of meaning and beauty. It is fairly accessible, although it does require a good forty minutes of concentration.

Alvin Lucier has taught composition at Wesleyan University in Connecticut for the past thirty years, and it is a tribute to his genius and generousity that so many experimental composers have sought him out there. I only wish that his writings would be published to a broader audience.

Wonderful experiment in acoustics.......2000-05-18

Alvin Lucier sat in a room and recorded a piece of text that explains the process of the piece. He played back the segment of text through speakers and recorded it through microphones on the other side of the room. He then took that recording and repeated the process, subtley enhancing the natural reverbaration and harmonics of the room with each recording. By the end of this 45 minute piece, the text is incoherant and all you're left with is an eerie and haunting amalgomation of overtones and harmonic texture. It is really incredible to hear the piece slowly unfold into a vast desert of returns and space. Highly reccomended for those ready for something very diffferent.

A 'process music' classic.......2000-05-08

Ever xerox something, then xerox that xerox, then xerox the xerox of the xerox, then...OK, I'll stop. But you get the idea. Eventually, you get a strange...something...that does and doesn't resemble what you started with. Well, that's what Alvin Lucier did here. First, he recorded a short speech that actually is an explanation of the process he's using...recording himself, then playing back that recording in the room and re-recording it again and again, until the acoustical properties of the room 'remove any imperfections' his speech may have. After a few repetitions, you start to hear changes. But over the last half, the really amazing changes take place, as Lucier's voice morphs into a resonating 'whunnngggzinngggwhirrr whunngggwheeengggg', etc sound, not only getting rid of the 'imperfections', but all identifiable speech characteristics altogether! True 'ambient music'...as it uses the actual ambience to generate the music. Anyway, it's wonderful to see this on CD, as now the whole work is present in one single piece, as opposed to the original LP version which required a side change. A very trippy, must-have piece for those into electronic and electroacoustic music.

Music Review:

Music Review

L'Heritage de Richard Strauss - Chef d'Orchestre (Conductor), Volume 3 - Strauss: Der Bürger als Edelmann (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) / Schlagobers Walzer Op.70 / Tanz Suite nach Couperin Op.86 (recorded 1944)

Country Classics, Vol. 10 (1987)

Live in Japan [Live] [Import]

Loon Echo Lake

Gregg Jarrell's Debut Album

Rap Music rap_music_39

Here Comes the Weekend

Franz Schubert: Complete Trios