Realizing Lucier and Stockhausen: Case studies in
electroacoustic performance practice
Christopher Burns
Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Stanford University
email: cburns @ccrma.stanford.edu
Abstract
The author's realizations ofAlvin Lucier's "I am sitting in a
room" and Karlheinz Stockhausen's Mikrophonie I are
considered as case studies in the realization of live
electroacoustic music. The new realizations, while faithful
to the works' scores, differed from the composers' traditions
of performance. Lucier's piece was realized in real-time, a
new set of implements and playing techniques were
developed for Stockhausen's, and analog electronics were
reproduced in software for both works. The author suggests
that realization requires a practical approach, balancing
textual fidelity, musical effectiveness, and pragmatism.
1 Introduction
There are a number of reasons to create new realizations
of electroacoustic works. First and foremost are the reasons
for performing any interesting piece of music: performance
creates the opportunity to share the work with new
audiences, and encourages close study of the music by the
performers. This engagement is especially important for
indeterminate or otherwise flexible works which require the
performer to make decisions traditionally considered
"compositional." Additionally, many electroacoustic works
will require rescue from technological obsolescence. New
realizations, using new technologies, can extend the
performing lifespan of a piece with complex technical
requirements, and make it available to more musicians.
(Miller Puckette's recent realizations of works by Philip
Manoury and Kaija Saariaho are an example). Finally, the
process of realization admits the possibility of an evolving
performance tradition for a particular work, with new
solutions and interpretations enriching the music's sense of
possibility.
This paper will consider two recent realizations by the
author as case studies in the creation of new performing
versions of electroacoustic music. Although very different
works, Alvin Lucier's "I am sitting in a room" and
Karlheinz Stockhausen's Mikrophonie I present related
challenges in realization. Both works have relatively open,
flexible scores which encourage variation. They also have
well-established performing traditions, centered on the
composer, which have downplayed the flexibility offered by
the scores. In realizing the works anew, it was possible to
recover some of the alternatives possible in Lucier and
Stockhausen's works. In both cases, the relationship of the
new realizations to the existing traditions of performance
arose as a series of small decisions about musical details.
2 Lucier in real-time
Alvin Lucier's "I am sitting in a room" (1969) is an
electroacoustic classic. The work, which questions the
distinctions between speech and music, is conceptually rich,
sonically beautiful, and is achieved with an extraordinary
economy of means. Although traditionally presented as a
work for fixed media (a recording played in concert, a
commercially available compact disc for private listening),
"I am sitting in a room" requires realization prior to
performance. The score is a short text which provides
instructions for making a version of the piece, either for
fixed media or real-time performance.
The score begins: "choose a room the musical qualities
of which you would like to evoke" (Lucier 1995). A given
text - "or any other text of any length" - is then read and
recorded in that room; the recording is played back through
a loudspeaker, and the playback itself recorded; and the
cycle of playback and recording is continued "through many
generations. All the generations spliced together in
chronological order make a tape composition the length of
which is determined by the length of the original statement
and the number of generations recorded."
As the text is repeated over and over into the room, the
acoustic properties of the room assert themselves. Echoes
elongate and smear the speech, and the resonances of the
room enhance some of the frequencies present, while
eliminating others. Gradually, the speech is transformed into
music: the text becomes a complex weave of pitches, based
upon the intersections of the recorded voice and the resonant
frequencies of the room.
If the score initially seems vague ("any other text of any
length," "through many generations"), by the end, Lucier is
explicitly licensing experiment with his basic process:
"Make versions in which one recorded statement is recycled
through many rooms. Make versions using one or more
speakers of different languages in different rooms. Make
versions in which, for each generation, the microphone is
moved to different parts of the room or rooms. Make
versions that can be performed in real time." Lucier's work
