U.S. composer explores the use of gamelan music

U.S. composer explores the use of gamelan music

JAKARTA (JP): He sat in a room recording his voice and playing
it back into the room. The playback was recorded by another
machine and again the result was played back into the room. He
repeated the process again and again until the resonant
frequencies of the room reinforced themselves so that any
semblance of his speech was destroyed, except its rhythm.

We, who are familiar with our room as a place, are rarely
aware of its acoustic identity. Alvin Lucier, a composer and
professor from Wesleyan University in Connecticut is not as
interested in the resonant characteristics of spaces in a
scientific way as he is in opening the secret door to the sound
situation that we experience in a room.

He is in Jakarta for the Art Summit Indonesia 1998 and will
perform his music at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta on Sept. 21 and
Sept. 22.

As Pierre Henry in Paris, Lucier's Music for Solo Performer
(1965) was the first work using enormously amplified brainwaves
and percussion. The alpha rhythm of the brain, with a range of
between 8 and 12 hertz, is too low to hear as a pitch, but that
high energy, those bursts of alpha, when amplified enormously and
channeled through an appropriate transducer, come bumping
thorough the loudspeaker. Lucier got the idea of using that
energy to couple loudspeakers to instruments. He used gongs,
tympany, bass drums, anything that loudspeakers could vibrate
sympathetically.

He admits that one of the inaccuracies of the title is that it
is not really for a solo performer. He needs someone to run the
amplifiers, to pan the sounds around, to turn on one speaker and
than turn on another. He usually performs the piece with another
player, an assistant. He tried to be very accurate about what the
piece really meant: one person, alone, sitting very, very quietly
and releasing a flood of energy which permeates the concert
space. The idea is that alpha, the small amount of energy which
is produced without the person making any physical motion except
the opening and closing of the eyes is central to the
performance.

Where is the music in all of this? Intentionally he avoids
making the piece 'too composerly', and on the other hand he is
not interested in the scientific approach to the problem. The
question should therefore be posed in another form: How would
science be without a sense of poetry, and art without a certain
exactitude?

This ambiguity is inspiring, even enlightening, and not just
simply provocative.

Accompanied by 12 highly specialized musicians (including The
Wesleyan University Gamelan Ensemble), Lucier will also present
Music for Voices and Gamelan Instruments (1998) which was
composed for the Art Summit Indonesia. We foresee the
unpredictable Alvin Lucier, whose sensitivity and honesty lead
the way, will discover the hidden evidence: What is the other
side of gamelan?

Another composer and brilliant critic, Suka Hardjana, has
promised to give the festival an insight into his 'in between'
world and what he calls the anti-parametric aesthetic.

His one hour Wulan (1995) for gamelan, gives careful
consideration to what is usually regarded as wrong, bad and
dubious. The 'missing link' is perhaps that a problem comes from
within, not from the outside. There is harmonice mundi'
everywhere, as Kepler pointed out in the 17th century.

Another piece of his, Bambam (1998), tried to trace the
materiality of gamelan and how it then became what we know as a
cultural entity. If we think of our death, beauty emerges from
our life. And nothing is lifeless after all. Suka Hardjana is
supported by 30 of the best gamelan musicians the Indonesian
School of Art (STSI) in Surakarta, some of whom are famous
composers in their own right. The performances will take place on
Oct. 9 and Oct. 10 at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta.

Besides the two remarkable gamelan compositions by Alvin
Lucier and Suka Hardjana, Art Summit Indonesia will also present
the work of two women composers, Kaija Saariaho and Jin Hi Kim,
two groups from Japan and France, Theo Loevendie from the
Netherlands and Tony Prabowo from Indonesia. There are eight
music programs in all, besides four dance and four theater
programs.

Art is not as complimentary as one might be inclined to
believe. It is, like love, the soul of life that we neglect so
often. We are used to being busy with what is not always
essential. Looked at from this angle, a festival such as Art
Summit Indonesia is necessary when wisdom and trust are lacking.

Alvin Lucier's I am sitting in a room was not conceived as an
object of entertainment, although nothing is wrong in being so.
Instead of using a room for a place to make music, he allows the
resonance of the room to manifest itself. Every room has its own
melody, hiding there until it is made audible. He composes with
the architecture of his mind.

Of his use of speech recorded and played again and again, he
explains that it is common to just about everybody and is a
marvelous source of sound. It has a reasonable frequency
spectrum, noise, stops and starts, and has different dynamic
levels and complex shapes. It is ideal for testing the resonant
characteristics of a space because it puts so much in, all at the
same time. It is also extremely personal.

He has started paying attention to the characteristics of his
speech which are unique to him and do not sound like anybody
else. He has a stammer, so instead of trying to invent
interesting speech patterns, he discovered that he has an
interesting speech pattern anyway. The text of I am sitting in a
room ends up with him saying: "I regard this activity not so much
as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to
smooth out any irregularities my speech might have."

The writer is chairman of the Indonesian Composers'
Association.