Sine Waves and Simple Acoustic Phenomena in Experimental Music - with Special Reference to the Work of La Monte Young and Alvin Lucier Peter John Blamey Doctor of Philosophy University of Western Sydney 2008 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my principal supervisor Dr Chris Fleming for his generosity, guidance, good humour and invaluable assistance in researching and writing this thesis (and also for his willingness to participate in productive digressions on just about any subject). I would also like to thank the other members of my supervisory panel - Dr Caleb Kelly and Professor Julian Knowles - for all of their encouragement and advice. Statement of Authentication The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution. .......................................................... (Signature) Table of Contents Abstract..................................................................................................................iii Introduction: Simple sounds, simple shapes, complex notions.............................1 Signs of sines....................................................................................................................4 Acoustics, aesthetics, and transduction........................................................................6 The acoustic and the auditory......................................................................................10 Listening in experimentation, technology, and music.............................................14 Outline of thesis............................................................................................................17 1. Creating a wave in the nineteenth century: from sound into sine.....................26 Defining and decomposing musical sound and noise.............................................27 Sine waves: some mathematical considerations........................................................37 Resonators, isolation, and machines for visualising sound.....................................40 Water and waves............................................................................................................50 Fluid in the ear...............................................................................................................55 The condition of sine....................................................................................................60 2. Sine sounds, electronic instruments, and the expansion of musical resources in the early twentieth century..............................................68 Technologies of sine-sound (and sight) ....................................................................70 Simple sounds, electronics, and musical instruments..............................................76 Acoustics, electronic sound and the extra-musical...................................................80 New tools for new music.............................................................................................97 3. Tracing the steady tone: La Monte Young, 1958-1965.....................................104 Constant beginnings and listenings..........................................................................105 Listening inside sounds..............................................................................................110 Pre-Tortoise music.........................................................................................................118 Numbers, intervals and ratios....................................................................................121 A Theatre of Eternal Music.......................................................................................126 Sustaining sounds........................................................................................................130 4. Listening to sine waves in the Dream House and the ear: La Monte Young, 1966-1974............................................................................136 Tail of the Tortoise........................................................................................................137 Sine waves, ‘drift’ and assembling the Dream House...............................................140 A (conceptual) Map of 49’s Dream..........................................................................147 Sound inside a listener................................................................................................154 Hearing sines/waves/tones.......................................................................................160 Sine wave and piano coda..........................................................................................168 i 5. “Making the inaudible audible”: Alvin Lucier, 1961-1972................................174 Beginnings....................................................................................................................176 Amplifying alpha.........................................................................................................182 Articulating spaces......................................................................................................191 Altering vocal identities..............................................................................................203 ‘Seeing’ sounds.............................................................................................................207 6. Hearing and seeing the shapes of sounds: Alvin Lucier, 1973-1984................218 Still and moving sines.................................................................................................219 From space into sound, via sine...............................................................................225 Persons, shapes and feedback...................................................................................234 Visualising sines...........................................................................................................240 Sweeping, spinning and seesawing...........................................................................250 Conclusion: Not-so-simple acoustic phenomena?..............................................260 References Cited..................................................................................................272 ii Abstract This thesis explores a series of relationships between music and acoustics in order to develop a basis for discussing and critiquing aesthetics in post-Cagean experimental music. Specifically, it examines the acoustic and aesthetic theories that inform the practice of American composers La Monte Young and Alvin Lucier. One particular theme - the sine wave - emerges, both as a prominent feature in the work of these two composers, and also as a nexus point between music and acoustics. Pursuing this theme, the thesis begins by looking at issues in the science, technology, and ideology of acoustics in relation to the study of musical sound in the late nineteenth century. It then aims to situate the sine wave historically, culturally and technologically within a range of scientific and aesthetic practices in operation in the first half of the twentieth century. Finally, it explores the deployment of concepts from the field of acoustics by artists of the avant-garde, and considers what contribution these factors played in broadening the developing discourse of sound within the arts. These discussions then inform detailed investigations into the work of both Lucier and Young, examining their use of sine waves to explore and produce simple acoustic phenomena. iii Introduction: Simple sounds, simple shapes, complex notions It’s ... stopping people in their tracks so that they can pay attention to that phenomenon which they otherwise don’t pay any attention to or they miss. I don’t mean it just as an exercise in perception. You know, that wouldn’t interest me; to me that’s sort of a dead end. Instead, it’s putting people into a beautiful relationship to those phenomena. - Alvin Lucier1 This assertion from American composer Alvin Lucier exemplifies a specific approach to composition that arose within the context of the experimental arts and music milieu of the 1960s. This context could itself be seen as a set of responses to the provocations of that prototypical musical experimentalist, John Cage. The key components of Cage’s attempts to disassemble the edifice of traditional musical language - through the use of chance operations, indeterminacy, and a reappraisal of the material aspect of sound on its own terms - informed the work of a large number of artists across a range of disciplines during this era. However, while the interrogation of form, structure and purpose implicit in Cage’s writing and compositions cleared the ground for others looking to reconfigure the arts, it also created a crisis: if sounds were, as Cage had decreed, to be allowed to ‘be themselves,’ how were artists to involve themselves in both producing and representing sound without simply re-enacting Cage’s 1 own methodology?2 As composer, violinist and film-maker Tony Conrad simply asked: “What was the composer to do?”3 The work of the two artists who provide a key focus for this thesis - La Monte Young and Alvin Lucier - constitute approaches to music making that incorporate both an investigation into the nature and behaviour of sound, and an exploration of the interactions between sounds