This year Tone Deaf 8 brings an experimental sound adventure to campus through the genius of experimental composer Alvin Lucier and some of his critically-acclaimed students.
Working with Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre, Queen’s University and the Agnes Etherington Arts Center, the festival will include lectures, performances and visual art. With Lucier as their main focus the festival steps in a new direction.
Lucier, 73, hit it big in the 1960s riding the tripped-out experimental music wave and getting the opportunity to embark on a tour of the United States and Europe under the name The Sonic Arts Group.
“I’m excited about coming to Kingston and working within a great university,” Lucier said.
Lucier teaches music composition, an experimental music course, as well as a freshman course on the Orpheus Myth at Wesleyan University in Connecticut where he’s been teaching for over 30 years.
Lucier is scheduled to present his work both on and off campus—performing at the Sydenham St. United Church on Oct. 24 with two of his students, Nicolas Collins and Ben Manley, and giving a public lecture at Agnes Etherington on Oct. 25.
His style of music may not be aimed towards your average listener but Lucier said he strives to explore many of the natural characteristics of sound and sound waves.
“This includes echoes from pulse waves reflecting off walls, ceilings and floors; brain waves, vibrating wires … rather than simply writing for musical instruments,” he said.
The music doesn’t have a particular meaning behind it, he said.
“Each person discovers his or her own message,” Lucier said.
Much of Lucier’s work isolates single sounds and plays around with tone and synchronization for extended periods of time. His album, Still and Moving Lines of Silence in Families of Hyperbolas, contains songs with only one key on a piano being played at a time.
Slow-moving and calm, Lucier’s music is highly experimental and fixates on echoes and vibrations rather than on the sound itself. His most famous composition, “I am Sitting in a Room,” involves Lucier sitting in a room recording and rerecording his voice over and over until his speech becomes so distorted by echoes that it becomes nonsensical.
“Junior high school science,” Lucier said, is the level at which he dissects sound. “I want to reveal the hidden aspects of sound; brain waves, echoes, beating patterns …”
Cast as a minimalist artist, Lucier was a leading pioneer in the development and popularization of experimental music.
Concentrating on the performative aspect of music with little scientific influence, Lucier explores the principle behind the music’s creation. His installations are what he uses to show listeners how sound functions. The apparatuses used to make his installations clearly show the different instruments involved in making sound and how different sounds change through echo and vibration.
Experimental sound festival Tone Deaf celebrates its eighth anniversary this week. In the past, Tone Deaf has showcased artists like Fighter/Lover from Toronto and Cities Turn to Sand, a local band.
Tone Deaf aims to promote music in Ontario, but isn’t afraid to look outside Canada to find inspiring artists like Lucier, Collins and Manley.
Lucier said he’s excited to be working with his former students, both of whom are well known experimental composers. “I need all the help I can get,” Lucier said. “Collins is an extremely skillful sound technician and composer. Manley ditto.” Collins and Manley will be playing on Oct. 23 at The Artel, also on Sydenham Street. They are working together to play a set called, “A Really Live Electronics Concert”.
Tone Deaf coordinator, Matt Rogalsky invited Lucier earlier this year making sure to book ahead of time. The festival is gaining a bigger following each year, and this year hopes to bring in people with a critical approach to understanding music.
Alvin Lucier will participate in a discussion at Agnes Etherington on Oct. 25. He will also be a guest artist in many humanities classes over the next week.
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