Reviews

Music 109: Notes on Experimental Music by Alvin Lucier

jmatteo's review against another edition

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funny informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Great primer on this era of music! Funny personal anecdotes. It will take hella long, but try to listen along with the pieces he describes 

daneekasghost's review

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3.0

Interesting. I would love to sit in on the class these lectures came from. It would be really neat to have the music that he's talking about to listen to as you read. I certainly noted a few pieces that I wanted to follow up on.

natet's review

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5.0

This book is a conversational and charmingly personal overview of some of the most important works in "contemporary classical" music. In the endnote, Lucier says that he picked the pieces in this book on the basis of either his personal involvement with the pieces or just because he really loved them. The personal involvement angle makes this a unique book - Lucier was apparently a fly on the wall during the development of some of the most noteworthy (and/or notorious) pieces of 20th century classical music.

Pair this with some listening research and you'll have a pretty good knowledge of the landscape of 20th century classical music.
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