Week 9 Forum - Tristan Louth-Robins

In our forum session for this week masters student Tristan Louth-Robins gave us a presentation on his work. His study has been influenced from Alvin Lucier an experimental "composer". Alvin's main work is a piece called I Am Sitting In A Room. This piece is created by recording the words "I am sitting in a room". The recording is played back and re-recorded many, many times. Eventually, all that is heard in the recording is the resonant frequencies of the room.

This is an interesting idea but in no way would I consider it composition. I also feel this idea is puffed up to make it more intuitive than it actually is. The final resultant sound isn’t worth the effort. This is so common in sound artists we study in the conservatorium. “Composers” are glorified for their music because it is different. It doesn’t sound good so why is it so great?

Tristan’s work revolves around using teapots to resonate the frequencies. The underlying concepts are basically the same. I feel Tristan is very knowledgeable in his chosen field and I hope he can make it more interesting than the majority of the “composers” we’ve studied in the last year and a half.


[1] Tristan Louth-Robins. 'Music Technology Forum Presentation - EMU Space'.
Lecture presented in the EMU Space, Electronic Music Unit, University
Of Adelaide, 26th April 2007