for Alvin Lucier's 81st
for electric guitar and six sine waves
The instruments should be individually amplified, with their own loudspeakers, not mixed electronically. The volume should be modest.
The electric guitar is tuned D - G - c - f - bb - eb', in beatless fourths.
The six sine waves are tuned to the same frequencies as the guitar.
Over the course of 10 minutes the lowest sine wave holds the tone D continuously and the five other tones descend steadily to a beatless unison with the low D. The initial tuning in fourths and final unison may be sustained for up to one minute each, briefly fading in at the beginning and more slowly fading out at the end.
At the same time, the guitarist plays a steady six-string ascending arpeggio with the right hand while attempting, with the left hand on the tuning gears, to match the tuning of the guitar as closely as possible to the current tuning of the sine waves.
D. J. Wolf
May 2012
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