Sitting on a Saturday morning studying at my desk, I often hear my younger siblings playing loudly, my father blasting music while working out, and the movement of dogs and cars on the street below. Initially I would get distracted by the sounds, what song was playing? Or what were my siblings fighting about now? But as time went on, and as this combination of sounds happened repeatedly, they merged into becoming a simple background noise. It was not that they ever played the same order of music or that they said the same things, but it was that the mixture of music, movements, and voices came together to form one piece. Eventually all irregularities of the sounds were negated. They became one sound, in that it became very natural to hear these noises together. Thus, I would no longer pay attention, or was distracted by the words spoken, as I had become acclimatized to the tones and rhythms of the sounds.
This is relatively similar to what I first experienced when listening to Lucier’s recording of “I Am Sitting In A Room”. Initially I was preoccupied with observing the words being said, what they meant and why they were being said. But as the piece continued, I found less purpose in the words used. It wasn’t because the words become harder to understand, but it was due to the constant repetition of that specific set of words. I focused instead on the other elements of sounds that we tend to neglect, like the rhythm. Therefore, in both instances the sounds and words became one larger sound pattern, the frequency and sound became a background noise.
