Plucky Laurie Anderson enjoys playing on the experimental edge

By JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 2, 2008 11:18 AM PDT ∞

Odds are, unless you're into experimental music you've only heard of Laurie Anderson if you remember her 1981 hit single, "Superman."

But for Anderson, a key figure in the world of American avant-garde music and art, her flirtation with the Top 40 was an aberration, not a goal.

"For me ... when you get something you didn't want or didn't know about, it's really different than if you get something you really want or worked at," she said by phone Tuesday from her New York City home.

"My world was the downtown New York art world," she said, explaining that she didn't even know what the music charts were until she was on them.

Anderson will be in town Monday evening at the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad to give a talk and performance as part of MoMM's ongoing exhibition on the history of the violin. She said she'll be bringing her custom electronic five-string viola-violin hybrid, built for her by noted luthier Ned Steinberger ---- who was originally scheduled to give the presentation, but had to cancel because of a scheduling conflict.

"I'll have to represent him," she said of her talk at the Museum.

"What's especially unique to Ned about this is that he really hears a lot of low-end. He loves bass, and so I do I. Violins can be extremely whiney. I said give me a low C string, basically give me a viola, so I can bring out all the low-end that instrument can deliver. You really have an orchestral range.

"Technically, it's a viola ---- but really it's a hybrid.

"Each string is separately pre-amped. You can control the gain for each string. Which is really unheard-of for an electronic instrument. It's pretty heavy, but because I sing as well as play violin, often at the same time, he designed this incredible shoulder mount. I don't have that country fiddler's skill of playing mid-chest."

Anderson said she was unaware of the museum's existence until she was approached about giving a presentation. As someone who not only plays a custom instrument but invented a few of her own ---- including a "tape-bow violin" that used recorded magnetic tape on the bow and a magnetic head on the violin, so that the music recorded on the tape played as the bow was passed over the head ---- she is hoping to tour the museum during her visit.

She first picked up the violin at age 5, as part of her family's own classical musical combo. "That was my assigned instrument. There was clarinet, cello, piano, flute, and one audience member ---- my dad. You have to have one, or you don't know which way to face!"

Anderson then took the standard route of music instruction with private lessons, then joining the school orchestra and the Chicago Youth Symphony.

"I really enjoyed it so much, I really did," she said of her classical music instruction. "I loved being part of a group that was making that beautiful sound."

But at 17, she gave up music, deciding to focus on learning German and physics and becoming an artist.

While she said she still can't speak German or understand physics, the art became her career. Outside the above-mentioned detour into popular culture almost 30 years ago, her career has been devoted to the experimental. And while she says that much of what passes for experimental these days seems to repeat what was done as far back as the early 1970s, she loves the fact that young people are still trying to find new ways of creating music.

"I love melody, but if I hear some interesting, crazy dissonant thing, I'm all for it."

Laurie Anderson

When: 7 p.m. April 7

Where: Museum of Making Music, 5790 Armada Drive, Carlsbad

Tickets: $25

Info: (760) 438-5996 or museumofmakingmusic.org

Web: laurieanderson.com

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