NEW MUSIC L A 1987 : MUSIC FESTIVAL AT MacARTHUR PARK

New-music audiences proved a hardy and curious lot Sunday--standing in a dank tunnel to hum for half an hour, sitting in the rain waiting for a John Cage piece to begin--during two unspectacular events in MacArthur Park on the final day of New Music L.A. Festival.

Bonnie Barnett’s noontime “MacArthur Park Hum” drew about 150 of the faithful to the pedestrian tunnel under Wilshire Boulevard that links the north and south sides of the park.

First came a brief vocal warm-up and an introduction to Mongolian overtone chanting techniques: Simply sing a tone, then change your lip and tongue positions and voila you’re singing overtones. That is, if you can hear them.

Cellist Harry Gilbert and accordionist Gordon Mumma then struck up an F-sharp-major chord and the crowd began to “oo” and “ah.”

The hum-less might have felt plunged right into Wagner’s tone-painting of the Rhine in “Das Rheingold”; otherwise, they might have appreciated the occasional shimmering configurations of sustained chords.

Those who participated presumably had their consciousness raised and otherwise were blissed out.

“That was cosmic,” Barnett said at the end. Well, maybe. . . .

Meanwhile, le deluge arrived.

Fortunately, the clouds parted for Cage’s airy, pointillistic “Variation I,” which opened an outdoor Bandshell concert played by the 15-member conductor-less ICA/Lo Cal Orchestra.

Members of the audience chatted straight through the music, some of them making critical comments to one another.

To be sure, two new works shared a common weakness of starting well and going nowhere:

Ellen Schimmel’s 10-minute “Who Says?” began with bouncy syncopations--recollections of a bottle-blowing game she created to liven a dull party--and percolated aimlessly. Harry Gilbert’s 18-minute “Getting There” simply clotted up repeating its tightly organized asymmetrical figures.

Pauline Oliveros’ gentle “Environmental Dialogue” served to focus attention on the immediate surroundings by instructing the musicians to subtly interpret sounds in the park.

The concert ended with a threadbare realization of Terry Riley’s “In C” that lasted about 30 minutes.