History lesson -Steve Reich
History lesson -Steve Reich
Steve Reich (born Stephen Michael Reich, October 3, 1936; last name pronounced is an American composer. Reich is known as one of the pioneers of minimalism, although he sometimes deviates from a purely minimalist style. Ideas Reich has developed include using tape loops to create phasing patterns (such as in his first works, It's Gonna Rain, Come Out, Drumming); and using processes to create and explore musical concepts (Pendulum Music, Four Organs). These compositions, marked by their use of repetitive figures and phasing effects, have been a major influence in contemporary American music as well as contemporary music as a whole; The Guardian has described Reich as one of the few composers to have "altered the direction of musical history".
Early on, Reich was influenced by fellow minimalist Terry Riley. Riley's loosely structured aleatoric work In C combines simple musical patterns, offset in time, to create a slowly shifting, cohesive whole. Reich adopted this approach to compose his first major work, It's Gonna Rain. Written in 1965, It's Gonna Rain is made up of recordings of a sermon about the end of the world given by the African American Pentecostal preacher Brother Walter. The sermon was transferred to multiple tape loops played in and out of phase, with segments of the sermon cut and rearranged.
Come Out (1966) was constructed along similar lines. A single spoken line given by an injured survivor of a race riot is manipulated. The survivor, who had been beaten, punctured a bruise on his own body to convince police about his beating. The spoken line includes the phrase "to let the bruise blood come out to show them." Reich rerecorded the fragment "come out to show them" on two channels, which are initially played in unison. They quickly slip out of sync; gradually the discrepancy widens and becomes a reverberation. The two voices then split into four, looped continuously, then eight, and continues splitting until the actual words are unintelligible, leaving the listener with only the rhythmic and tonal patterns of speech.
More here: http://www.stevereich.com/
-Layborn-
Reich Rules! I heard him lecture a few months back in Toronto, as unpretentious as a musician as you'll ever meet. Anybody been paying attention to his newer stuff? Three Tales is very good, a tour de force through 20th century technology, the hindenburg, bikini island, and dolly the sheep all play into the mix... loads of fun! As if you didn't need more reasons to be anxious about the last 100 years!
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