I'll never forget the first time I heard Reich. Electric Counterpoint in '93. It was as if the scales fell from my eyes. Head and heart in equal measure.
The way those melodies sound in a weird way reminds me of the acid basslines of 90's electronic music. Often performed on a TB-303 or other synthesizer with a limited sequencer, the musicians had only a short repeating piece of melody to work with. So they would continuously manipulate the parameters of the sound, especially the filter settings to provide more sonic variety, but that would also result in the filter highlighting different parts of the pattern, accenting a certain range of notes, while damping others. And this would frequently result in the filter uncovering "hidden melodies", that were there in the original pattern, but were hidden behind other notes, but now with those other notes damped, they came to the fore. And listening to the piece from this video very much gave me a similar impression of "oh, this melody was there all along, I just didn't notice it".
Rules-based music is fascinating. Different composers have employed chance (Cage), improvisation (Terry Reilly) or process (Reich). It seems like a way to take the arbitrary choices of the composer out of the composition, but it’s the composer setting the rules, instruments, and some other parameters. Really interesting things happen when you start the machine and let it run until it’s done. I’m sure even the composer who created the rules and the initial state can be surprised by the results.
Great demonstration...I like how you said, if you haven't heard Music for 18 Musicians, stop this video and go listen to it now!...it really is that good. I bought the Boosey score for it a few years back and it is a treasure for me!
Very nice, a simple and concise explanation of a core Reichian technique. My question is, how much of this did you have in your head before committing it to notation? Is the piece simply a result of playing around with the DAW, offsetting phrases here and there, adding, subtracting, or did you have some idea beforehand of more or less exactly what you wanted. Not that it matters much if the resultant piece works well, but I'm just curious if this is just a quick improvisation or a more serious thought out composition, perhaps designed specifically to showcase the minimalist techniques discussed. Either way (or a combination of both), I like this style of using short compositions to demonstrate the various tricks of the minimalist trade. Please keep doing it.
thanks. great question. i knew as i began that i'd use that particular phrase... after some years of playing around with this approach i can anticipate how a modally saturated texture evolves with arpeggios, what works best, etc. as phasing is introduced, there's always some surprises. but in sum i'd say i had a very clear conception of the net result as i put the demo together. that said, just mucking about with the process can yield pretty similar results...
Sir, thank you for making the content that you do. It's super inspiring and educational, and pushes overthinkers like myself back towards the passion for the heart of the music which radiates strongly from you. Really glad I discovered you :)
I'll never forget the first time I heard Reich. Electric Counterpoint in '93. It was as if the scales fell from my eyes. Head and heart in equal measure.
been listening to 18 Musicians a lot recently, happy to see this pop up in my sidebar.
The way those melodies sound in a weird way reminds me of the acid basslines of 90's electronic music. Often performed on a TB-303 or other synthesizer with a limited sequencer, the musicians had only a short repeating piece of melody to work with. So they would continuously manipulate the parameters of the sound, especially the filter settings to provide more sonic variety, but that would also result in the filter highlighting different parts of the pattern, accenting a certain range of notes, while damping others. And this would frequently result in the filter uncovering "hidden melodies", that were there in the original pattern, but were hidden behind other notes, but now with those other notes damped, they came to the fore. And listening to the piece from this video very much gave me a similar impression of "oh, this melody was there all along, I just didn't notice it".
yes! exactly. good times. i had a 303-606 combo that i did quite a bit of programming with.
Rules-based music is fascinating. Different composers have employed chance (Cage), improvisation (Terry Reilly) or process (Reich). It seems like a way to take the arbitrary choices of the composer out of the composition, but it’s the composer setting the rules, instruments, and some other parameters. Really interesting things happen when you start the machine and let it run until it’s done. I’m sure even the composer who created the rules and the initial state can be surprised by the results.
Great demonstration...I like how you said, if you haven't heard Music for 18 Musicians, stop this video and go listen to it now!...it really is that good. I bought the Boosey score for it a few years back and it is a treasure for me!
Thanks for using Reich instead of Glass! ;-) A helpful explanation of a couple of cool techniques.
In some ways, this reminds me of Jali Musa Jawara's music, with its circling motifs.
Thank you, you're a great teacher !
Very helpful and very lucid
Thanks for this! Love your minimal tutorials!
Great video, love Steve Reich, and this piece you have created too.
Thanks for listening
Interesting stuff, thanks Chris. Your piece reminds me of one of my favourite early Human League tracks, Toyota City
Cool, thanks!
fantastic
Very nice, a simple and concise explanation of a core Reichian technique. My question is, how much of this did you have in your head before committing it to notation? Is the piece simply a result of playing around with the DAW, offsetting phrases here and there, adding, subtracting, or did you have some idea beforehand of more or less exactly what you wanted. Not that it matters much if the resultant piece works well, but I'm just curious if this is just a quick improvisation or a more serious thought out composition, perhaps designed specifically to showcase the minimalist techniques discussed. Either way (or a combination of both), I like this style of using short compositions to demonstrate the various tricks of the minimalist trade. Please keep doing it.
thanks. great question. i knew as i began that i'd use that particular phrase... after some years of playing around with this approach i can anticipate how a modally saturated texture evolves with arpeggios, what works best, etc. as phasing is introduced, there's always some surprises. but in sum i'd say i had a very clear conception of the net result as i put the demo together. that said, just mucking about with the process can yield pretty similar results...
Wonderful as always! Thank you.
Thanks for this, I always find your videos informative, educational, and inspiring. Looking forward to the next one!
More to come!
Sir, thank you for making the content that you do. It's super inspiring and educational, and pushes overthinkers like myself back towards the passion for the heart of the music which radiates strongly from you. Really glad I discovered you :)
I appreciate that!
Really enjoying these ideas you're sharing, nice to hear some terms for things I often recognise and think about in pieces
I'm so glad!