January 21, 2008

Send Me Quavers

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Steve Reich (right) performing "Clapping Music"

Listening to Steve Reich's early minimalist compositions, I'm always amazed by the full, decidedly non-minimal sound he's able to create. "Clapping Music", written for nothing more than two pairs of hands, stands as the archetypal example. The piece begins with the players clapping a 12 beat (8 notes) pattern in unison, but the second player soon shifts his clapping by one beat; the two are still clapping the same pattern, but offset, no longer unison. The piece continues with the second player shifting in this manner - beat by beat - until finally the two are once again in unison. The outcomes of Reich's minimalism are so counterintuitive - the apparently simple idea to offset a pattern by one beat at a time over a series of phrases (an example of process music) ends up creating a soundscape that is both rhythmically and sonically complex. Stated in obvious, clichéd metaphor: with this piece Reich succeeds in building a wall of sound with his bare hands. His website hosts a Quicktime video of an early performance, featuring himself as the second player.

Steve Reich, "Clapping Music" (mp3 @ zShare)


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3 comments:

parallelliott said...

building a wall of sound with his bare hands = awesome

Anonymous said...

Ive never heard of someone building a wall with their bare feet. Well maybe Daniel Day Lewis in "My Left Foot"...

parallelliott said...

we should figure out how to do this, practice a lot, then go do it live at an open mic in noho