Steve Reich Research Paper

Steve Reich was one of the most influential composers in the minimalist genre. Even in recent decades, his repetitive keyboard figurations have been used in commercials for companies such as I.B.M. (Strickland, 1993, pg.1) Reich much prefers the term musique répétitive instead of minimalism as Reich was quoted saying, “Debussy resented ‘Impressionism’. Schoenberg preferred ‘pantonal’ to ‘atonal’ or ‘twelve-tone’ or ‘Expressionist’.” (Strickland, 1993, pg.23) Reich is well known for his tape-looping works, his phase-shifting techniques, rhythmic augmentation and construction and use of spoken speech. His first tape piece Reich created was ‘Music for Three Pianos or Piano and Tape’ in February 1964. Reich was influenced by German electronic

When planning for ‘It’s Gonna Rain’, Reich initially was going to disassemble and reassemble the dialogue but as Reich got more involved with In C, Reich thought repetition through tape-looping was a more challenging yet interesting to take on. (Strickland, 1993, pg. 186) In 1965, Reich recorded Brother Walter (a black San Franciscan preacher) in San Francisco’s Union Square about God’s warning to Noah of the end of the world. Reich then made this into a tape –looping work where Reich makes two identical loops of the Preacher intoning ‘It’s Gonna Rain’ and placed them on two different tape recorders. It first opens with the first 13 seconds of unmanipulated reproduction of Brother Walter with his congregation followed by the repetition of the title (plus a pigeon warble which provides a sort of percussive beat to it.). The words “gon’ Rain” is inflected in major 3rds over and over. This goes on for about seven and a half minutes. The second section is similar to the first section except it has 40 seconds more of unedited ‘inimitable arioso’ moving all’ attacca into Reich’s arrangement. Also the texture of this canon is exponentially thickened as Reich tries to complicate the phase relationships. (Strickland, 1993, pg.

But Reich started to become interested in music around the world such as African music and Balinese Gamelan where Reich composed ‘Drumming ‘ and ‘Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ’ This works marked the start of Reich new technique: rhythmic construction, rhythmic reduction and rhythmic augmentation. This techniques is described as “the process of gradually substituting beats for rests (or rests for beats) within a constantly repeating rhythmic cycle” (Schwarz, 1981,