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Phil Collins’ famous drum fill from ‘In the Air Tonight’ gets the Steve Reich treatment
03.03.2017
12:13 pm
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In 1967 Steve Reich produced one of the landmark experimental compositions of the 20th century, with “Piano Phase,” which incorporated the brilliant idea of playing the same short repeated melody twice at the same time, with the two versions being slightly out of phase. Over the course of approximately 15 minutes, the two melodies diverge and create unexpected cacophony before realigning again and so forth.

No matter how it’s done (it can be done many different ways, with tape loops, or multiple pianists, or even with one pianist), it’s always a stimulating experience to listen to “Piano Phase.”

If Reich’s piece was (among other things) proof of concept, then it’s up to the world at large to apply the technique to other musical artifacts. A resident of Denton, Texas, named Joseph Prein decided to see what happens when you play that game with the most famous drum fill of the 1980s, the majestic burst of “gated reverb” that punctuates Phil Collins’ 1981 track “In the Air Tonight” around the 3:19 mark. 

In Prein’s version, you get three versions of the drum fill (which of course only lasts a couple of seconds), played at regular speed and two other versions at 99.9% and 100.1% of the correct speed. The track lasts 70 minutes.

Enjoy the mind-obliterating fun of this mental mantra after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Martin Schneider
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03.03.2017
12:13 pm
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Avant garde app visualizes Steve Reich’s ‘Piano Phase’
07.16.2014
03:11 pm
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“Piano Phase” (1967) was Steve Reich’s first composition to use phasing in live performance—he had already tried it with taped music. The concept here is that you have two pianos playing the same repetitive lines of music but at very slightly different speeds, which means that over the course of several minutes the two melodies will overlap (almost) perfectly at certain points and then gradually diverge, which creates interesting tonalities. Todd Tarantino explains:
 

The score presents a handful of rotations of a twleve-note figure that is played in twelve variations. In its first presentation the theme begins on the first note; the first variation begins on the second note and ends on the first note; the second variation begins on the third note and ends on the second and so forth until all the rotations of the figure have been played. Alone it would be a simple, quick and relatively dull score. However the process by which the variations proceed is where the interest lies. Reich asks the first piano to begin by playing the theme alone. The second piano joins when the theme is sufficiently established. While one piano keeps the initial tempo, the other speeds up ever so slightly which causes the two to become out-of-sync for a moment before the second pitch of the slowing down piano locks with the first pitch of the steady tempo piano. This process repeats until the two return to unison. It sounds more complicated than it actually is.

 
As Tarantino drily concludes, “It is quite difficult to play.” Yeah—it sure seems like it!

You can see part of the score on Tarantino’s site as well. Indeed, as delightful as the challenge of humans playing may be, the optimal performance of “Piano Phase” would be undertaken by computer, as only a computer can perfectly track the almost imperceptibly slow alterations in phase that are so integral to the work. And that has happened—on Vimeo there is a surprisingly entertaining rendition of the composition performed by an “ER-101 Indexed Quad Sequencer and some other eurorack modules.” (What makes it entertaining is that we can watch the user setting the sequence up.)

Google Creative Labs honcho Alexander Chen has created a fun web app called, appropriately enough, Piano Phase in which you can see the notes being played (by computer) as well as hear them. Appropriately, as if to mirror the inherently cyclical nature of the work, Chen has two differently colored dots trace lines up and down (to represent pitch) around a circle, rather than scrolling endlessly to the right as in a traditional score.

Chen writes:

This site is based on the first section from Steve Reich’s 1967 piece Piano Phase. Two pianists repeat the same twelve note sequence, but one gradually speeds up. Here, the musical patterns are visualized by drawing two lines, one following each pianist.

The sound is performed live in the browser with the Web Audio API, and drawn in HTML5 Canvas.

 
The app does interesting visual things if you pause the music to read the “about” text and also if you click and drag anywhere in the browser. Play around with it, it’s pretty cool.
 

 
Two mesmerizing performances of “Piano Phase” after the jump….

READ ON
Posted by Martin Schneider
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07.16.2014
03:11 pm
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LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy folds Steve Reich into his epic Bowie remix
11.12.2013
03:18 pm
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I really like this remix of David Bowie’s “Love is Lost” from his album The Next Day, which came out earlier this year. It was undertaken by James Murphy, recently of LCD Soundsystem, and it incorporates as the primary bed a recording of Steve Reich’s 1972 “Clapping Music.” In fact it’s called the “Hello Steve Reich Mix.”
 

 
“Clapping Music” must be one of Reich’s most popular works. While researching this piece I found a textbook in which the class was told to break up into groups for the purpose of “composing your own ‘Clapping Music.’” Reich wrote it for two people (the video below has ten), and it’s based on a very simple idea. The two clappers clap the same pattern, but one of them adds a slight pause every few bars, which generates interesting and unexpected patterns until it eventually moves back into phase again. Since the notes don’t change in pitch, the notation looks like this:
 
Clapping Music
 
Here’s Steve Reich’s “Clapping Music” performed by the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble in 2006:

 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
LCD Soundsystem’s last ever gig in full
‘Wavelength’ live score with members of Jesus Lizard, The Melvins & LCD Soundsystem

Posted by Martin Schneider
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11.12.2013
03:18 pm
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Lee Marvin and Angela Dickinson perform ‘Clapping Music’

 
Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson perform Steve Reich’s minimal piece “Clapping Music.” As one YouTuber points out, “His shoulders must be SO SORE.”

(via TDW)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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02.04.2011
12:14 pm
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