ISTITUTO SUPERIORE DI STUDI MUSICALI

VINCENZO BELLINI DI CATANIA

THE MINIMAL MUSIC

And the role of Steve Reich in modern culture

Student:
Andrea Vittorio Vincenzo Cipria
N 16796

Academic Year 2013-2014

THE MINIMAL MUSIC

Minimal music takes place in the '60, grouping a variety of new composition methods based on
repetition: as in its figurative counterpart, this art
movement is based on the combination of simple
figures, motifs and rhythmic and melodic cells.
Everything is set in a continuous repetition, but still
subject to a progressive and infinitesimal variation,
called static variation.
This concept finds its roots in the Eastern concept of
music as a means to life comprehension.
In fact, Michael Nyman tells us that the idea of
minimalism is much wider and broader than it seems:
It includes, by definition, any kind of music created
Big Composition A, by Piet Mondrian. One of the
from limited materials: tracks that only use a few
visual art styles that, more than others, inspired
notes, lyrics with only a few words, or music written
the minimal art movement..
for a few instruments. It includes those kinds of
tracks that are only made of a long electronic rumble.
It includes circular tracks, and includes tracks that take much time to develop from a kind of music
to another one, and tracks so slow they are only made of a couple of notes per minute.1
In this artistic context we can find a particular artist, who, as linear as important, took and defined
the minimalism vision of art and music as a gradual process.2
STEVE REICH
Born in 1936, Steve Reich attended courses at Juilliard
School of Music with Luciano Berio. He takes
inspiration from the indian and african traditions,
especially in his typical and unique rhythmic structures.
Reich, also, is often included in the post-Cagean
category of musicians, the ones who hardly suffered
John Cage's influence on contemporary music,
especially in the prudent use of silence as a musical
element.3
His first compositional experiments involve twelve-tone
music, but from the beginning, his attention goes on
the rhythmic aspect than to the melodic one.
Influenced by his close friend Terry Riley, a minimalist,
Reich uses his friend's compositional techniques to
create his first big work, It's Gonna Rain.
The track is composed on a recorded sentence - It's Gonna Rain, ed played on several tape
1 MARTIN COOPER, Storia della musica - la musica moderna e contemporanea 1890-1990, 10, Milano, FeltrinelliGarzanti, 1992, pp. 748-749, 762.
2 FILIPPO JUVARRA, Reich, Steve Michael, in Dizionario Enciclopedico della Musica e dei Musicisti, Le Biografie, VI, Torino,
UTET, 1986, p. 279.
3 PAUL GRIFFITHS, System, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 18, London, Macmillan Publishers
Limited, 1980, pp. 481.

machines which start in unison, yet slipping slowly out of synchronization, till the moment no word
is recognizable anymore, leaving the listener with the tonal and rhythmic patterns created by the
overlapped phrases.
The first time in which Steve Reich attempted
to re-create this effect in a live performance
is Piano Phase, for two pianos, from 1967.
In the piece, two performers play a fast
musical phrase in unison, and meanwhile one
has to keep the beat with robotic precision,
the second player gradually makes the
The melodic pattern in Piano Phase.
minuscule rhythmic shift from one
semiquaver to the next, before locking into the next note in the pattern.
This shift recurs continuously in the track, in which the two parts make three full cycles.
Violin Phase, also from 1967, is based on the same principles, except that is for two violins.
Reich, also, tries the same techniques,
but using the human body as an
instrument; he comes up with
Clapping Music, in 1972.

The rhythmic pattern in Clapping Music.

He doesn't stop, though:

in the following years he studies the Torah, african music, baroque music, and he studies the
compositional processes of the Middle Ages.
He composes also some works written for a full orchestra, as Variations for winds, strings and
keyboards, from 1979, and Three movements, from 1986.4
We can find another evolution in his style in Different Trains, from 1988, in which Reich
integrates audio fragments from train travels, referring to the Holocaust survivors, with a string
quartet mimicking the sound and the natural rhythm of what the tape machines play.
This track, performed by Kronos Quartet in the original version, won a Grammy Award in 1989.5
In general, Reich's music goes much beyond rhythmic and melodic patterns: as you can notice in
Violin Phase o Clapping Music, the joints created from the displacement of the two lines create
another independent line, unattached but still dependent from the original lines.
This concept can easily be noticed in Music for 18 Musicians, from 1976; from the start the
innovation is clear, emerging in the listener's mind, in a kaleidoscopic soundworld that mutates
continuously, given by the musical ensemble of strings, woods, percussions, pianos and voices.
This could look like a simple group of musicians, but it's how Reich uses all of that colour and
possibility over the hour of the whole work that makes the piece so magnetic.6

4 Steve Reich, in Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/496350/Steve-Reich, 10/09/2013.

5 KRONOS QUARTET, Different Trains, in Steve Reich - Kronos Quartet / Pat Metheny Different Trains / Electric
Counterpoint, San Francisco, Elektra Nonesuch Records 9 79176-2, 79176-2, 1988.
6 TOM SERVICE, A guide to Steve Reich's music, The Guardian, 22/10/2012,
www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2012/oct/22/steve-reich-contemporary-music-guide

You're locked into the mesmerizing way in which one pattern morphs into another, addicted to the
groove and pulse of the music at the smallest scale of what's happening from one note to the next.
At the same time, the music describes a bigger journey, as melodies and patterns recur over the
scale of the whole piece.
Reich builds up waves of density and complexity that crest at different points (listen out for Section
V and Section IX especially), creating an experiential arc that does much more than repeat a
sequence of chords and rhythms.
And again, the single experience is much wider than it seems.

The original cover art for "Music for 18 Musicians".

In fact, Reich's influence is bigger than any single piece. He has given the contemporary musical
world a license to groove, he created a model of a self-sustaining ensemble, and he has inspired
musicians from Michael Gordon, to Bjrk, to DJ Spooky.
And that means that we all live in a Reichian musical world.

- BIBLIOGRAPHY -

MARTIN COOPER, Storia della musica - la musica moderna e contemporanea 1890-1990, 10, Milano, Feltrinelli-Garzanti,
1992.
PAUL GRIFFITHS, System, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 18, London, Macmillan Publishers Limited,
1980, pp. 481.
FILIPPO JUVARRA, Reich, Steve Michael, in Dizionario Enciclopedico della Musica e dei Musicisti, Le Biografie, VI, Torino,
UTET, 1986, p. 279.
SCHWARTZ, K. ROBERT, Steve Reich: music as a gradual process, in Perspectives of New Music, XX/1-2 (1981-1982), pp.
225-286, [RILM 1982/2859 AP]
MICHAEL STEINBERG, Reich, Steve Michael, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 15, London, Macmillan
Publishers Limited, 1980, pp. 695-696.
Reich, Steve (propr. Stephen Michael), in Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/steve-reich,
20/03/2014.
TOM SERVICE, A guide to Steve Reich's music, The Guardian, 22/10/2012,
www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2012/oct/22/steve-reich-contemporary-music-guide
Steve Reich, in Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/496350/Steve-Reich, 10/09/2013.
KRONOS QUARTET, Different Trains, in Steve Reich - Kronos Quartet / Pat Metheny Different Trains / Electric
Counterpoint, San Francisco, Elektra Nonesuch Records 9 79176-2, 79176-2, 1988.

Andrea Vittorio Vincenzo Cipria, ___________________