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Transpositional Combination of Beat-Class Sets in Steve Reich's Phase-Shifting Music
Author(s): Richard Cohn

Source: Perspectives of New Music , Summer, 1992, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), pp.
146-177
Published by: Perspectives of New Music
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3090631
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TRANSPOS'ITONAL COMBINATION
OF BEAT-CLASS SETS
IN STEVE REICH'S
PHASE-SHiFiiNG MUSIC
RICHARD COHN
IN 1968 STEVE REICH WROTE "Music as a Gradual Process," an essay

inspired by his work with the compositional technique of phase-
shifting.' Reacting against both aleatoric and serial composers, who use
"hidden structural devices" to disconnect "the compositional process"
from "the sounding music," Reich implied that in his phase-shifting music
he had discovered a way to enable musical processes to be perceived
"throughout the sounding music," and thus to have achieved "a composi-
tional process and a sounding music that are one and the same thing."2 He
showed a draft of his essay-in-progress to James Tenney, who pointed out
an important implication: "then the composer isn't privy to anything."
Reich concurred, concluding that "I don't know any secrets of structure
that you can't hear."3
Such a conclusion hardly encourages analysis. If there is nothing in the
bones that is not in the skin, analysts may as well leave their surgical

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Steve Reich's Phase-shifting Music 147
instruments at home, and this is exactly what most have done. According
to Dan Warburton, because it merges "overall form and moment-to-
moment content," discourse about Reich's early music is necessarily
restricted to mere description.4 For others, what places this music outside
the bounds of systematic inquiry is its treatment of time. Specifically citing
Reich's Violin Phase, Jonathan Kramer finds early minimalist music
"uncompromisingly vertical,"5 by which he means that the temporal con-
tinuum is unstructured by beginning, closure, climax, contrast, or progres-
sion, so that the significance of the sequential order of events, and their
dependence on each other, is minimized.6 A similar view is held by Wim
Mertens, who bundles Reich, along with Glass, Young, and Riley, at the far
end of a traditional/experimental polarity.7 Like Kramer's "vertical music,"
Mertens's "experimental music" lacks narrative and teleological qualities
(p. 17), including beginning, ending, or climax (p. 102). "No one sound
has any greater importance than any other" (p. 88). Mertens quotes similar
views of European colleagues Ivanka Stoianova ("Aimless wandering with-
out beginning," p. 89) and Clytus Gottwald ("[Reich] got round the
problem of the articulation of time by denying the existence of time," p.
117).8 Kramer summarizes the inadequacy of analysis for such a music:
"Music cast in vertical time can scarcely be analyzed, in the usual sense of
the term ... it is essentially pointless to explicate a holistic, timeless
experience in terms of sequential logic."9
Further exacerbating the problem for the analyst is the perception that,
during his phase-shifting period, Reich was uninfluenced by the musical
tradition for which standard analytic methods were developed. In 1972 the
composer, as quoted by Donal Henahan, claimed that "frankly, my interest
in Western music slacks off from Perotin onward ... I greatly admire
Bach, certainly, but Perotin seems to me a kind of high point.'10 This
attitude waned in subsequent years: in 1976 he readmitted Stravinsky,
Bartok, and Webern into his personal canon,l1 and four years later he
emphatically rejected the notion "that I'm involved in some pursuit which
has nothing to do with or is a complete break from the Western tradi-
tion."'2 But the perception remained that, as K.R Schwarz has written,
"early in Reich's career, Western influence was restricted to Medieval and
Baroque music.' 13
Yet some observers have been skeptical about adopting too facile a view
of Reich's phase-shifting music. Gregory Sandow raises doubts about
Reich's self-portrait as a rejector of tradition and compositional craft, and
about the image of his music as static, ateleological, and inaccessible to
rational discourse:
I can't agree with most of the critical remarks about [Reich] . . . he is

a Western composer, working squarely within the tradition of Western
classical music. After the repetition, the polyrhythms, and the slowly

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148 Perspectives of New Music
changing, percussive texture becomes familiar, it's possible to hear

that Reich's harmony, instrumentation, meter, and structural
precision are entirely Western. He develops motifs, plans patterns of
tension and release, and builds momentum toward small climaxes
within each piece as any classical symphonist might. He can even
create suspense. . . 14
Although written in reaction to music written during Reich's post-phase

phase, it is clear from context that this assessment applies to Reich's entire
oeuvre. The qualities that Sandow perceives here have the potential to
retrieve Reich's music for analysis. In a subsequent review of the Mertens
book, Sandow issued an urgent call for such analysis, as an escape-hatch
from what he perceived as the poorly anchored, uncritical nature of
received opinion.'5 Analyses of this music have begun to appear, as if in
answer to this call: Paul Epstein's excellent treatment of evolving pitch
relations in Piano Phase, and briefer analytic observations on this same piece
by Brian Dennis and Robert Morris.16
The following aphorism from "Music as a Gradual Process" forms the
starting point of my analytic approach:
Material may suggest what process it should be run through (con-

tent suggests form) and processes may suggest what sort of material
should be run through them (form suggests content).17
By invoking traditional distinctions-material and process, form and

content-Reich suggests questions about assertions he makes elsewhere in
the same essay. If materials and processes are distinct, and yet the material
belongs to the composition proper, then the composition has a component
that is distinct from the process. How then can the composition and the
process be co-extensive? Further, the image of material running through
process implies a third component to the ontology-materials, processes, and
"running through," an act requiring an agent. This agent can be none
other than the composer, whose "compositional processes" take the
"sounding processes" as their object, and thus must be distinct from them.
Similarly, if the materials and processes make "suggestions," then they are,
at least metaphorically, participants in some act of communication. But
who recognizes and receives these suggestions, if not the composer? And is
"just anyone" qualified to recognize and act appropriately upon them?
In this study, I show that this cannot be the case; indeed, the composer
is "privy to" a special craft and knowledge, bordering on "secrets of
structure." My argument rests on a tangible and specific interpretation of
what Reich means by form and process, content and materials. I adopt a
formal language in order to explore their interaction in two compositions,
the relatively simple Phase Patterns (1970), and the more complex Violin

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Phase (1967).18 This exploration will lead to insights about the composer's
internalized, "out of time" knowledge of his craft, and about the "in
time" experience of the listener in the presence of this music. In short, this
exploration will lead to analysis of the music at hand. These analyses in turn
have implications toward a stylistic and aesthetic reevaluation of Reich's
phase-shifting music, which is undertaken in the final part of this essay.
I. MATERIALS/CONTENT
Q: Rhythmic structure seems to be the most important part of music

for you.
Reich: Yes, it is. If I can continue to get thoughts about new ways to
put music together in time, I'm not worried about what notes or
instruments to use .... Rhythmic structure gives a piece its real
character. ... In your ear rhythmic structure takes precedence over
pitch and timbre.19
If rhythm is the dominant parameter in Reich's music, then its principal

"material" or "content" ought to be rhythmic in nature. Reich's live
phase-shifting pieces use a metric cycle of eight or twelve beats,20 which is
repeated an indeterminate but very large number of times, each repetition
serving as the background for a rhythmic pattern which remains constant
throughout the composition.21 I take this pattern to be the "material" or
"content" to which Reich refers. Given the relative poverty of our rhyth-
mic terminology, the challenge for the theorist is to discover a means to
characterize this material that is not only descriptively adequate, but also
allows for exploration of its properties, its behavior under transformation,
and its relations to other potential material.
The most effective way to meet this challenge is to take advantage of
strong formal resemblances between the structures of metric cycles and the
twelve-pitch-class universe.22 A metric cycle consists of n beat-classes,
arranged into a mod-n system and labelled from 0 to n-1, with 0 repre-
senting the notated downbeat. The rhythmic material consists of one or
more beat-class sets (henceforth abbreviated "bc set"). Like pitch-class sets,
bc sets have an interval content, bear properties such as invariance or cycle-
generability, and enter into equivalence, similarity, and inclusion relations
with each other. Consequently, much of the technology developed for
atonal pitch-class analysis is transferable to the rhythmic domain, mutatis
mutandis.
In Phase Patterns, for four electronic organs, a metric cycle of eight bcs
is partitioned into two sets of four, which are distinguished by two differ-
ent pitch sets (Example 1). Reich claims to have derived this partitioning

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from the paradiddle pattern of rudimental drumming, which he played

as a youth.23 The partitioning of the attacks is as follows: right hand =
{1,4,6,7}; left hand = {0,2,3,5}. The two sets are equivalent under
transposition, mapping into each other at T4, modulo 8 (see Example 1).
Adapting the prime-form conventions established for pitch-class theory to a
modular system of eight elements, both sets "reduce" to [0235]. Thus, the
principal rhythmic material of Phase Patterns can be most generally charac-
terized as the mod-8 bc-set-class [0235].
2_T 4
UT 'r Q 41 7: -m Wlrm m
mftl 'm {^J^-t^ Im ?]( f
EXAMPLE 1: BASIC PATTERN OF Phase Patterns
Violin Phase uses a twelve-beat cycle, ten of which are attacked in the
basic pattern (Example 2a). As in Phase Patterns, it is the registral grouping
of the constituents that produces the most significant bc sets. There are
three active registers: the low Ct4, the high E5, and the four pitches
bunched between F#4 and B4. Reich considers the highest and lowest
registers to possess strong individual identities as "psycho-acoustic
byproducts,"24 a view which has been strongly corroborated by recent
experimental work in perception and cognition.25 Three important bc sets
emerge through this registral segmentation (Example 2b). The set formed
by the low CO attacks is {07}, whose prime form is [05]. The set formed by
the high E attacks, equivalent to the set of double stops, is {249B}, prime
form [0257]. Finally, the set formed by the union of the registral extremes
is {02479B}, prime form [024579].
The primary bc set of Phase Patterns and the three primary sets of Violin
Phase share the following important property: each is cyclically generated
by the smallest nonunit prime interval (i.e. the smallest prime interval
greater than 1) in its modular system.26 This generating interval is 3 for the
?-iJle -
EXAMPLE 2a: BASIC PATTERN OF Violin Phase

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2 4 9 B
0 7
EXAMPLE 2b: PRINCIPAL BEAT-CLASS SETS OF Violin Phase
mod-8 system of Phase Patterns, and 5 for the mod-12 system of Violin
Phase. The principal bc set of Phase Patterns, [0235], is the 3-generated set
whose cardinality is half the size of the system. All three principal sets in
Violin Phase are 5-generated, and the cardinality of the largest of them,
[024579], is also half the size of the system.
Three aspects of this finding are significant to the understanding of this
music. First, Jeff Pressing has shown that generability from the smallest
nonunit prime is characteristic of many commonly used pitch-class sys-
tems, including the diatonic collection.27 These same systems are also the
source of Reich's pitch materials. Indeed, in Violin Phase the pitch classes
and beat classes are isomorphic: the six pitches used in the piece form a
"Guidonian hexachord" of prime form [024579], corresponding to the
largest of the three principal bc sets. Furthermore, the pitch space is laid
out so as to emphasize a chain of perfect fourths, C#4-F4-B4-E5, represent-
ing [0257], another principal bc set in the piece.28 Such isomorphisms may
strike some as arcane, as inaccessible to perception and cognition. But
Pressing's evidence of "cognitive pitch/time isomorphisms" serves as a
reminder that the structures underlying musical cognition implicate funda-
mental mysteries that we have not yet begun to understand. There are, of
course, other reasons for Reich's choice of pitch materials, above all that
they minimize the interval-classes 1 and 6, thereby fleeing the sonic world
of the serialists. An inspired composer's choices, however, are frequently
over-determined.
The second significant connection is semantic in nature. Pressing has

hypothesized that beat-class sets cyclically generated from nonunit primes
are fundamental to much music of West Africa and of African-influenced
cultures in the Western Hemisphere.29 Although Reich's trip to Ghana in
the summer of 1970 (after composing Phase Patterns) overtly influenced his
subsequent music, several writers have remarked on a subtler infiltration of
African elements into the earlier phase-shifting music,30 an observation
that may apply to the choice of beat-class sets for Violin Phase and Phase
Patterns.

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For the analytic purposes at hand, however, the most significant aspect
of the cycle-generative properties of Reich's bc sets is their relation to what
Carlton Gamer has called the deep scale property.31 For the moment, I am
merely concerned with identifying this property; an appreciation of its
significance must be postponed until some aspects of "form" or "process"
have been discussed. A set holds the deep scale property if its dyadic subsets
(i.e. its interval classes) are distributed such that each dyad class is repre-
sented with unique multiplicity. Gamer has shown that, given a system ofn
elements, where n is even (as in the compositions at hand), deep scales are
exactly those sets of cardinality n/2 or n/2 + 1 that are generated by an
interval whose size is prime relative to n. Both the principal bc set of Phase
Patterns and the largest principal set of Violin Phase fulfill these conditions,
as is confirmed by an examination of their ic vectors. In the mod-8 system
of Phase Patterns, with interval-classes 0 through 4, the ic vector of [0235] is
[4,1,2,3,0]. In the more familiar mod-12 system of Violin Phase, with
interval-classes 0 through 6, the ic vector of [024579] is [6,1,4,3,2,5,0].32
In both cases, no values are duplicated. Finally, it will be useful to note
that, even though [0257], another of the principal bc sets of Violin Phase, is
not a deep scale (because its cardinality is too small), it does manifest deep-
scale-like tendencies, in that its interval vector, [4,0,2,1,0,3,0], has five
different values, the maximum variety for a set containing four elements.
II. FORM/PROCESS
Each of Reich's phase-shifting compositions begins with the basic pattern

in a single voice. After a brief time, the pattern issues a copy, which
accelerates until it has advanced one beat ahead of the original voice. At this
point, it locks back in at the original tempo, and the two voices engage in a
canon at a transposition of one beat. Each composition essentially consists
of a series of such progressions (accelerations which execute the phase
shifting), and prolongations (lockings in, forming canons at various trans-
positions in beat space). The texture may become denser through addition
of voices, either through further cloning or through resultant patterns
which extend prolongational areas.
Several aspects of the score are communicated by means other than
conventional notation, including the timing of the phase-shifting process,
the duration of the prolongational regions, and the resultant patterns.
Although the composer specifies a range of constraints, these aspects vary
considerably from one performance to the next, and thus are proper not so
much to the score itself as to a particular performance of that score.33 What
remains invariant between performances is the sequence of prolongational
regions, which, as in tonal music, becomes the basis of the dynamic, form-
shaping characteristics of this music. Each region combines one or more

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transpositions of the basic rhythmic pattern. Regions are identified by

listing the participating transpositions. Since the original voice always
begins on the notated downbeat, the name of each region begins with To;
this is followed by one or more integers representing the transpositional
operation that derives each copy from the original, expressed either as a
positive or a negative integer.34
Phase Patterns begins in rhythmic unison, and alternates progressions
(phase shiftings) and prolongations (marked by the introduction of resul-
tant patterns) until the second voice has moved four beats ahead of the first.
The sequence of regions is: { To,; To,- ; To,-2; To,-3; To,4}, or, expressed as
positive integers: {T,0o; To,7; To,6; T0,5; T0,4}. The composition concludes
after two additional voices execute the same sequence more rapidly, using a
different pitch set.
The first half of Violin Phase consists of the same series of prolongational
regions, although this time expressed as a different set of positive integers:
{To,o; To, 1; To, o; To,9; To,8}. Here the initial prolongations are executed
without the resultant patterns, so that the series unfolds more rapidly. The
T0,8 region is extended through a set of resultant patterns, which mark the
end of the second voice's migration. In the second half of Violin Phase, the
initial two voices remain fixed at To and T8, while a third voice is cloned
from the second, and progresses through a series of prolongational regions,
decrementing until it reaches T4. This arrival triggers a second set of
resultant patterns, which continue until the end of the composition. Thus
the entire sequence is expressed in positive integers as {To,o; To,ll; T0,lo;
T0,9; T0,8(,8); T0,8,7; T0,8,6; T0,8,5; T0,8,4.}
The plans for the two pieces are superficially similar in that the T4
progression occurs at the highest structural levels. More significant, how-
ever, is the concern with symmetric divisions of the beat cycle: the struc-
tural motion of Phase Patterns ends when its eight-beat cycle is bisected,
while the structural motion of Violin Phase ends when its twelve-beat cycle
is trisected. The significance of this fact is further explored below.
III. MATERIALS X PROCESS: FREQUENCY OF ATTACKS
All the parts are identical, and relatively simple. Complexity arises out
of the exact rhythmic relationship of one player to another.35
As a principal rhythmic pattern is "run through" the phasing process, it

enters into different transpositional relations with itself. Each "prolonga-
tional region" features a new bc set that results from a combination of
transpositions of the original set. The following two sections of this paper
demonstrate that the characteristics of these emergent bc sets directly result
from properties of the principal bc set of which it is multiply composed. In

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effect, the principal rhythmic pattern bears a kind of "genetic code" that is
activated by the phasing process, in such a way as to have a direct impact on
a listener's in-time experience of the composition. Section 3, using a
version of the well-known "common-tone theorem for transposition,"
focuses on the cardinalities of the emergent bc sets (i.e., the number of
attacks per metric cycle), the patterns formed by these cardinalities across
the composition, and the way that these patterns cause teleological qualities
to emerge. Section 4 explores inclusion, equivalence, and complement
relations that result from the various transpositional combinations, and
how these relations help create a sense of form.
The rhythmic pattern of the five prolongational regions of Phase Patterns
is displayed in Example 3. The upper two systems respectively present the
original voice and the accelerating copy as it migrates through different
transpositions. The lowest system gives the composite of the two voices,
which is the output as heard by the listener. The composite score shows
that, for any given region, both pitch sets are attacked an equal number of
times, but that no two regions have the same number of attacks per pitch
set. These are indicated by the integers within the composite score, which
show that the five regions of Phase Patterns have 4,7,6,5, and 8 attacks per
pitch set, respectively. This series progresses from minimum to maximum,
and incorporates each intermediate density exactly once. These properties
of maximum variety and progression to a point of saturation are easily
audible, and indeed are among the most immediate aspects of the listening
experience. Two additional characteristics of this series are worth pointing
out, not so much because of their significance to the composition at hand
(where the brevity of the series makes them almost trivial), but because
the same characteristics appear in Violin Phase (where the relative length
of the series bestows significance on them). The progression from mini-
mum to maximum-minimum to almost-maximum, decrement to almost-
minimum, leap to maximum--is indirect. It is also symmetrical: the series
{4,7,6,5,8} is invariant under RI, where the axis of inversion is 6.
I now show that each of these properties directly corresponds to a
property of the basic rhythmic set. In exploring the pattern of attack-point
frequencies through the various prolongational regions, we are essentially
inquiring into the cardinality of the union of the principal bc set with each
of its transpositions. The following theorem relates cardinality to dyad-class
content (i.e. interval-class content). The theorem makes use of the function
ADJEMB(P,Q), an adjustment on Lewin's embedding function,
EMB(P,Q).36 EMB is flexibly designed in order to accommodate whatever
equivalence relations are desired by the user. Here, the canonical group
comprises transpositions only. Like Regener's directed interval-content
function, ADJEMB (P,Q) gives the number of transpositions of P inQ.37

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REGION: T, rT 7
#iH1 11 * . 1. g 11
)D""#
t r #4 t I
4^II^
RIGINAL
7,,"
2Ill I a"
1 V Ill
V 8 11
o#
ti## r4
i4s ii4/ iS4 ii
ll^ ^ ^*ii
CLONE
* T11 M T,4 4? 6
J ORIGINAL 5
4\ A'o1) 1>>>>1
S o LONE '
) ~COMPOSITE 5 8
jj ^ ^Mmf .. ft IM I
EXAMPLE 3: FIVE REGIONS OF Phase Patterns
DEFINITION 1. Given sets P and Q EMB(P,Q) counts the distinct t

tionally relatedforms of P which are subcollections ofQ.
DEFINITION 2. TSYM(P) is the degree of transpositional symmetryf

it counts the distinct transpositions that map P onto itself.38

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DEFINITION 3. ADJEMB(P,Q) = EMB(P,Q) x TSYM(P).
THEOREM 1: CARDINALITY THEOREM. (Union of two Tn-related sets):

#(Tx(Q) U Ty(Q)) = 2(#Q) -ADJEMB({x,y}, Q)
According to Theorem 1, the cardinality of the union of two transposi-

tions of a set is inversely related to the multiplicity of the interval class
representing the distance between the two transpositions, with some
adjustment in case that interval class is half the size of the system (6 in
mod-12; more generally, n/2 in mod-n). The theorem is closely related to,
and proven by means of, the "common-tone theorem for transposition,"
which states that the cardinality of the intersection of Tx(Q) with Ty(Q) is
directly related to the multiplicity of interval-class x -y in _Q, with a similar
adjustment for degree of transpositional symmetry.39
We now explore ADJEMB(P,Q), where Q = [0235], mod-8, and P
moves through a set of dyads representing the various prolongational
regions of Phase Patterns. Each successive phase shifting increments the
smallest interval between the voices, so that the prolongational regions
move through the mod-8 interval classes from 0 to 4, in order. Following
Lewin, the expression l{x,y}l represents all sets in the canonical group, in
this case, those related to {x,y} by transposition.
for P = /{0,0}/, ADJEMB(P,[0235]) = 4

for P = /{0,7}/, ADJEMB(P,[0235]) = 1
for = /{0,6}/, ADJEMB(P,[0235]) = 2
for P = /{0,5}/, ADJEMB(P,[0235]) = 3
for P = /{0,4}/, ADJEMB(P,[0235]) = 0
Because P moves through the mod-8 interval-classes from 0 to 4, in

order, the ordered set of outputs, [4,1,2,3,0], represents an ADJEMB
vector for [0235]. Because ADJEMB(P,Q) = EMB(P,Q) in this case (a
result of the absence of dyad-class 4), and because embedded dyads are
equivalent to interval classes, the ADJEMB vector is equivalent to an ic
vector (with the addition of the zero-place suggested by Morris). Subtract-
ing the ADJEMB values now from 2(#Q) = 8, we get the sequence of
attack-point frequencies in Phase Patterns.
The cardinality theorem shows that the properties of the attack-point
frequency pattern of Phase Patterns-the maximum variety, the path from
minimum to maximum culminating in aggregate completion, the indirect-
ness of the path, and even the symmetry-reflect Reich's initial choice of
principal rhythmic pattern. The deep-scale property of the basic set is a

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necessary condition for maximum variety (although not a sufficient condi-

tion: the deep scale [01346], ic-vector [5,2,3,4,1], fails to produce max-
imum variety, due to the doubling effect of TSYM on its final entry). The
unique appearance of the 0 result in the vector guarantees complement
mapping at a unique transpositional value, making aggregate comple-
tion possible at that interval. And the symmetry of the vector of [0235]
translates into the symmetry of attack-point frequencies. Only one other
mod-8 set class, [0123], could have provided this same combination of
properties, but it would have yielded an attack-point frequency sequence of
[4,5,6,7,8], a "Mannheim crescendo" of less inherent subtlety. (Such a
beat-class set is inherently less interesting for other reasons as well, although
to articulate these reasons is not an easy task.)
So far, the discussion has focused exclusively on the union of the versions
of the basic pattern, on the assumption that variations in attack-point
frequency are a primary component of the listening experience. But other
paths through Phase Patterns are certainly available. For example, pitch sets
that are simultaneously attacked by two instruments may have a slightly
different quality than those attacked by only a single instrument, and
listeners may be responsive to variations in these qualities. This suggests
that it might be fruitful to briefly explore the intersections of the basic
pattern with its transposition, as they vary between prolongational regions.
In Phase Patterns, the number of doubled attacks per pitch set in each
region is equal to the multiplicity of the interval class representing the
transpositional distance governing that region, and so is inversely related to
the number of total attacks per pitch set in the region. Specifically, the
number of beats that are double-attacked and the total number of attacked
beats sum to 8, which is the total number of attacks per measure (i.e, 2 x
4, the number of voices times the number of attacks per voice). Thus, the
series of doubled attacks through the five regions (4,1,2,3,0) shares struc-
tural characteristics with the series of total attacks (4,7,6,5,8). This infor-
mation may, however, be susceptible to a different phenomenological
interpretation: while the total number of attacks intensifies to maximum,
the number of doubled attacks deintensifies, at the same rate, to zero. A
listener exclusively attuned to such relations will thus have a different
teleological experience than a listener attuned to variations in attack-point
density. In general, however, variations in doubling seem to be less appre-
ciable than those in attack-point frequency. It is doubtful, for example,
whether measure 1, where a single organ plays the basic pattern and
nothing is doubled, and measure 3, where two organs play the basic pattern
and everything is doubled, are heard as maximally dissimilar. Indeed, by
fading the second organ in during measure 2, Reich seems to be asserting
that zero-doubling and maximum doubling are so similar that under the
proper circumstances the difference between them may approximate
imperceptibility.

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We now turn to the attack-point design of Violin Phase, which is more

complex than that of Phase Patterns but bears similar characteristics none-
theless. Of the three principal be sets, we focus here on [0257], the set of
E5/double-stop attacks. The frequency of these attacks per measure varies
through the various prolongational regions of Violin Phase as follows:
T0,0 T0,11 T0,10 T0,9 T0,8(,8) T0,8,7 T0,8,6 T0,8,5 T0,8,4

4 8 6 7 8 9 10 8 12
As in Phase Patterns,
cardinality, here prog
without some deflection
aggregate. Again there
although here some du
two consecutive prolong
the entire series, like th
around the 8 axis.
The design for the first half of Violin Phase, which is limited to two
voices, is covered by Theorem 1. First, we explore ADJEMB(P,Q), where
Q = [0257], mod-12, and P moves through a set of dyads representing the
prolongational regions of the first half of Violin Phase. As in Phase Patterns,
these regions move through the mod-8 interval classes from 0 to 4, in
order. For future reference, the values for dyad-classes 5 and 6 are included
as well, in brackets.
for P = /{0,0}/, ADJEMB(P, [0257]) = 4

for P = /{0,11}/, ADJEMB(P, [0257]) = 0
for P = /{0,10}/, ADJEMB(P, [0257]) = 2
for P = /{0,9}/, ADJEMB(P, [0257]) = 1
for P = /0,8}/, ADJEMB(P, [0257]) = 0
[[[for P = /{0,7}/, ADJEMB(P, [0257]) = 3]]]
[[[for P = /{0,6}/, ADJEMB(P, [0257]) = 0]]]
To yield the attack-point frequencies for the first five prolongational regions
(4,8,6,7,8), the first five values are subtracted from 2(#Q) = 8.
To explore these matters in the second half of the piece, we need a
theorem that plots the cardinality of the union of three transpositions of a
single pattern. This turns out to be quite a bit more complex than the two-
voice case that we have been working with so far. 40

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THEOREM 2. CARDINALITY THEOREM. (Union of three T,,-related sets):
#(T,(Q) U T,(Q) U T(Q)) = 3(#Q) + ADJEMB({-x,-y-z},Q)

- (ADJEMB({x,y},Q) + ADJEMB({x,z},Q) + ADJEMB({y,z},Q)).
To apply Theorem 2 to the second half of Violin Phase, we set Q =

[0257], x = 0, y = 8, and z to decrement from 8 to 4. First, we can note
that 3(#Q) = 12, that ADJEMB({x,v},Q) = 0 (since Q contains no ic4),
and therefore that ADJEMB({ -x,-y,-z},Q) = 0 for all values of z (since
all {-x,-y,-z} contain at least one ic4, namely, {-x,-y}). Thus the
cardinality is actually the sum of the last two terms of the equation,
subtracted from 12. In Example 4, the first column assigns the three
variables to the three beat classes that initiate the basic pattern in the
region, the figures in columns 2 and 3 are extracted from the list of
ADJEMB values above, column 4 sums the values of columns 2 and 3, and
column 5 gives the value of the entire right side of the equation of Theorem
2, which is equivalent to the attack-point cardinality for that region.
x,y,z ADJEMB({x,z},Q) ADJEMB({y,z},Q) SUM 12 - SUM
0,8,8 0 4 4 8
0,8,7 3 0 3 9
0,8,6 0 2 2 10
0, 8,5 3 1 4 8
0,8,4 0 0 0 12
EXAMPLE 4: APPLICATION OF THEOREM 2

TO SECOND HALF OF Violin Phase
I now show that two characteristics of the attack-point design of Violin

Phase, its aggregate completion and its symmetry, result from the com-
binatorial properties of [0257]. (References to "tetrachordal" com-
binatoriality are maintained here even though "chords" do not figure into
the present context.) By definition, a combinatorial tetrachord (in a system
of twelve elements) is one which, in union with two of its transpositions,
exhausts the aggregate. Combinatorial tetrachords are exactly those set-
classes Q such that #Q = 4 and ADJEMB({0,4}Q) = 0, and they fulfill
their combinatorial potential when the three transpositions are sym-
metrically dispersed at T,,, T4+,,, and T8+,,.41 The aggregate-completing
potential of these sets is well known to composers, who have frequently
exploited them in a pitch-class context. To take a familiar instance for

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comparison, the partitioning of the pitch-class aggregate at the opening of

Berg's Lyric Suite (0257 469B 8A13) is isomorphic with the partitioning of
the beat-class aggregate created by the E5/double-stops at the end of Violin
Phase.
The RI invariance of the attack-point design exploits a property of
combinatorial tetrachords that, to my knowledge, is unknown to theorists.
This property is captured in Theorem 3. All arithmetic is modulo-12:
THEOREM 3. For #Q = 4, iffADJEMB({0,4},Q) = 0,

then #(To(Q) U T(Q)) = 16 - #(To(Q) U Ts(Q) U T4_y(Q)).
The theorem states that RI invariance results from the combinatoriality of

[0257], and therefore that any other combinatorial tetrachord, run through
the same sequence of transpositional relations, would yield an attack-point
design with the same property. Example 5 shows this to be the case. The
following proof of Theorem 3 relates it to the absence of interval-class 4 in
combinatorial tetrachords. All arithmetic continues to be modulo-12.
Prime form Too To,,1 To,lo 0T,9 To,8 T0,8,7 T0,8,6 To,8,5 To,8,4
0123 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
0127 4 6 7 8 8 8 9 10 12
0167 4 6 8 8 8 8 8 10 12
0235 4 7 6 6 8 10 10 9 12
0136 4 7 7 6 8 10 9 9 12
0356 4 7 7 6 8 10 9 9 12
0257 4 8 6 7 8 9 10 8 12
0369 4 8 8 4 8 12 8 8 12
EXAMPLE 5: CARDINALITY TABLE FOR COMBINATORIAL TETRACHORDS

RUN THROUGH THE PROCESS OF Violin Phase
The proof begins with Theorem 4, which stems from work of Starr and
Morris and relates combinatoriality to cycles.42
THEOREM 4: For #Q = 4, ifADJEMB({0,4),Q) = 0, then Qis composed

of one element from each T4 cycle.
Corollary 4 reinterprets Theorem 4 using the function MOD-4(Q):43

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DEFINITION 4. MOD-4(Q) maps each element of set Q into its residue

modulo-4.
COROLLARY 4. For #Q = 4, ifADJEMB({O,4},Q) = 0, then MOD-4(Q)

= {0,1,2,3}.
THEOREM 5. For #Q = 4, if ADJEMB({0,4},Q) = 0, then

ADJEMB({O,n)mod-4, MOD-4(Q)) = 4, for n = 0 to 3.
Remembering that ADJEMB is a version of Regener's directed-interval

function, Theorem 5 is demonstrated by Example 6a, which gives the
directed intervals, mod-4, between {0123} and itself. Because of Corollary
4, a similar matrix computing mod-4 directed intervals for any com-
binatorial tetrachord would have the same result. (Example 6b demon-
strates for the case of 0136.) The mod-4 directed-interval vector for each
combinatorial tetrachord consequently is [4,4,4,4], reflecting the fact that,
in their mod-12 directed-interval vectors, the values for directed intervals 0,
4, and 8 sum to 4, as do the values for all y, 4 + y, 8 + y. That this is so
may be easily checked by writing out the directed-interval vector for any
combinatorial tetrachord, and performing the appropriate summings. We
now restate this observation via Theorem 6, which reincorporates
ADJEMB into the discourse:
THEOREM 6. For #Q = 4, ifADJEMB({0,4),_Q) = 0,

then ADJEMB(0O, y},Q) + ADJEMB({0,4 +y},Q)
+ ADJEMB({0,8 +yJ,Q) = 4.
(a) 0123 (b) 0136
0 1 2 3 0 1 3 6
0 0 1 2 3 0 0 1 3 2
1 3 0 1 2 1 3 0 2 1
2 2 3 0 1 3 1 2 0 3
3 1 2 3 0 6 2 3 1 0
EXAMPLE 6: DIRECT
FOR COMBINATORIAL TETRACHORDS

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162 162 ~~~~~Perspectives of New Music
Using Theorems 1, 2, and 6, and several minor lemmas,44 we now prove

Theorem 3:
Theorem 6 For #Q =4, if ADJEMB({O,4},Q) = 0,

then ADJEMB({O, y},Q) + ADJEMB({ 0,4+y},Q)
+ ADJEMB({0,8+y},Q) = 4;
Lemma ADJEMB({Oy}~Q) = ADJEMB({O,-y},Q);

thus ADJEMB({0,4+y},Q) = ADJEMB({O,8-y},Q);
ADJEMB({O,8 +y},)Q) = ADJEMB({0,4-y},Q)
Lemma ADJEMB({Oy},Q) = ADJEMB({n~y+n}, Q);
thus ADJEMB({O,8-y},Q) = ADJEMB({8,4-y},Q)
For #Q =4, if ADJEMB({O,4},Q) = 0,
then ADJEMB({O, y}Q) + ADJEMB({8,4-y},Q)
+ ADJEMB({O,4-y},Q) = 4;
then 4 -ADJEMB({0,y},Q) = ADJEMB({8,4-y},Q)
+ ADJEMB({O,4-y},Q);
then 8 -ADJEMB({0,y},Q) = (16-12)
+ ADJEMB({ 8,4-y},,Q)
+ ADJEMB({O,4-y},.Q);
then 8 -ADJEMB({O,y},Q) = 16-(12
- (ADJEMB({8,4-y},Q)
+ ADJEMB({ 0,4-y},_Q)));
from Th. 2 12 + ADJEMB({0,-85-(4-y)},Q)
- (ADJEMB({0,8},Q)
+ ADJEMB({0,4-y},,Q)
+ ADJEMB({8,4-y}jQ))
= # (TO0(Q) U T8(Q) U T4 ,(Q));
given ADJEMB({O,4},Q) = 0;
then ADJEMB({O,-8},Q) = 0;
then ADJEMB ({O, -8,- (4-y)}JQ) = 0
then 12 - (ADJEMB({O,4-y},Q) + ADJEMB({8,4-y},Q))
-#(TO(Q) U T8(Q-) U T4-,(Q-));
8-ADJEMB({0,y},Q) =16-#(T0(Q) U T8~(Q)
UT4 Y(Q)).
from Th. 1 8-ADJEMB({Oy},Q) =#(T0(Q) U Q)
#(T0(Q) U Tv(Q)) = 16-#(T0(Q) U T8(Q) U 774 Y(Q)).
Q.E.D.

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This excursion has given insight into the general usefulness of com-
binatorial tetrachords in the context of the prolongational design of Violin
Phase. But what advantage does [0257] have over the seven other com-
binatorial tetrachords? Example 5 suggests the answer: only [0257] and
[0123] produce an attack-point design such that no two consecutive
regions have identical densities. This characteristic is loosely related to the
fact that these are the only combinatorial tetrachords with deep-scale-like
tendencies: with more different values appearing in the interval vector,
there is less chance that adjacent values will be identical. Although [0123]
has a greater variety of densities than [0257], it arranges these varieties
sequentially in an overly predictable way, and otherwise seems unqualified
as the basis of an entire composition, as already suggested above in the
discussion of Phase Patterns. This leaves [0257] as the most appropriate
choice for a principal beat-class set to be run through the process of Violin
Phase, at least from the point of view of attack-point design.
It is true, of course, that this inquiry into variations in the attack-point

design of the double-stop fragments represents only one possible path
through the piece. Other paths, focusing on attack-point density variations
in the other basic rhythmic sets of the piece, generally yield less interesting
results for this piece; however, in section 4, attention is focused on other
aspects of the composite sets that arise from the combinations of bc set
classes [05] and [024579]. Finally, it is worthwhile to turn brief attention
to the question of doubling relations, both for the low-register C g and for
the high-register E/double-stops. In general, the cardinality of doubled
attacks is inversely proportional to the number of total beats attacked.
Specifically, where v = the number of participating voices, av = the
number of attacks per voice per measure, ab = the total number of attacked
beats per measure, and db = the total number of doubled beats per
measure, db = (v x av) -ab. In the case of the low C g, there are only two
attacks per voice per measure, so v x av = 4 for the first half of the piece, 6
for the second half. The inverse relation between the total attacks per
measure and the doubled attacks per measure, for the low C-sharps, is
given in Example 7a.
First Half Second Half
Attacks 244 4 4 4 5 6 5 6
Doubled Attacks 2 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 1 0
EXAMPLE 7a: LOW C-SHARPS

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Turning our attention now to doubling relations among the high-register

E/double-stops, there are four attacks per voice per measure, so v x av = 8
for the first half of the piece, 12 for the second half. The inverse relation
between the total attacks per measure and the doubled attacks per measure,
for the high E/double-stops, is given in Example 7b.
First Half Second Half
Attacks 4 8 6 7 8 8 9 10 8 12
Doubled Attacks 4 0 2 1 0 4 3 2 4 0
EXAMPLE 7b: HIGH E DOUBLE STOPS
Each half of the piece, taken separately, shows a general decrease in

doubled attacks, as in Phase Patterns, offsetting the upward progression of
total attacks. Taken as a whole, Violin Phase incorporates two roughly
parallel decreases, rather than a single decrease played out over its entire
span.
To summarize the findings of section 3: both Violin Phase and Phase
Patterns bear attack-point designs with special properties. The similarity of
these designs between the two compositions weakens the possibility that
these properties are merely fortuitous. The variety of frequencies displays
the composer's concern with creating maximum possible differentiation
within the constraints of the phase-shifting process. The arrangement of
these frequencies into long-range patterns, culminating in the achievement
of a goal, demonstrates a dynamic and teleological component to this
music, particularly in the more complex Violin Phase. At the same time, the
indirectness of the approach to the goal, with its overall thrust occasionally
deflected, hints at a traditionally nuanced approach to the shaping of
temporal experience. These deflections also result in a nontrivial
retrograde-symmetrical design which, at least in Violin Phase, might help
the listener predict the approach of a goal.
These findings betray a very different conception of time than the one
commonly portrayed by critics and scholars of Reich's music. Section 3 has
further suggested that, given the global constraints of the phase-shifting
process, the properties of the attack-point designs resulted from careful
planning, requiring more than basic common sense on the part of the
composer. This suggestion has implications concerning the role of knowl-
edge, craft, and "secrets of structure." These questions are further consid-
ered, along with the topic of time, in the concluding section of this paper.

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IV. MATERIALS X PROCESS: EQUIVALENCE, INCLUSION, AND COMPLE-

MENT RELATIONS
This section explores further consequences of Reich's use of principal bc

sets that are cyclically generated from a prime, showing that this choice
results in an abnormally high degree of equivalence, inclusion, and comple-
mentation relations between the beat-class sets that result from their trans-
positional combination.45
Phase Patterns, with only one principal bc set and only five prolonga-
tional regions, is relatively simple from this viewpoint. We have already
noted that the principal bc set is cyclically generated from interval 3, and
that the cardinalities of the various resultant bc sets, considered apart from
their ordering in the piece, form a chain from 4 to 8. It remains to observe
that the specific sets form an inclusion chain as well, since each set is
cyclically generated from interval 3. This follows from Theorem 7.
THEOREM 7. Given a system ofs elements, an interval i that is prime relative to

s, and a set Q cyclically generated from interval i, such that #Q > s2 - 1,
then Q U Tn(Q), for all n, is cyclically generated from interval i.
Proof: If the combined sets share elements, their combination composes a

longer cycle fragment from two shorter cycle fragments. If the combined
sets are complementary, then the cardinality of their combination is s or
s-1. The aggregate of s elements, and all sets of cardinality s-1, are
generable from any interval prime relative to s.
As a consequence, the transition between consecutive prolongational

regions always adds or subtracts beats to/from the previous pattern. This is
demonstrated in Example 8. Because the inclusion is abstract, the pattern is
frequently rotated in relation to the notated downbeat. The abstractness of
the inclusion relation presents no obstacle to perception, however, since
the location of the perceived downbeat tends to float in relation to the
notated downbeat.46
Similar inclusion relations occur in Violin Phase, whose resultant bc set
classes are shown in Example 9, using Forte labels for the sake of compact-
ness. As predicted by Theorem 7, all sets resulting from [024579] are
cyclically generated from interval 5, and thus form an inclusion chain.
Furthermore, with the single exception of 8-6, all sets resulting from
combinations of [0257] are cyclically generated from interval 5 as well, and
thus fall into their own inclusion chain. This is due to Theorem 8, which
generalizes Theorem 7:

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THEOREM 8. Given asystem ofselements an interval ithatisprime relative to s,

and a setQ cyclicallygenerated from interval i, then Q U Tn(Q) is cyclically
generatedfrom interval i ifeither EMB({O,n}, Q) > O orn = + (i #Q).
Proof IfEMB({0,n},Q) > 0, then the combined cycle fragments overlap to

form a longer cycle fragment. If n = ? (i ' SQ), then the combined sets are
cyclically adjacent-one begins where the other leaves off.
Right hand rhythmic pattern (composite)
Too i ^i i, ,i ,? , , , ,
TO, , 5, , ,
T... P?i PPi .i .i . . .
EXAMPLE 8: ABSTRACT INCLUSION RELATIONS IN Phase Patterns
High E/
Regions Low CO double-stop Low + high
0,0 2-5 ,4-23 ,6-32
0,11 4-8 8-6 11-1
0,10 4-23 6-32 8-23
0,9 4-26 7-35 9-9
0,8 4-20 8-23 10-5
0,8,7 5-20 / 9-9 11-1
0,8,6 6-18 D 10-5D , 12-1
0,8,5 5-27 \8-23 10-
0,8,4 6-20 12-1 12-1
EXAMPLE 9: BEAT-CLASS SETS IN Violin Phase

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As a consequence, following the combinations of either [0257] or [024579]

through Violin Phase, one hears the same types of additions and subtrac-
tions as in Phase Patterns.
These observations suggest further continuities between Reich's phase-
shifting music and the music that he began to compose after his 1970 trip
to Ghana. Drumming (1971) used what Reich called "a new technique, the
process of gradually substituting beats for rests (or rests for beats) within a
constantly repeating rhythmic cycle,"47 and this technique has continued
to appear in his more recent compositions.48 Although these inclusion
relations are more at the forefront of the later compositions, the above
discussion shows that they were already present in the phase-shifting com-
positions, where they simply "fall out" from running the basic pattern
through the phasing process. It is likely that the choice of basic pattern was
in part motivated by its special ability to yield these relations.
There is a further dimension to Violin Phase: because of their mutual
generability from interval 5, most of the set classes that emerge from
transpositional combinations of [0257] are equivalent to those that emerge
elsewhere in the piece from transpositional combinations of [024579]. The
lines in Example 9 draw particular attention to transpositional relations
between sets two regions apart from each other. These relations suggest
that a loose structural canon at the distance of two prolongational regions
mirrors the exact canons that dominate the surface of the piece. Further-
more, the beat-class sets of To,8 are equivalent to those of T,8, 5. Both of
these sets move to the final To,8,4 region, one in a local sense, the other in a
structural sense, since To,8 and To,8,4 are the two "structural" regions
whose prolongations are magnified by resultant patterns. The arrows in
Example 9 suggest that these two motions are equivalent, with one nested
inside the other.
Finally, the complement relations between 4-23/8-23 and between 2-
5/10-5 are worth noticing. In general, pitch-class theorists have privileged
abstract complement relations for operational reasons, and for the extent of
their appearance in masterworks of the atonal repertory, but not because of
their psycho-acoustic immediacy. With regard to abstract complement
relations among beat-class sets, the operational motivation is still present.
At the same time, Pressing has presented evidence that "complementa-
tion ... is critical in the performance and perception of West African
drum ensemble music."49 Why should complement relations between
attack-point patterns be more psycho-acoustically grounded than those
between pitch classes? An answer is available in the case that the smaller of
the complementary sets contains no intervals of class 1 (the case for both 2-
5 and 4-23). In a complementary relation between Q and Q., with #Q <
#Q' and EMB({01},Q) = 0, Q' has no rest whose duration is longer than
one beat. If an attack preceded by a rest is more marked than an attack

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preceded by another attack, ceteris paribus, then the pattern of marked

attacks in Q will be equivalent to the pattern of all attacks in Q. Example 10
illustrates one such case from Violin Phase. In these cases, a complement
relation implies the presence of a more readily hearable equivalence relation.
The appearance of nontrivial relations of the type discussed in this
section suggests an interest, on the part of the composer, in an integration
of materials beyond the level inherent in the global constraints of the phase-
shifting process. In the case of Violin Phase, the effect of this integration is
not merely to guarantee a higher degree of unity or association-in itself a
trivial goal-but to use these relations to give further shape to the form of
the piece, by insuring that it does not merely unfold like a carpet, but
refolds upon itself, creating a contour of some formal complexity.
Basic pattern, To# >_,

E5/double-stops = [0257] ' Jr
1 r r
> b
Composite pattern, T0,8

E5/double stops following - . _ I . ,, 1
nonattacks in that
register = [0257]
EXAMPLE 10: EXAMPLE OF COMPLEMENT RELATION IN Violin Phase
V. CRITICAL, STYLISTIC, AND AESTHETIC IMPLICATIONS
"If we want to understand minimal music we need genuine analysis,"

wrote Gregory Sandow in 1984. By "understand," Sandow presumably
meant more than an account of internal relations and structures that is the
province of analysisperse. Rather, he seems to have been looking to analysis
for "hard evidence" against which to test received notions concerning the
stylistic and aesthetic characteristics of these composers and their music.
Indeed, the analyses presented in this study require some of these received
notions to be modified, at least with regard to Steve Reich's phase-shifting
music.
First there is the question of Reich's approach to time. The vertical,

ateleological, static view of Reich's phase-shifting music focuses on
extended use of repetition as a prolongational device, but ignores the

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progressive context in which these prolongations occur. As Michael Nyman

has noted, "repetition ... is a 'local' device by which Reich realizes his
concept of 'music as a gradual process."'50 Even without the details
provided by the analyses presented here, there is something paradoxical
about the identification of "process" with "timelessness," since a process
without actual or metaphorical motion through time is inconceivable.
These analyses bring out further paradoxical aspects of the ateleological
view: music which starts in rhythmic unison and finishes either in a state of
saturation or (in the case of Clapping Music) by returning to its starting
point is attending to the formal role of beginnings and endings.51 Music
which progresses toward its ultimate state of saturation in a systematic
fashion has sequential order, motion, progression, and climax.
Of the ateleologists, only Jonathan Kramer has recognized these para-
doxes, for which he suggests the following resolution:
In practice, much vertical music retains vestiges of linearity, that can

be analyzed both for themselves and in relation to a work's overriding
nonlinearity. This is particularly true of process compositions, which
move at even rates toward foreseeable goals. Such works are nonlinear
because they are not hierarchic, and because their motion results from
unchanging global principles. Their motion is so evenly paced and so
predictable that it is not perceived as progression. As Lewis Rowell
explains, continuous motion can easily imply stasis. Because there are
no (important) deviations from the music's predictable course, listen-
ing to a process composition can be a vertical time experience.52
By these criteria, the "vertical" label fits Violin Phase and Phase Patterns
rather poorly. The above study of patterns of their attack-point cardinalities
shows that, in at least one dimension, the motion is neither evenly paced
nor predictable (from a listener's point of view). By moving from minimum
to maximum density across an indirect route, Violin Phase, and Phase
Patterns to a lesser degree, progress toward their long-range goal not with
the immediacy of a bowling ball approaching its target, but rather like a
wave: a steady flow tempered by crests and troughs.53 The music is further
shaped by the recurrence of beat-class sets, indicating that the composition
is in some sense folding back on itself, at several different levels of structure.
In these senses, Reich's treatment of time is quite classical.
The nonlinearity of the other dimensions need not override the linearity
of the rhythmic transformations; rather, it can serve to focus a listener's
energy toward them. The situation in this respect is analogous to another
composition cited by Kramer, Bach's C major Prelude from WTC 1, where
formal complexity, teleology, hierarchy, and other linear values derive from
variation in a single dimension alone. Many listeners, whether out of

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inexperience or choice, hear the prelude as a static tapestry or kaleidoscope,

neglecting to recognize its dynamic and linear qualities.54 This suggests that
listening to a figuration prelude "can be a vertical time experience," but
not that the prelude is an "uncompromisingly vertical piece."
The second major topic that requires reconsideration is Reich's claim not
to "know any secrets of structure that you can't hear." This study has
shown that the knowledge necessary to predict the behavior of a basic
rhythmic pattern throughout the phase-shifting process can be formidably
specialized. It would be folly, of course, to assume that Reich thought
about these problems in exactly the terms used in this study, or even to
make assumptions about the form this knowledge takes, or how it may have
been acquired-whether through precompositional calculation, or trial and
error, or whether it was simply mixed in with that unconscious, inarticulate
control of materials and processes that contributes to most creative
activities-what Chomsky has called "competence." But it is reasonable to
assume that the composer of Violin Phase was in some sense "privy to"
something unavailable to "just anyone," in spite of his protestations to the
contrary.55
Again Bach provides a good point of comparison for evaluating the
meaning of elusive terms such as "knowledge," "secrets of structure,"
"hidden structural devices," and so on. We know that, given a suitable
subject, Bach was able to spontaneously improvise fugues, and we have
anecdotal evidence that when he heard a fugue subject for the first time he
was able, without reflection, to report the transformations to which it
would most naturally lead. In essence, the composer was able to take a
piece of original material and "run it through" a context that was precom-
positionally constrained (by the conventions of tonality and of fugal writ-
ing). Bach could have honestly claimed about the fugue so produced that
both the materials and the processes of the compositions are completely
audible: the well-equipped listener is able to hear each appearance of the
subject, and to identify the transformation that it has undergone (we leave
aside the exceptional case of Bach's most "learned" fugues, which employ
large-scale retrograding and other "esoteric devices.") But there is a third
component that is indispensable to the production of the fugue: the
knowledge of the composer. This knowledge must have been extraor-
dinarily complex; the program for an artificial intelligence device capable of
capturing it would run to many more lines than the proof of Theorem 3
given above. (Bach certainly never wrote such a program, even in the most
informal terms, nor is it clear that he could have done so even had he the
equipment and the desire.) Now note several things about this knowledge:
because all the transformations are audible, it involves no "hidden struc-
tural devices;" because the knowledge is inarticulate, it involves no "secrets
of structure," in the absolute sense; furthermore, if we were able to "hear"

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this knowledge, it is not clear that it would sound anything like the music
which it helps to produce, any more than a fragment of DNA resembles the
being for whose creation it is indispensable.
In any case, whether formal, heuristic, or intuitive, Reich's approach to
the relationship of materials and processes seems surprisingly linked to the
Second Viennese School, despite Reich's pains, early in his career, to
distance himself from their progeny. The canons, the use of combinatorial
tetrachords to achieve aggregate completion, and the associative set rela-
tions are the most obvious link. But perhaps more significant is the general
attitude of seeking maximal variety and integration in the context of
rigorous precompositional constraints through a scrupulous matching of
raw materials with specific transformations, an attitude which allies Reich,
above all, with Webern. Reich commented on this relationship in 1980:
The way to connect my music to the Western tradition is not to look at

what comes immediately behind me chronologically, the series of post-
Webern compositions. Though if you want to do that, look at Webern
himself. Look at the number of notes on a page, think of the reduc-
tion involved in what he was doing, and the organization that went on
in serial music. Actually, there's a great similarity between that and my
earlier pieces, like Piano Phase: the severity and clarity of organization.
A very different kind of sound, but a very pared-down, severely
organized kind of music.56
The citation of Piano Phase in this regard is of particular interest, because

its basic pattern is constructed so that dyad-swapping will occur at beat-
class transpositions T5 and T7, just as the row of Webern's Symphony,
Opus 21, swaps dyads under the pitch-class operation T91.57
My final point pertains to the influence of theoretically driven categories
on our analytic reports of the listening experience. Our theoretical appa-
ratus is dominated by our ability to discuss pitch events, transformations on
those events, larger events comprised of ensembles of transformations, and
so on, in terms of high-level equivalence classes. By contrast, rhythmic
categories are low level, and taxonomically rather than systematically ori-
ented. If we claim to hear this music as static, it may simply result from a
tacit belief that pitch monopolizes our various levels of awareness as much
as it dominates our consciously held categories. Structure is pitch structure;
when pitch ceases to develop, music has no structure.58
This study suggests that, by freezing pitch, Reich did not abolish the old
modes of hearing, but simply displaced them, transferring them from one
domain to another, and gambled on the ability of listeners and performers
to respond. It is tempting to conclude, given the popularity of this music,
that Reich gambled correctly. It is also possible, of course, that Reich's

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music has become appreciated in spite of, not because of, th

composer seems to have taken to build a dynamic comp
music. But have the subtlest gestures of craftsmanship by B
helped their music find its way to the hearts of performer
unwilling or unable to consciously recognize or identify the
do not know, we can only assume so.59

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NOTES
1. Steve Reich, Writings about Music (Halifax: The Press of the Nova
Scotia College of Art and Design, 1974), 9-11. The essay first
appeared in Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials (New York: Whitney
Museum of Art, 1969), 56-57.
2. Thomas Delio makes an equivalent claim about Morton Feldman's

music, in Circumscribing the Open Universe (Lanham, MD: University
Press of America, 1984), 31.
3. Reich, Writings, 10. Reich recounts the anecdote in "Tenney," Perspec-

tives of New Music 25 (1987): 547, adding that "eighteen years later
that certainly doesn't describe my music the way it did in 1968."
4. Dan Warburton, "A Working Terminology for Minimal Music," Inte-

gral 2 (1988): 135-36.
5. Jonathan Kramer, The Time of Music (New York: Schirmer Books,

1988), 386.
6. Kramer's characterization of vertical time appears in The Time ofMusic,
54-57; 375-76; 384-89.
7. Wim Mertens, American Minimal Music (London: Kahn & Averill,
1983). See also Michael Nyman, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond
(New York: Schirmer, 1972).
8. Similar echoes can be found in other American writings. K. Robert

Schwarz writes of "lack of directionality and climax" and of "stasis."
("Steve Reich: Music as a Gradual Process," Parts 1, 2, Perspectives of
NewMusic 19 (1980): 380-81; 20 (1981): 234). See also Tim Page,
"Framing the River: A Minimalist Primer," Hi Fi/Musical America 31
(November 1981): 64-68.
9. Kramer, The Time of Music, 389.
10. Donal Henahan, "Reich? Philharmonic? Paradiddling?," New York

Times, 24 October 1971, sec. 2.
11. Michael Nyman, "Steve Reich: Interview," Studio International 192

(1976): 303.
12. Cole Gagne and Tracy Caras, Soundpieces: Interviews with American
Composers (Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1982), 311.
13. Schwarz, "Steve Reich," Part 1, 380.

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14. Gregory Sandow, "Steve Reich: Something New," The Village Voice (10
March 1980): 74.
15. Gregory Sandow, "Minimal Thought," The Village Voice (8 May 1984):
68-69. A similar plea is issued by Keith Potter, "Steve Reich:
Thoughts for His 50th-birthday Year," The Musical Times 127 (1986):
15.
16. Paul Epstein, "Pattern Structure and Process in Steve Reich's Piano
Phase," The Musical Quarterly 72 (1986): 494-502; Brian Dennis,
"Repetitive and Systemic Music," The Musical Times 115 (1974):
1036-38; Robert Morris, "Generalizing Rotational Arrays," Journal of
Music Theoty 32 (1988): 91-93.
17. Reich, Writings, 9.
18. Violin Phase (London: Universal Edition, 1979); Phase Patterns

(London: Universal Edition, 1980).
19. Emily Wasserman, "An Interview with Composer Steve Reich," Art
Forum 10, no. 9 (1972): 47; see also Henahan, "Reich."
20. In Reed Phase, Reich experimented with a five-beat cycle, apparently

not to his satisfaction. Although Reich allowed the piece to be pub-
lished in Source 2, no. 1 (1968), he subsequently disavowed it and
withdrew it from his catalogue.
21. An exception is Piano Phase, which ends with a transformation of the

basic pattern.
22. Music theorists have long been aware of such resemblances. The work
presented here draws on the tradition of Milton Babbitt, "Twelve-
Tone Rhythmic Structure and the Electronic Medium," Perspectives of
New Music 1, no. 1 (Fall-Winter 1962): 49-79; Benjamin Boretz,
"Sketch of a Musical System (Meta-Variations, Part II)," Perspectives of
New Music 8, no. 2 (Spring-Summer 1970): 49-111; John Rahn, "On
Pitch or Rhythm: Interpretations of Orderings of and in Pitch and
Time," Perspectives of New Music 13, no. 2 (Spring-Summer 1975):
182-203; and David Lewin, Generalized Musical Intervals and Transfor-
mations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987).
23. Reich, Writings, 55-56.

24. Ibid., 53.
25. See Albert Bregman, Auditory Streams (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990);
also Stephen McAdams and Albert Bregman, "Hearing Musical
Streams," Computer Music Journal 3, no. 4 (Winter 1979): 26-43.

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26. For some background concerning cyclic generation of systems of

various sizes, see Gerald J. Balzano, "The Group-theoretic Descrip-
tion of 12-Fold and Microtonal Pitch Systems," Computer Music Jour-
nal 4, no. 4 (Winter 1980): 66-84.
27. Jeff Pressing, "Cognitive Isomorphisms Between Pitch and Rhythm in

World Musics: West Africa, the Balkans and Western Tonality," Studies
in Music (Australia) 17 (1983): 45.
28. Reich has observed the relationship between the hexachord of Violin
Phase and the chord which opens the second movement of Bartok's
Second Piano Concerto, which realizes [024579] as a chain of fifths in
pitch space. See Gagne and Caras, Soundpieces, 310.
29. Pressing, "Cognitive Isomorphisms," 40-41, 45.

30. Schwarz, "Steve Reich", Part 2, 234; John Adams, The New Grove
American Dictionary, s.v. Reich, Steve. Reich's interest in West African
music began around 1962. See Wasserman, "Interview," 47.
31. Carlton Gamer, "Some Combinational Resources of Equal-Tempered

Systems," Journal of Music Theory 11 (1967): 32-59.
32. The inclusion of 0 as an interval-class follows Robert Morris, Composi-

tion with Pitch-Classes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 72.
The reason for adopting this convention will become clearer as the
discussion proceeds.
33. Reich has stated that the resultant patterns, which are chosen by the
performer from among the patterns already implicit in the score, have a
"pointing out" function (Writings, 53). Accordingly, they might be
considered as a performer's commentary upon the score, thus belong-
ing to what literary theorists refer to as the "paratext," in the manner
of program notes that tell "what to listen for." See Gerard Genette,
Seuils (Paris: Editions Seuils, 1987). The realizations of these patterns
in recorded performances, some of which are included in the published
scores (but only as samples), offer a fertile opportunity to engage in a
"reader-response" analysis, with performer acting as a reader in posses-
sion not only of a heightened knowledge of the text, but also of a
metalanguage for communicating observations within a constrained
domain. Such a secondary analysis might be fruitful for probing the
internalized knowledge of the performer with respect to the issues
outlined in this study.
34. Warburton introduces a similar labelling system in "Working Termi-

nology," 148-52.

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36. David Lewin, "Forte's Interval Vector, My Interval Function, and

Regener's Common-Note Function," Journal of Music Theory 21
(1977): 194-237.
37. Eric Regener, "On Allen Forte's Theory of Chords," Perspectives of New
Music 13, no. 1 (Fall-Winter 1974): 201-204.
38. John Rahn, BasicAtonal Theory (New York: Longman, 1979), 90-91.
39. Milton Babbitt, "Past and Present Concepts of the Nature and Limits
of Music," International Musicological Society: Report of the Eighth Con-
gress, Vol. 1 (New York, 1961), 402.
40. Theorems 1 and 2 are generalized so as to specify the cardinality of the

union of any number of T,-related sets in Richard Cohn, "Transposi-
tional Combination in Twentieth-Century Music" (Ph. D. diss., East-
man School of Music, 1987), 103-106.
41. Donald Martino, "The Source Set and its Aggregate Formations,"
Journal of Music Theory 5 (1961), 237. Several of the combinatorial
tetrachords fulfill their potential at other transposition-relations as
well, a fact which need not concern us here.
42. See Morris, Composition, 128-31, especially Th. 4.5.5.5.
43. Adapted from the CYCLE-n homomorphisms discussed in Richard

Cohn, "Properties and Generability of Transpositionally Invariant
Sets,"Journal ofMusic Theory 35 (1991) 1-32.
44. Related theorems are proven in Morris, Composition, 67.
45. Underlying the topic treated in this section is more formal work
presented in Cohn, "Transpositional Combination"; idem., "Inver-
sional Symmetry and Transpositional Combination in Bartok," Music
Theory Spectrum 10 (1988): 19-42; idem, "Properties and Gener-
ability." I am indebted to Robert Morris for the suggestion that this
approach could be adapted to beat-class analysis.
46. Epstein, "Pattern Structure," 501. Reich intended these ambiguities,

as he revealed in "Texture-Space-Survival," Perspectives of New Music
26, no. 2 (Summer 1988): 273-74. An exception is Clapping Music,
the final phase-shifting piece, where Reich asked performers to con-
tinually stress the notated downbeat.
48. Warburton, "Working Terminology," 148.
49. Pressing, "Cognitive Isomorphisms," 42.

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50. Nyman, Experimental Music, 130.
51. In Clapping Music, the retrograding of beat-class sets between the two
halves reinforces the sense of return. Dennis ("Repetitive and Systemic
Music," 1037) and Epstein ("Pattern Structure," 495) have noticed a
similar retrograding in the first part of Piano Phase.
52. Kramer, Time ofMusic, 389. The problem is addressed in similar terms
on 57 as well.
53. The metaphors are borrowed from Victor Zuckerkandl, Sound and
Symbol: Music and the External World (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1956), 168, 181. They are also cited in Lewis Rowell, "Stasis in
Music," Semiotica 66 (1987): 193.
54. Kramer, Time of Music, 42.
55. In assessing Reich's anecdote (see note 3 above), we should consider

the possibility that, in suggesting that "then the composer isn't privy
to anything," Tenney was attempting a reductio ad absurdam which
Reich, intoxicated by the Zeitgeist of the late sixties, failed to recognize
as such.
56. Gagne and Caras, Soundpieces, 311.
57. See also "Steve Reich in Conversation with Henning Lohner," Inter-
face 17 (1988): 118-19, where he claims that "I don't think that a
piece like 'Piano Phase' could have been done without the Symphony
Opus 21 or what have you."
58. See Rowell, "Stasis," 183, for one articulation of this view.
59. I wish to thank Joseph Auner and Ramon Satyendra for their helpful
comments on an earlier draft of this study.

31.205.118.125 on Fri, 01 Mar 2024 20:03:15 +00:00

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Transpositional Combination of Beat-Class Sets in Steve Reich's Phase-Shifting Music

Author(s): Richard Cohn

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3090631

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IN 1968 STEVE REICH WROTE "Music as a Gradual Process," an essay

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I can't agree with most of the critical remarks about [Reich] . . . he is

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changing, percussive texture becomes familiar, it's possible to hear

Although written in reaction to music written during Reich's post-phase

Material may suggest what process it should be run through (con-

By invoking traditional distinctions-material and process, form and

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Q: Rhythmic structure seems to be the most important part of music

If rhythm is the dominant parameter in Reich's music, then its principal

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from the paradiddle pattern of rudimental drumming, which he played

EXAMPLE 1: BASIC PATTERN OF Phase Patterns

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EXAMPLE 2b: PRINCIPAL BEAT-CLASS SETS OF Violin Phase

The second significant connection is semantic in nature. Pressing has

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Each of Reich's phase-shifting compositions begins with the basic pattern

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transpositions of the basic rhythmic pattern. Regions are identified by

III. MATERIALS X PROCESS: FREQUENCY OF ATTACKS

As a principal rhythmic pattern is "run through" the phasing process, it

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DEFINITION 1. Given sets P and Q EMB(P,Q) counts the distinct t

DEFINITION 2. TSYM(P) is the degree of transpositional symmetryf

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DEFINITION 3. ADJEMB(P,Q) = EMB(P,Q) x TSYM(P).

THEOREM 1: CARDINALITY THEOREM. (Union of two Tn-related sets):

According to Theorem 1, the cardinality of the union of two transposi-

for P = /{0,0}/, ADJEMB(P,[0235]) = 4

Because P moves through the mod-8 interval-classes from 0 to 4, in

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necessary condition for maximum variety (although not a sufficient condi-

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We now turn to the attack-point design of Violin Phase, which is more

T0,0 T0,11 T0,10 T0,9 T0,8(,8) T0,8,7 T0,8,6 T0,8,5 T0,8,4

for P = /{0,0}/, ADJEMB(P, [0257]) = 4

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THEOREM 2. CARDINALITY THEOREM. (Union of three T,,-related sets):

#(T,(Q) U T,(Q) U T(Q)) = 3(#Q) + ADJEMB({-x,-y-z},Q)

To apply Theorem 2 to the second half of Violin Phase, we set Q =

x,y,z ADJEMB({x,z},Q) ADJEMB({y,z},Q) SUM 12 - SUM

EXAMPLE 4: APPLICATION OF THEOREM 2

I now show that two characteristics of the attack-point design of Violin

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comparison, the partitioning of the pitch-class aggregate at the opening of

THEOREM 3. For #Q = 4, iffADJEMB({0,4},Q) = 0,

The theorem states that RI invariance results from the combinatoriality of

EXAMPLE 5: CARDINALITY TABLE FOR COMBINATORIAL TETRACHORDS

THEOREM 4: For #Q = 4, ifADJEMB({0,4),Q) = 0, then Qis composed

Corollary 4 reinterprets Theorem 4 using the function MOD-4(Q):43

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