Free Music Software: In the late 60’s composer Steve Reich stumbled across a technique he called phasing, which was to have two identical tape loops that run at slightly different speeds, the result is that every possible combination of sound is cycled through until they arrive back in sync. The result with a melodic piece of music is that it moves through moments of chaos and moments of melody.

Phase Shifter is a Windows VST designed to make it easy to create phase shifting music, like the early work of Steve Reich. It also has a built in recorder so that the output can be recorded directly to disk. It works by loading up to 2 WAVs, and is triggered via a MIDI keyboard. Middle C will play the WAV at it’s original speed.

You can preview the results of Phase Shifter below.

Download here.

This video demos 12Step – a neural sequencer developed by Ted Hayes at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) for New Instruments for Musical Expression (NIME).

Software used: Puredata 0.41.4-extended, Ableton Live 8, Native Instruments Akoustik Piano.

via Tedb0t:

first iteration of software model with manual (software) input, demonstrating high-weight selection, multiple concurrent sequences, weight randomization and mode changes.

Philip Glass & Steve Reich, eat yr heart out X-)

Part 2 below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

First step: You have to admit you are powerless over hypnotic minimal musical sequences….

The Pendulum Electronica

via sciencefidelity:

This is a work from 2002 inspired by the Pendulum Music by Steve Reich. Four torches hang directly above four light sensors, four assistants pull back and release the torches simultaneously, as each torch passes its light sensor a sound is played.

The sounds are field recordings made in the city the work is being performed. Cities the work has visited include Nottingham, Glasgow and Paris, here are clips from two different performances in Cardiff.

Torley’s Tangerine Dream Love On A Real Train Piano Variations is a classical piano work based on Tangerine Dream’s electronic music based on Steve Reich’s classical ensemble works based on his experimental electroacoustic work and his experiences with West African rhythms.

Torley explains it better:

I was humming Tangerine Dream’s Love on a Real Train (as featured in Risky Business) so much (mostly because I can’t whistle) that I decided to improvise some piano variations around it.

It’s a free download, from the player above or via Torley’s site, where you can also watch his piano-roll style video for the work. To download, click the down arrow in the SoundCloud player.

Leave a comment with your thoughts on Torley’s take on a Tangerine Dream classic.

This is a visualization of Steve Reich’s Clapping Music.

via DJparadiddle

Here’s a must-see Pitchfork.TV video of Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore talking with Steve Reich at last year’s SXSW conference.

While Reich is best known for his acoustic works, his early electroacoustic works have been some of his most influential.

This is off-topic, but these are some amazing performances. Above, Dame Evelyn Glennie perform’s Steve Reich’s Clapping Music. 

Below, Clapping Music done by jugglers:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Nice take on Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, performed by Joby Burgess on the Wernick Xylosynth XS6.

All scholars in this area are invited to submit papers. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• both American and European (and other) minimalist music;
• early minimalism of the 1950s and ?60s;
• outgrowths of minimalism into postminimalism, totalism, and oher movements;
• minimalist music?s relation to pop music or visual art;
• performance problems in minimalist music;
• analyses or investigation of music by La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, Louis Andriessen, Gavin Bryars;
• especially encouraged are papers on crucial but less public figures such as Tony Conrad, Phill Niblock, Jon Gibson, Eliane Radigue, Rhys Chatham, Barbara Benary, Julius Eastman, and so on.

Contributions are welcomed in the form of individual papers (20 minutes). Abstracts containing a maximum of 500 words should be sent as email attachments, by October 31, 2008, to kgann@earthlink.net and compositeurkc@sbcglobal.net.

The Society for Minimalist Music exists to promote the intellectual and scholarly study of the music known as minimalism, and originating in the 1960s activities of composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Tony Conrad, Terry Jennings, Jon Gibson, Charlemagne Palestine, Phill Niblock, Barbara Benary, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and others. The Society’s interests are not limited to the music of that period, but also to ensuing streams of music developed from minimalist origins, and also in the relationship of music to minimalism in the other arts. Specifically, the Society recognizes minimalism not only in its familiar idiom of motivic repetition, but also its more general concern with drones and stasis.

Image: Martin Captures

This essay, via the Columbia University site, explains Reich’s thoughts on gradual process music, probably his most influential musical concept.

“Music as a Gradual Process,” by Steve Reich

I do not mean the process of composition, but rather pieces of music that are, literally, processes.

The distinctive thing about musical processes is that they determine all the note-to-note (sound-to-sound) details and the over all form simultaneously. (Think of a round or infinite canon.)

I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music.

To facilitate closely detailed listening a musical process should happen extremely gradually.

Performing and listening to a gradual musical process resembles:

pulling back a swing, releasing it, and observing it gradually come to rest;
turning over an hour glass and watching the sand slowly run through the bottom;
placing your feet in the sand by the ocean’s edge and watching, feeling, and listening to the waves gradually bury them.

Though I may have the pleasure of discovering musical processes and composing the musical material to run through them, once the process is set up and loaded it runs by itself.

Material may suggest what sort of process it should be run through (content suggests form), and processes may suggest what sort of material should be run through them (form suggests content). If the shoe fits, wear it.

As to whether a musical process is realized through live human performance or through some electro-mechanical means is not finally the main issue. One of the most beautiful concerts I ever heard consisted of four composers playing their tapes in a dark hall. (A tape is interesting when it’s an interesting tape.)

It is quite natural to think about musical processes if one is frequently working with electro-mechanical sound equipment. All music turns out to be ethnic music.

Musical processes can give one a direct contact with the impersonal and also a kind of complete control, and one doesn’t always think of the impersonal and complete control as going together. By “a kind” of complete control I mean that by running this material through the process I completely control all that results, but also that I accept all that results without changes.

John Cage has used processes and has certainly accepted their results, but the processes he used were compositional ones that could not be heard when the piece was performed. The process of using the I Ching or imperfections in a sheet of paper to determine musical parameters can’t be heard when listening to music compsed that way. The compositional processes and the sounding music have no audible connection. Similarly in serial music, the series itself is seldom audible. (This is a basic difference between serial (basically European) music and serial (basically American) art, where the perceived series is usually the focal point of the work.)

What I’m interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one and the same thing.

James Tenney said in conversation, “then the composer isn’t privy to anything”. I don’t know any secrets of structure that you can’t hear. We all listen to the process together since it’s quite audible, and one of the reasons it’s quite audible is, because it’s happening extremely gradually.

The use of hidden structural devices in music never appealed to me. Even when all the cards are on the table and everyone hears what is gradually happening in a musical process, there are still enough mysteries to satisfy all. These mysteries are the impersonal, unattended, psycho-acoustic by-products of the intended process. These might include sub-melodies heard within repeated melodic patterns, stereophonic effects due to listener location, slight irregularities in performance, harmonics, difference tones, etc.

Listening to an extremely gradual musical process opens my ears to it, but it always extends farther than I can hear, and that makes it interesting to listen to the musical process again. That area of every gradual (completely controlled) musical process, where one hears the details of the sound moving out away from intentions, occuring for their own acoustic reasons, is it.

I begin to perceive these minute details when I can sustain close attention and a gradual process invites my sustained attention. By “gradual” I mean extremely gradual; a process happening so slowly and gradually that listening to it resembles watching a minute hand on a watch–you can perceive it moving after you stay with it a little while.

Several currently popular modal musics like Indian classical and drug oriented rock and roll may make us aware of minute sound details because in being modal (constant key center, hypnotically droning and repetitious) they naturally focus on these details rather than on key modulation, counterpoint and other peculiarly Western devices. Nevertheless, these modal musics remain more or less strict frameworks for improvisation. They are not processes.

The distinctive thing about musical processes is that they determine all the note-to-note details and the over all form simultaneously. One can’t improvise in a musical process–the concepts are mutually exclusive.

While performing and listening to gradual musical processes one can participate in a particular liberating and impersonal kind of ritual. Focusing in on the musical process makes possible that shift of attention away from he and she and you and me outwards towards it.

Though very little of Reich’s music is what most people would consider electronic music, tape pieces like Come Out inform his later work and heavily influenced musicians coming of age in the seventies.

Reich’s music and this essay were big influences on ambient artist Brian Eno, who returns over and over to the world of gradual process music.

Peter Aidu plays Steve Reich’s Piano Phase, a work for two pianists, with with his left hand on one instrument and his right hand on the second.

While this is a unique performance and is a feat, the result seems to emphasize the synchronized phases of the two piano lines over the shifting phase relationships and the tension created by the “in-between” phase relationships.

If you’re a Reich fan, let me know what you think in the comments!

Listening to Reich Remixed, it’s hard not to think that the CD is a little of both – the best remixes take the music on new tangents, or inspire new experimental explorations. The weaker tracks just sound like Reich’s music was a source for some good samples. The result is an album that is interesting, at times inspired and challenging, yet also unsatisfying.

There are nine listed cuts on the album:

• Music For 18 Musicians (Coldcut Remix) – Steve Reich
• Eight Lines (Howie B Remix) – Bang On A Can/Bradley Lubman
• The Four Sections (Andrea Parker Remix) – London Symphony Orchestra/Michael Tilson Thomas
• Megamix (Tranquility Bass Remix) – Steve Reich/London Symphony Orchestra/Michael Tilson Thomas/Theatre Of Voices
• Drumming (Mantronik Maximum Drum Formula) – Steve Reich
• Proverb (Nobukazu Takemura Remix) – Theatre Of Voices
• Piano Phase (D*Note’s Phased & Konfused Mix) – Double Edge
• City Life (DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid Open Circuit) – The Steve Reich Ensemble/Bradley Lubman
• Come Out (Ken Ishii Remix) – Steve Reich

There is an unlisted tenth track, also.

The remixes cover a great deal of territory. The Coldcut remix of “Music for 18 Musicians” draws on several extended sections from the original piece, but combines them with electronic filtering effects, and synthesized additions. The result seems inspired by the sound of the original work, if not by its form or technique. The original work is percussive, heavy on mallet instruments, and has the musicians play short repetitive melodies, but slightly out of sync. The result is a constantly shifting texture that is similar to effects that Reich observed in some of his early tape experiments. The remix expands the sonic range of the original by adding some deep synthesized bass, and drum machine. The result sounds a little like Tangerine Dream’s music for Risky Business, which was inspired by Reich, or to some of Banco de Gaia’s work.

Howie B’s remix of “Eight Lines” samples some sections of the original, but seems largely disconnected from it. The remix includes weird sound effects and drum machines, but fails to be especially danceworthy or experimental. Andrea Parker’s take on The Four Sections also sounds disconnected from the original, but is more successful. It mixes stark drum machine rhythms with a combination of Reich samples and synthesized sequences, creating a sort of dark ambient techno.

Tranquility Bass weighs in with a Megamix that draws on a variety of Reich’s music. This is one of the more original remixes, because it uses a variety of Reich’s sources as inspiration and recombines them into a new form. It’s difficult to pick out all the source material, but one can here “It’s Gonna Rain”, “Clapping Music”, “Six Marimbas”, and “Electric Counterpoint”. There’s also a lot of new touches and electronic manipulation. This piece slowly builds, and you can hear Tranquility Bass using some of Reich’s approach to repitition.

The Mantronik version of “Drumming” is only superficially connected to the original. It’s is probably the most danceable of the remixes, yet is not that memorable. It has interesting drum machine work, but sounds more like a background track for a rap than an independent piece of music.

Nobukazu Takemura’s take on “Proverb” is more interesting. It slices and dices sections of the original in BT fashion. Takemura takes a very short section of the original vocal, and reworks it to create a large variety of effects. About 3:30 into the remix, Takemura adds drum machine to the mix, making this work as a sort of ambient techno or IDM track.

D*Note’s Phased & Konfused mix of “Piano Phase” uses large chunks of the original. It also adds techno drum machine and techno flourishes. The drum machine work is interesting in the way it plays in time with the source material, but also shifts the perceived tempo faster and slower.

The City Life remix is by far the most avant garde of the remixes. DJ Spooky uses electronic manipulation in a music concrete manner, slowing and speeding sounds, playing them backwards, treating them with artificial echo effects, and repeating short chunks. The result is a remix that sounds a lot like some of the tape pieces of the sixties. Listeners interested in dance-style remixes will hate this cut, while people interested in more experimental music will probably find it one of the more interesting cuts on the CD.

The Ken Ishii remix of “Come Out” is trippy. It works fairly well following the DJ Spooky remix, and takes the original source material for Reich’s track into new directions. Reich’s piece uses a tape loop of spoken word and creates variations by repeating multiple versions of the loops played slightly out of sync. Ishii goes in a completely different tangent. Instead of playing multiple versions of the loop off itself, he focuses primarily on manipulating a single version of the loop. He filters it, echoes it, and stretches it. This is augmented with additional percussion and synthesized backing.

Reich Remixed has many interesting sections. Unfortunately, the sum seems to be less than the whole. The remix artists seem to all be talented, but they rarely seem to connect with the formal ideas in Reich’s music. They especially seem to miss the idea of using multiple versions of single samples against each other to create sonic effects. Strangely, while most of the remixes are much shorter than the original works, most of the remixes don’t seem especially tight or focused.

Reich Remixed is an interesting experiment. It’s doubtful that these remixes will significantly broaden Reich’s appeal. The collection may work better as an introduction to the various remixer’s styles than as an intro to Reich. Nevertheless, Nonesuch has put out some music that is as experimental and visionary as some of the work they released in the early days of electronic music.

Several cuts are standouts, including Belfast, Fahrenheit 303, Chime, Choice and Satan. Two haven’t aged quite as well. The Moebius includes samples from what sounds like an bad old science fiction movie. This type of sampling has been abused, and Orbital’s use on this cut doesn’t rise above the ordinary. Speed Freak, while a good cut overall, suffers from the same problem.

The final cut, Midnight, is another winner. It combines a variety of percussion and synthesizers, and the result sounds like Steve Reich playing with an indian drummer and a dance beat.

The Orbital album is a very good album, and a reminder of the creatively of the early 90’s techno scene.