Stephen Reich Minimalism

As society has evolved over time, so has music. Historians have documented and classified the evolution of music into distinct “eras,” each embodying music that represented the musical sentiments in that era. In the past, many prominent musicians have proposed philosophies challenging the traditional musical expectations of their day and, thus, revolutionizing music. Music continues evolving even today, as modern composers break tradition and reshape societal and cultural attitudes toward music. Stephen Reich in particular was one such composer. Known as the “Father of Minimalism,” Reich adopted minimalistic techniques that first came to musical prevalence in the early 1960s. His musical style and philosophies first received attention when
he introduced the world to his unique tape loop compositions. Reich’s philosophies and works gained widespread popularity soon after, and would leave a legacy on the future of music. Steve Reich’s exposure to Non-Western and Western music served as the inspiration for his minimalistic philosophies that included the establishment of tonality through short, repetitive musical phrases, musical structure through a clear and steady rhythmic “pulse,” and musical unpredictability through gradual manipulation of musical elements.
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Short repetitive musical motifs are at the core of Reich’s music, leading critics and listeners to describe his music “minimalistic” in nature. Although listening to a repeated phrase may grow boring after some time, Reich believes that this sort of repetition establishes tonality in music. In a volume from “Perspectives of New Music,” musical journalist Robert Schwarz writes that “the tonal/modal gamut of a Reich work is established at the outset, most typically by the insistent repetition of a brief rhythmic/melodic pattern...in Reich, tonality is therefore only asserted by repetition” (378). Reich’s passion for repetition, and thus tonality, in music can be traced back to his early childhood. As a child, Reich frequently listened to Western pop music and
jazz, which he recounts in one of his essays as “extremely attractive but which was obviously and unabashedly tonal...what moved me emotionally was always music built around one tonal center” (Schwarz 383). Reich was also particularly enamored by the music of “Bach, Stravinsky, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Kenny Clarke,” all of which sharing the concept of a clear tonal center (Schwarz 382). Reich began appreciating repetition in music at the age of 14, when Reich studied drumming with Roland Kohloff. Upon graduating Mills College with a master’s degree in composition, Reich composed music for a film directed by Robert Nelson; this was his first composition to incorporate repetitive audio-recorded motifs. It was around this time that Reich began reading Studies in African Music by A.M. Jones, which helped strengthen his passion for musical repetition and encouraged him to further explore its application in audio recording technology. After reading this book, Reich discovered a fascinating connection between the music he was creating using tape loops and African drumming music. Reich recounts this epiphany in his book titled Writings on Music, writing “it was like looking at the blueprint for something completely unknown. Here was a music with repeating patterns (similar
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to the tape loop material I was beginning to fool around with)...I was fascinated with the relationship between what I was hearing in the tape loops and the African use of independent repetition of simultaneous patterns” (Hillier 10). It was noting this relationship and “listening to recordings of John Coltrane and African drumming” and Balinese music that moved Reich to base his music around a tonal center developed through short repeating patterns (Griffiths, “Oxford Music Online”).
While Reich’s repetitive style is unique, I believe that it lacks melody and creativity. Over time, listening to one of Reich’s pieces can become boring and uninteresting due to its predictability and monotony. There should be more variance in dynamics, pitch, rhythm, and other musical elements. I do agree that music should be based on a tonal center, as it allows for structure and coherence, but I disagree with Reich’s philosophy in that repetition produces tonality in music. Tonality in music, in my opinion, is achieved by consonant harmonies that do not need to be repeated. Rather, Reich suggests that the repetition of dissonant harmonies and sounds creates tonality within a musical piece. I also believe a melody is essential for music, as it adds an expressive element to music, and allows the composer to show off his or her musical flair and creativity. My philosophy seems based around old, traditional Western principles, which, in essence, is unoriginal in itself. Reich’s philosophy of repetition, however, was novel in his days and, as such, quickly gained popularity in musical culture. Thus, his musical style is still recognized and appreciated by many even today.
In addition to repetition, Reich emphasized the importance of a steady, pulse-driven rhythm in music, and that it should be clearly perceptible and serve as the basis for musical organization and structure. Reich referred to this concept as the “musical process” in his book
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titled Writings About Music. In this book, he defines the musical process as a “perceptible process...to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music,” and that it is “mutually exclusive” from improvisation (9, 11). These ideas directly contrasted with those of post-war avant-garde musicians, who focused on establishing serialism, free atonality, and aleatory styles in music. Reich himself “rejected the lack of composer-organized structure in aleatoric music in favor of scores that are meticulously worked out in advance, down to the smallest detail...[improvisation] could only serve to conceal the basic framework” (Schwarz 376, 378). Reich went so far as to even criticize John Cage, a prominent figure in the post-war avant-garde movement, for his loosely-structured and improvisatory works, particularly focusing on the absence of rhythm in his music, since “[it] could not be heard when [Cage’s] piece was performed” (Schwarz 377). Furthermore, Reich viewed Karlheinz Stockhausen’s serialism as “unappealing, as they involved nothing more than convoluted, hidden structural devices which were rarely apparent to anyone beyond the composer and his privileged circle” (Schwarz 376). In an interview with Jonathan Cott, Reich expounds on this principle of structure and the importance of clear pulsation, rejecting his contemporaries’ philosophies:
It’s hard to imagine pulsation being the least bit out of the ordinary in music. But in the academic world that I studied in from 1957 to 1963, the prevailing works of that time, written by Stockhausen, Boulez, Berio and Cage, were nonpulsatile – there was no regular beat. There was a simultaneous move to have no sense of key, cadence, or resting point in the music. I had come from Bach, Stravinsky, and jazz (particularly John Coltrane), all of which shared a very clear, demarcated pulse. I realized that if I were going to do anything that had the least
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emotional resonance for myself, I had to reinstate the pulse, front and center.
(Reich)
Reich’s affinity towards clear rhythmic structure is based on his belief that the rhythmic pulse is a universal and essential element in music. Schwarz writes that Reich considers it to be “one of the prime elemental forces shared by all world musics-whether African, Indonesian, Indian, jazz, or Western Baroque” (378). Reich’s philosophy of clear form and structure and disregard for improvisation are quite similar to those that shaped Western music during the Baroque and Classical eras, which, during those times, did “not always place originality as the foremost goal of composition” (Schwarz 379).
In this regard, I agree with Reich that all music needs to have some sort of form and structure. Rhythm is perhaps the most important factor in creating musical structure. Without a noticeable and steady rhythm, music would be disorderly and difficult for the listener to appreciate. I, myself, value organization and structure within a piece, but sometimes tend to favor interruption in structure when it is only necessary to create a stronger musical effect for the listener’s enjoyment.
Steve Reich’s penchant for repetition, rhythm, structure, and gradation led to his paramount discovery of a musical technique that would revolutionize music. In 1965, upon further experimentation with tape loops, Steve Reich accidentally discovered what he called “phasing,” the process of allowing two identical musical phrases to gradually vary in rhythmic relationship to one another. Reich believed that this gradual manipulation helped in sustaining the listener’s attention to a musical piece, enhancing his or her perceptions of details, and giving the listener an impersonal sensation. He claims that “listening to an extremely gradual musical
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process opens my ears to it, but it always extends farther than I can hear, and that makes it interesting to listen to that musical process again” (Reich 11). In essence, Reich’s phasing technique creates an element of surprise within his music that makes his music less predictable and, thus, more entertaining to listen to. Reich restates this point by saying “I begin to perceive these minute details when I can sustain close attention and a gradual process invites my sustained attention” (Reich 11). Reich also mentions the technique’s illusory effects: “while performing and listening to gradual musical processes, one can participate in a particular liberating and impersonal kind of ritual” (Reich 11). In an interview with Jonathan Cott, Reich states that his inspiration for creating phasing came from the canons “going back in Western music to at least the thirteenth century” (Reich).
After listening to one of Reich’s earlier pieces, I myself can attest to how successful his music is in grabbing my interest and attention.
The phasing technique that he employs in It’s Gonna Rain, one of his earlier tape loop compositions, makes the music unique, interesting, and unpredictable. In Steve Reich’s Early Works album, at 40’42’’, two phrases of “It’s Gonna Rain” are spoken simultaneously (Reich, Early Works). However, at 41’53’’, the two phrases begin shifting and lose their synch, causing an in-and-out phasing effect that gradually becomes more apparent over time, but by 45’45’’ the phrases match once again (Reich, Early Works). This encouraged me to pay attention to the details of this gradual change. The music also gave me an impersonal, otherworldly sensation. It is Reich’s principle of musical gradation that allowed him to achieve this very
purpose.
Steve Reich’s philosophies of tonality attained through repetition, structure dictated by rhythm, and unpredictability achieved through gradation redefined musical conceptions for his
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