Terry Riley's "In C" - Much More than Minimalism
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ส.ค. 2024
- There's a lot more to Terry Riley's seminal piece "In C" than minimalism. Having known about the piece for years, I only recently really gained a better understanding of how it offers a genuinely new way of approaching composition and creativity, in a way that benefits all who come to it. My only question was, is it just a unique one-off, or does it offer a blueprint for composers and musicians to take into the future?
#terryriley #inc #minimalism
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Research
I'm deeply indebted to this wonderful article:
teropa.info/blog/2017/01/23/t...
In C in Ableton Live
www.miltonline.com/2013/09/09/...
In C++
vimeo.com/183631752
Repeater Orchestra
codepen.io/barefootfunk/live/...
Listening
Debussy La Mer
• Claude Debussy - La Me...
John Adams- Dharma at Big Sur Pt.1: A New Day
• Video
John Luther Adams : Become Ocean
• Become Ocean
Terry Riley Interview
• Terry Riley interview ...
In C Mali (Africa Express)
• Terry Riley's In C Mal...
Terry Riley & S t a r g a z e : In C
• Terry Riley & s t a r ...
In C Original recording
• Terry Riley - In C (19... - เพลง
This is cool. I had the privilege of playing In C with Terry and the contemporary music group at SUNY in Buffalo, New York, in November 1967. This is the group that a short time later made the famous recording on Columbia Records. I was not invited to play on the recording. (I wasn't a regular member of the SUNY group.) It was a memorable experience.
Very cool!!
Liar
I have that recording. Still the best I think.
I had the honor of performing "In C' with the Brooklyn Raga Massive Orchestra on three occasions (Riley heard it; liked it, and told us it was the first time the piece was performed with a majority of Indian instruments. The tabla players kept a pulse, in an Indian Tala sort of way). The piece is pure genius! It is a living entity that evolves on its own.
Was this recorded? I would love to hear it.
I have this personal 8 years long joke going on with this piece. I started randomly listening to 'In C' with the intention of just letting it play in the background and focusing on my writing work. 99% of the time, I get so into the music itself that I forget the work completely. And for some reason, to this day, I still this put it on, sort of just intending it as background soundtrack while I try to focus on work, and the music keeps taking the center spot in my attention all the time.
LOL…Too compelling to simply work as “furniture music”.
I’ve had a similar experience as an architect with Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians”.
There's an idea in table top role playing games called the "one page rpg". This is where people make up entire rpg systems that fits onto one page.
I bet you could do something similar with "one page compositions" where you can only describe the piece in one page. The trick is to make something that isn't just an improv game, but something that's actually a little more guided
Mozart already did a "make your composition yourelf with dice" game.
th-cam.com/video/9Zdg6Ec4mVw/w-d-xo.html
www.playonlinedicegames.com/mozart
I'm an amateur musician, and I've had the pleasure of organizing and "conducting" two separate performances of in C with students, colleagues, and other amateur and semi-professional musicians. It's a really remarkable experience.
I’m planning on doing the same at my university. Do you have any suggestions on how to go about it? Or on anything you learned from organizing the performances
@@omeedmoini1827 I would recommend using a synthesizer/sequencer to set the "pulse". I just used a GarageBand loop and a marimba sample... a fairly long loop, originally played by me and not quantized so it wouldn't feel too robotic. The other thing I did was use screens facing the musicians that changed to show the current measure number. They were displaying a Powerpoint with timed slide changes so there was control over the total length of the performance. As in the original instructions, musicians were instructed to stay within one or two measures of the current slide.
At both of the two schools, we only did one rehearsal before the performance. We played through each measure IN UNISON first. Then did a very quick rendition with free changes, approx 30 seconds per measure, so 20 min or so total.
It is VERY easy to throw this together, and it's really amazing how "innovative" it still feels to people who aren't students of minimalism.
Interesting how the repetition of Terry Riley's face made me notice details that I would not have noticed otherwise :)
Wow, so all those guitars I've refretted for punk/rock musicians thinking they only knew two chords because the first five frets where a set of nuts, where really all dedicated minimalists - well I never!
Imagine if people knew you as "Your name (the other one)" in the history books.
Hey, at least i'm in the history books
Like Francis Bacon lol
HA! Now that's timing! I got home an hour ago from seeing Terry Riley live in LA. Outstanding!
when i first heard this piece, it was being performed live at the missouri fine arts academy. i was probably 16 or 17 and didn't have much appreciation for this sort of thing at the time. i remember being in a small seat with strangers on either side of me, and the combination of being stuck in a cramped space combined with the repetitive noise was giving me so much anxiety that one of the people next to me had to ask me to stop peeling some tape off of something i had because it was making an annoying crinkling noise. i was so relieved when it was finally over, and i felt frustrated when one of the musicians said they went way over the time they expected to take because they were getting so into the music. i remember thinking "you mean you subjected me to EVEN MORE of this than you had to?!?" hahaha
for the longest time this piece stood out in my memory as one of the most insufferable pieces of music i ever witnessed, but as an adult, i have a lot more appreciation for the creativity and what can be done with these parameters. it's nice to revisit this now, with the information you presented about it.
This might help with the harmony:
Group the fragments such that you can prevent certain "rubs". Like the C major section of "In C", then a short span that is transitional and works with pieces on either side of it, then the G major section, another transitional, and so on. Once someone moves into one of the transitional sections, they have to remain there until _all_ the players are in that section of the piece.
I love the idea of the electronic "In C++" version. The C language was invented a few years after Riley wrote his piece (unrelated events, of course), in 1972-73. Then the C++ language was an evolution of C, invented in the mid-80's.
There is a recipe that can be used for composing similar pieces to in C... but with a faster harmonic rhythm. It really helps that musicians should not play more than 3-4 successive patterns simultaneously
(1) Treat each pattern as both a melody and a tone cluster.
(1a) Use consistent rules, e.g. sharps resolve melodically upwards and flats downwards.
(2) Stick clusters together so that the harmonic progression (featuring some unconventional chords) becomes clear.
(2a) Extended chords, added tone chords as well as quartal and quintal chords can feature heavily.
(3) Listen to each group of 4 successive patterns to make sure that they all sound audible. For a few tens (not more than 100-200) that's quite easy.
(3a) check that dissonances resolve consistently
(4) Use rests to have separate sections if desired.
The difficulty would be to write a piece like that that escapes Terry Riley's shadow.
BTW each single pattern can be easily replaced by a collection of patterns in the same tonality and mode that a musician can cycle between them before moving onto the next group. This trick can add more variety. It is also easy to include patterns that act as accompaniment to have improvised solo bits if someone wants to do so.
The whole thing does sound a bit as western African drumming, but without the coordinated changes.
YAY! I have played this piece numerous times. One of the most fun pieces to play, that have encountered. Thank you for this!
Gauging by the smile on my face, I think seeing a new video from you on my feed makes me more excited than any other youtuber. I always learn something interesting and useful whilst being entertained, thank you.
Wow the solo performance using The Repeater Orchestra is neat. Great video!
What coincidence, I just listened to this piece a day ago and now this great video comes out!
Played this song with some friends it was so much fun
My favorite recording of this piece is still Bang on a Can / Alarm Will Sound. Gotta love all that banjo!!
A friend, who was in the high school band, loaned me the LP in the late 60s and within one minute of dropping the needle I knew that it had changed my life.
Here's an idea for how to use the In C approach but with more harmony change: Could you provide fragments that are all in the same key, but then have the players transpose to another key at the signal of the conductor? The order of transpositions could be provided in the instructions. Everyone can play the fragments of their choosing at their pace, but they will be able to stay together in terms of harmony. Also, the composer is truly "composing" by choosing the key/chord changes, but there is still freedom of expression for the performers, as the conductor will essentially be choosing when to change the harmony based on the way the ensemble is playing.
When I saw this video, it came to my mind the Soundpainting technique created by Walter Thompson. It's a kind of live composition and improvisitation technique with a "conductor" (soundpainter) who gives some defined gestures and cues for the players to know what musical material to play and how to play it. It is certainly more free than "In C", but one can find obvious conexions. For those who became curious about Riley's piece, it could be interesting to compare it with Thompson's approach of this concept of live composition.
Yes, excellent point. Walter Thompson's ideas are great.
I really enjoyed this lesson and it gave me a lot to think about for how I approach my generative longer modular-synth improvisations which up until now have been largely intuitively ear-led without the imposition of any rules or structure: I think this could be an interesting approach to take and I'll start by using In C and see what I learn from that and how I might develop the concept.
Every day is another day closer a David Bruce upload. Today is a good day.
that teropa website interactive version of this piece is actually quite the brilliant idea. It really does a good job of demonstrating the principle behind the piece without requiring any real understanding of music theory or ability to play an instrument. And the repeater orchestra then allows you to take the same concept a step further.
I love seeing this type of easy introduction to a genre because its exactly how you raise interrest in and awareness of it, hopefully leading to a greater audience.
I have owned the CBS masterworks lp since 1970 and met Terry during UK trips as we have mutual friends involved in Indian Music....its lovely to come across so much news and films of its developing story - thanks so much
It would be interesting to see this idea applied to dance music. Like rather than playing C underneath, having a four-on-the-floor beat or similar. It's probably been done. I am thinking in an electronic sense but it could apply to acoustic dance music too. You could have lots of synth textures, rhythmic fragments and arpeggios and it'd kind of be like a much more involved DJ set. I've always liked to see what producers could do within supposedly limiting genres, like Underworld with techno/progressive house/trance. While they had have big, rather basic sounding commercial tracks, they've done some fascinating experimentation, often with varying levels of minimalism, detailed textures and incorporation of real instruments. Also their collaborations with The Necks aren't all that far off. But I can see it being taken further.
I've been thinking about that a lot. But I don't find an easy answer, as a composer myself. I think for the sake of the performance and the mixture of electronic and acoustic sounds it sure is interesting. The struggle is: the electronic power is way superior to the acoustic power. While it has already been done (even in festivals like Tomorrowland), I don't think that's the way to go (at least in the terms I've already seen this). The orchestra/ensemble becomes just some kind of fireworks for the sight, while the music itself lacks interest in what an orchestra can really do in all its extent.
The suggestion you make on electronic instruments sounds to me a lot more approachable. Even improvisation can have a lot to say in this context, and I apply the term improvisation not only to the instruments but to live electronics too!
check out Dan Deacon. he uses similar techniques to Riley in his compositions
manuel gottsching “e2-e4” often reminded me of a dancey terry riley piece. kind of how you described
When Radiohead and Hans Zimmer redid Bloom for the BBC's Blue Ocean II, they had a similar concept going on, with the orchestra playing a single long sustained note, and the only instruction being don't play when the person next to you is. It creates an interesting ambiance in the background of the song.
Radiohead's the King of Limbs, the album the original version of bloom is from explores looping in a similar way to several minimalist composers, though it does so via electronic looping and sampling. It's worth checking out.
As an ageing singer-songwriter who’s basically now a wedding singer / corporate musical whore, I find your continuing inventiveness and desire to explore and grow just thrilling. The council estate boy in me really appreciates your willingness to speak plainly about your own journey of wrestling with these concepts, and the winged soul I strive to be just loves it when you effortlessly waft aside the veils of otherwise bewildering complexity. Thank you David.
what a lovely comment, thank you so much.
David Bruce Composer *faints*
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and inspiration as a composer. It’s pure joy to find your TH-cam Channel - and I really enjoy to dive into this wonderfull Space of share joy of awe, creativity and composition 🎶💜🎵🦄🙏
This video is itself a performance of In C. An expanding of it into language and analysis. Great video. Thank you.
Ooo I’m here early. Enjoyable content as ever
Thank you so much for posting this video. I have an exam tomorrow and this is incredibly helpful in better understanding Riley's piece. I also love the reference to Debussy and John Luther Adams!
I love this In C, it stucked in my head since we played it with the university ensemble. I even wrote a work inspired by this.
I really like you experimented on a composition of your own. You should do that more often in the vids!
Thank you another lovely and thoughtful video! Performing this piece in college was a pivotal aesthetic and philosophical experience.
I love all of the so called minimalists from Glass to Part to Riley and beyond. I’ve never felt like the word minimalism connected to what i was listening to. Great video.
You really bring the joy in music to the foreground. Thank you!
I don't know the name, but you know when you keep stacking 3rds(C,E,GB,D,F#A,C# etc.) What if you did a thing where the cells would include notes from a section of the series so we get a movement from C major to a mix of C and Em, then C, Em and G, then Em, G and D with the c being faded out and we repeat that till we get back to C.
Fantastic, David; as always. Your time is here.
Its has such a wonderfull feeling of knowing-not knowing, being in awe and being in a field of rhythm, and a field of repetion and innocent awareness, - and a celebration of eternal aliveness and creation , joy and Mystery ❤️I love being in it - and the joy of dancing in the eternal Now 🎶🖤🎵
Fascinating! I look forward to what you come up with.
would love to hear a full version of your 'In Sea' - sounds lovely!
Love these videos, great work!
The ideas are great for sequencer based composition on a modular synth setup.....using sequences of different lengths and doing a timbric instead of tonal exploration
I feel like it's very fitting to repeat myself here ;).
But again: music games (composition games/improvisation games). This is a communal participatory approach that needs still more development (e.g. testing and tweaking for every idea with groups of non-musicians etc.).
At music games meetings we attempt casual playthroughs of In C from time to time, but that's if at least half of people read notes.
Great video, David! I think aleatoric music techniques could work really really well in a jazz setting (like, some sort of free-ish big band or large ensemble)
Fantastic! And so intriguingly simple
I love how much i learn on this channel
Wow I had no idea Steve Reich was behind the pulse! Go figure 😂
I know! It seems so so so so so so so so unlikely....
I studied composition with Terry, and asked him about that - he said then that he didn't remember it being like that and thinks maybe Steve is being a bit enthusiastic with his claims...
The metrical & harmonic journeys are something I didn't Appreciate until I watched this - enlightening - thank you
I have written a number of pieces modeled on this piece. I have used it when needing a piece to cover a variable amount of time.
Thank you for another fascinating episode.
This is the only thing I know Terry Riley for.
I am going to compose a piece of music for you, David. I owe it to you for the guidance, inspiration and so much more.
This was awesome. Thank you.
I actually composed a piece on August 20th, 2019 that has a sort of performer input on it. It's called "The Graph" and I composed it telling the performers to try to create harmony with 12 different 12 tone rows by hopping around a matrix at certain spots, so long as they all still form a twelve-tone row. The idea was based on a style of serialism that I'd prioritized that I unofficially call "Harmonic Serialism", where you try to get the music to sound good despite obvious chromaticism. The Graph also has complete lenience, as the score consists solely of the rules and a blank 12-tone matrix. This piece shows that serialism can be done right, as I often listen to serialist music and see it only as dissonance for the sake of dissonance and nothing more. Some serialist composers like Jeff Manookian are notable examples of this type of thing, as I often hear his pieces and interpret them as saying "Look at me, I can arrange twelve notes of the chromatic scale in a specific order. I'm so talented". I prefer serialism (actually, any dissonance in general) when there's a reason for it. One of my favorite classical pieces, Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring uses atonalism (albeit a style of atonalism I call Ivesian Atonalism after Charles Ives and his usage of polytonality), but the purpose is to create a tribal and earthy feel, so it has a purpose.
Hayden of Everything there’s some serialism that strikes me as interesting. For example when Frank Zappa talks about performing algorithms with a musical instrument.. assigning musical actions to specific mathematical functions and such just seems too out to lunch to be fun but perhaps a neat listen. Some of his synclavier-only tunes are written this way.
@@graxjpg I believe that there is a difference between serialism that comes from complex calculations like what Frank Zappa did and just using serialism for no reason. Zappa's serialism still has a reason; it was the result of specific mathematical functions. Most serialist composers I know about simply use serialism for the sake of using serialism
Hayden of Everything undoubtedly. It’s mostly a flashy way of making intellectual sounding music.
You should check out Ron Jarzombek's approach to chromatic writing with Blotted Science, he puts the tone row around a circle and divides it into smaller slices to provide some structure. He uses it to make some really dissonant and alienating metal that sounds like it wouldn't be your cup of tea but the idea itself is another cool approach to chromatic music to have in your toolbox and there's no reason you couldn't organize your tone-row-circle-thing such that the slices produced much more consonant harmony.
@@TheSquareOnes That actually sounds pretty cool. My main problem with serialism is that it's done pointlessly, but it almost seems that Blotted Science was done to create a unique soundscape by distorting the rules of the 12-tone row, which is something that my piece does as well.
I performed this piece couple of weeks ago in college, it was really amazing
wow, that gave us new ideas! how inspiring!
Super video... Im very new to composition. Never heard about piece. Very enjoyable video
Very promising! Best of luck! (If only I had a performing group to play around with this idea with.)
many thanks for this interesting clip and a superb channel in general, David. Apologies if this has already been mentioned but the piece "In Bb 2.0" by Darren Solomon is another interesting spin-off of Riley's work. It's easy to find online.
Maybe it's called in C to make sure transposing instruments don't play it at the wrong pitch.
Random aside - apparently there was a performance by very young players who had a bit of trouble staying in tune so the performance became known as 'Round About D.'
Rapea Sammakko Or maybe it’s a reference to a quote by Schönberg: “There are still great pieces left to be written in C.”
I thought it was already known that it's in c cuz ez
Very interesting exploration and certainly food for thought Thanks for thIs.
Thanks; I learned a great deal about "In C".
This is brilliant!
Hi David, and thanks for yet another superb episode.
Now I'm sure you've heard of it, but I have recently discovered Thrill. Would be great for you to do a program to try and explain how it works and whether or not it will transform today's music into something very very different.
Fascinating stuff. I don't know music, so my understanding is quite superficial. But it seemed to me that Riley was using the limited control that players had the way that John Cage might use randomness. In both cases, it's an element that the composer doesn't control and that has ramifications that can't be predicted. Back when I first heard it, in the 1970s, as I was discovering Philip Glass and Steve Reich, I thought it was all about exploring the process. The musicianship of the players was almost irrelevant. I'm reminded of something the artist M.C. Escher said about his own work. He confessed that some passages might not be "beautiful," but he felt he had to stick to the logic. The beauty of the whole was in the realization of the logic behind it.
I'd like to see a video about the nuts and bolts of how to promote oneself, get commissions, performances, etc. I've studied composition for years, gotten degrees, been to master classes with John Corigliagno, Lukas Foss, and others of that ilk, and not once did any of them talk about things like: how do you get published? At what point do you get an agent? How do you PICK a publisher and/or agent or manager? Should you write for specific ensembles then shop pieces around, try to get specific ensembles to play your stuff... if you should start by finding ensembles who have very little lit to play (like a weird group with an unusual instrumentation like bassoon, ukulele and trombone) and get "in" with them and write for them, then: How do you find them? How do you get their attention? How do you get them to want you to write for them? How do you parlay that into writing for other groups? Should you hire people to play your stuff or just keep pounding at doors until you luck out?
I mean, I look at guys like you and see you wrote for BBC Proms. OK, I really do wish you sincere congrats and all that, but I mean, I highly doubt you just walked out of your college dorm room one day and the Emperor of the BBC Proms (or whoever decides such things) happened to see you waiting all doe-eyed to drink from the water fountain and he or she called out to you: "You there! I like the cut of your jib. How'd you like to..." etc.
I'm sure you worked very very hard, wrote a lot of stuff, tried a lot of things, and jumped through dozens, if not hundreds of hoops, and made may mistakes before you ended up where you are today. I would love to hear you walk through kind of how you did that, and some ideas for others as to how we might navigate those waters and deal with some of those practical business questions that almost no professional composer ever addresses in public.
I know you've touched on some of these issues in other videos, and I've certainly not watched all of your videos, but unless there's a long video where you cover all of those things in great detail, I'd really like to see one where you cover all of those things, maybe tell the story of your own experience from the perspective of how it might help other composers.
Wonderful commentary. I am starting to plan for a performance: outside, with my string quartet as a core group, aided (perhaps) by children and amateurs.
Back in the 1970s, I had the opportunity to play Edward Harper's "Bartok Games" with the Shropshire Schools Symphony Orchestra (I seem to remember that the string players hated it, other sections really quite got into it) which again takes fragments of music by a composer and hands over some responsibility to the player in a less obviously tonal way - you might want to try and track it down
Nice! ty for posting : )
I know nothing about music, but every time I hear these kinds of descriptions, analogies, and comparisons of 'In C' and minimalism, from the little that I know, I wonder if Eric Satie has a place at all in it. He was whimsical and sarcastic, and in his music he was also "simplistic" if not plainly 'minimalistically' ahead of his time.
I was not aware of this piece! I really like this idea of In Sea, I'd really like to see it fully composed and performed!
In C is written out as a series of fragments which allows improvising
Great one.
I love your videos ...very educational
It loses most of it's charm for me with the C pulse added. Whereas without the C pulse, it's quite beautiful and less _clouded_ sounding.
I can see that. I've heard versions where the pulse was very insistent and ever dominant over everything else and I've heard versions where the pulse is much less prominent, yet always there to keep everyone in line. I rather like that all these variations are possible, encouraged even.
Yea with the pulse it sounds like everyone is practicing with a metronome, not performing.
I agree. I hated In C the first time I heard it because I found the repeated Cs really grating.
Terry told me he likes it when the pulse is not always there, and when it is there it's shared around and is mostly on drums and other less pitch-oriented percussion.
Thank you very much
Don't forget another excellent Terry piece of a similar approach: Olson III, which also has some very nice lyrics.
Such a great video
Thanks for the video. Really helpfull and interesting
I C what you did there.
Nice to see you here mate! You should consider doing how to make minimalist music so you can confuse all the metalheads haha
I know that this was 2 years ago, but it hit me how much this writing style is similar to how video games are sometimes scored
I was at Cornish when ,Music for 18, came out and koyanuscotsy great visuals carry the music. Suddenly anyone could be a composer it seemed. I wasn't a big fan. Although music for 18 was very good to do other stuff to. I just have never written a piece that sits around on one tonality. Not drawn to it. You know Robert Frip of King Crimson was always busy making matrices but that was within a larger context. I've always thought that perhaps as a piece of Something larger these techniques would resonate more with me at least.
One of the most enjoyable shows by a band I ever attended was a concert by a Gyan Riley Trio, a son of Terry who also composes, e.g. Food for the Bearded
Fine! Very intersting video!!
smashing the "like"button :) great video! thanks
new to your channel! fantastic!!!!🎉🎉🎉
Personally, I was enjoying the thing you were doing with the La Mer loops when it started to get more dissonant; I guess I have more of a taste for that kind of thing.
Hoy es 21 de julio del año 2024, de alguna manera. Comento en un video que leo ya tiene 4 años, pero el por qué mi presencia aquí es mucho más profundo y trascendental que eso. Da ternura en el min 4:22 como se le lee en la voz y el cuerpo el intento de desarme académico. Banco su actitud, honesta o no, siendo que ésto finalmente es un video comunicacional. CÓDIGO
very cool! it's interesting that you see ("C") :P the latter fragments as being in F because of the Bb, where i would label them C7 wich would end the piece duly in C
I think that’s why I like playing jazz so much: as a bass player, I have control over how the lines move and function underneath the melody. Adding that kind of instinct into classical music seems like a recipe for success.
Very interesting take on "In C".
In one version of the performing instructions, Riley says "Rhythmic augmentation of patterns can be effective". That means (I think) multiplying time values. I don't remember hearing any recording where that is done, but could have missed it. Are there any recordings that use that idea?
Nice, thanks.
You shuld also consider offering PayPal. I would like to support you from time to time.
Very interesting.
Can you do an episode about Schubert's last string quartet please David? I'm obsessed with it at the moment. Might not be your cuppa tho. Best.
The Mali version is so earthy and organic 😍
The cheer I did when I saw this on my homepage 🙌🙌🙌🙌
joy