Here is a link to a short article about Steve Reich’s seminal “It’s Gonna Rain” (1965). The piece is constructed using some analog equivalents of digital techniques we explored in lab last week.
Here is a link to a short article about Steve Reich’s seminal “It’s Gonna Rain” (1965). The piece is constructed using some analog equivalents of digital techniques we explored in lab last week.
What stands out to me, similar to the piece created from the trains sounds from lecture today, is the feeling of rhythm. But what makes this different from the trains we heard in lecture is that the rhythm slowly changes throughout, from almost a rock-like cadence to something close to a Strauss waltz. (And that doesn’t even consider the second “movement,” so to speak, which ends up becoming much more rhythmically complicated than the first) Instead of abandoning rhythm, Reich instead lets the competing audio tracks decide what rhythm the listener hears. Is this a common attitude among modern composers, where the composer brings sounds together and lets them interact without a clear objective in mind? The alternative here is classical composition, where I get the sense that composers have a goal (e.g. make the listener feel x, y, and z in that order) and deliberately move toward that using a standardized palette.