Photo: Courtesy photo
Steve Reich
Do you think of yourself as a minimalist?
As a what?
A minimalist.
Oh, never! Never, never, never.
From his early taped speech pieces It’s Gonna Rain and Come Out to his digital video opera Three Tales, Steve Reich’s style of minimalist music has embraced aspects of Western classical music, and the structures, harmonies, and rhythms of non-Western and American vernacular music, particularly jazz.
His techniques include using tape loops to create phasing patterns in his early compositions, and the use of simple, audible processes to explore musical concepts.
Reich’s compositions, marked by their use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm and canons, have significantly influenced contemporary music.
