Rebecca Black in the style of Steve Reich

[AndyPolley]

@Moe

Then he figured well can I do this with an instrumentalist against a tape, or just multiple instrumentalists. Violin Phase and the aforementioned “Piano Phase” which I recommend experiencing as Piano Phase/Video Phase (a clever arrangement played by a percussionist against prerecorded video on scrim so you can actually watch the process take place). (I think I might have seen the premiere of this one).

I knew Moe would chime in to this thread.

Watching the link for “Violin Phase” I get a kick out of the thought of the first violin player reading his sheet music. Is he playing the same phrase for 9 minutes?

The op’s video is quite the interesting audio, but flipping back & forth with the 2 pictures makes for a terrible youtube experience.

As for Rebecca Black…“Friday” isn’t much worse than a good slice of modern pop music. And she was 14 when she recorded it. Steve Reich wasn’t as good at 14. Her lyrics may have been awful, but Starship wrote “We Built This City,” and they were old enough to know better.

[randwill]

Steve’s Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians is one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments.

[randwill]

@gaffa

No use for the original video, but it did have this bit of coolness as a suggestion on the side, so my time was not completely wasted.

Yeah, man! Now we’re gettin’ somewhere.

[Moe]

@jovan

Actually, I think one of the reasons for Reich’s relative popular success is that his pieces are usually superficially pretty. You can scratch this and find a lot more meat under, but many of his works can function as background music. The local business news show loves to use Reich (especially Octet) to go with their segments.

I agree to an extent. His music, though very sophisticated, is certainly accessible, and this had a lot to do with the success of minimalism as a genre in general back in the late 60s into the 70s (in the “classical” music world). I’m not sure but I think this level of success that you’re talking about (snippets finding their way into the background of news segments and things like that) is relatively recent (maybe the last 10 years) but he was already well established as, not just a great composer, but as a game-changer long before this (certainly by the early 80s), and this I really don’t believe had much to do with his music being useful in short-snippet form.

Again, not really disagreeing with you, but I’ve known many people who at first do hear it as “superficially pretty” and respond in way that’s like ::shrug:: “ok cool I guess, but kinda boring and repetitive” but, after a very brief description of how the process unfolds, really come to love it at a deeper level.

I really hate to sound like I’m telling people how they should listen, but I do think unlike many other types of music where you can hear the 30 second sample on amazon and kinda get a feel for it, this music can affect you very differently over time.

[Moe]

@AndyPolley

I knew Moe would chime in to this thread.

Watching the link for “Violin Phase” I get a kick out of the thought of the first violin player reading his sheet music. Is he playing the same phrase for 9 minutes?

He does drop out for a bit but then comes back in with, I believe, the same phrase. Actually, I’m not sure why he would need the sheet music. I guess it might be nice to be able to follow the phrase with your eyes just to have something to focus on. But I really dunno.