Blog: Terry Riley, John Chowning, Steve Reich, and Iannis Xenakis

Terry Riley, “In C”-  I personally I didn’t like this piece because every instrument was played at a different time and pitch, and it was just all jumbled together. There would be some points where they all went together but most of the time it was off tune and just didn’t blend so smoothly. It could have been the whole purpose for the composer but what I did find interesting is how not everyone had that common instrument you’d expect them to play. There was this woman who had a tiny piano and played off of that and another woman who had a melodica. If you watch it more than once it seems like some people play off of someone else and start off where they began almost like a pattern going from up and down the crowd.  

John Chowning, “Stria”- In the beginning of the piece it almost sounds like church music transitioning into a horror scene, almost as a pop scene is about to happen. Where it gives you chills down your back and have you looking around as if something terrible is about to occur. It just has that hard core horror theme to it. I can definitely see this piece occurring in any type of horror movie and making it a great impact for the audience.

Steve Reich, “Come Out”- At first I honestly didn’t understand the whole purpose of this piece and what it meant, and so I did a little more research. This piece was composed in 1966, I appreciate the minimalism in this piece. The voice that was playing over and over came from Daniel Hamm who was 19, back where he took a beating in Harlem 28^th. The police were only taking those that were visibly bleeding to the hospital, since Daniel Hamm had no bleeding, he began to squeeze on his leg saying, “I had to like open the bruise up and let some of the bruise blood come out to show them”. So when listening to this piece a couple more times, it may be repetitive but it represents such a bigger issue that others may have trouble understanding.

Iannis Xenakis, “Concret PH”-  The process behind this piece was that Xenakis formalized the music and the composer recorded sounds of burning wood, burning charcoal, etc. then used the process of granular synthesis to create the sound. It’s just mind blowing how this all came to be, it’s something I’ve never knew about and i'm glad I now did. You don’t really think about how some pieces are made and once you do, you learn to appreciate a piece of music a little more.