In the 1960’s and 70’s, within many music scenes (speaking specifically here about European and American scenes), including avant-garde music, experimental music, psychedelic music, and jazz, looping emerged as a engaging technique for the creation of music. (Although it should be noted that many cultures utilized the looping-based practices that actually lead to many of these musicians discoveries. Of particular significance was that of Indian Classical music)
In particular, the avant-garde and experimental music worlds gravitated towards how tape loops, delay loops (identical to what we practiced a few weeks ago), and composed loops could be exploited to create music where the gradual process of the loops was the object of focus for the music.
One of the offshoots genres from this work is that of “minimalism”.
Typically, the four composers considered the originals in minimalism are:
Although, as with the above comment, it should be noted that there were non-white, non-male artists also exploring these areas. Furthermore, again, it should be noted that these ideas were also by-and-large co-opted from Asian cultures, such as Indian Classical music and Balinese music, as two examples.
The general idea with minimalism, is that music is reduced to its simplest elements, and that the progression or processing of these elements over time creates the evolution or object or inquiry. This is particularly true for the latter of the three gentlemen listed above.
To get started with some of these ideas, I want you to first read Steve Reich talk about music as gradual processes.
There are two truly canonical works to come from Steve Reich that represent his views on gradual process music; “It’s Gonna Rain”, and “Come Out”.
Please read the following excellent Pitchfork article discussing the history, process, and emergence of “Come Out”.
Then listen to the works:
Please watch the following interview with Terry Riley (please at least watch the first 30 mins). Then when you are done, the tracks mentioned in this work are linked below.
Later on in the above video, Terry also mentions his work “In C”. This piece is an instrumental work, exploring the ideas of loops, for any combination of ensemble. Essentially, the piece consists of 53 loops, that musicians are to play, in time, repeated for a duration that they feel appropriate. When they are finished with one loop, they move on to the next. Take a listen.
The following is a longer video. But hopefully you start at 1:39:52, which is a performance by La Monte Young’s “Theater of Eternal Music” performing “The Tortoise, His Dream, and Journeys”. (You can optionally read more about this work from La Monte’s Website)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bapAGrWpaLw
The following link is for the reference to Pandit Pran Nath, and his performance of Classical Indian music.
A more recent composer exploring similar ideas is that of composer Meredith Monk. Her work “Panda Chant” for choir is a great example of looping in acoustic music.