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Home , Drumming (Reich), Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Tom Johnson (composer)

The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library. Find more at: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/

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Scroll down to read the article. e or so i Witnessed a dramatic increase in scholar- ship on musical and the music of Steve Reich. Such scholarship includes Edward Strickland's pathbreaking and history of minimalism's origins, Robert Fink's dissertation on musical teleology (which deals extensively with minimalism), Discourse K. Robert Schwarz's popular-press introduction to minimalist composers, and Keith Potter's monograph on the "core" on American minimalists - , , Reich, and . During the last few years in particular, Non-Western scholars have begun to address the question of Reich's use of non-Western music, usually within broader discussions of the relationship between non-Western music and American Music experimental composition. This new attention to minimalism by Sumanth Gopinath

provides a valuable opportunity to re-examine can, Indonesian and Indian music in particu- The composer's Reich's composition (1971), a piece lar will serve as new structural models for West- that is often described as both "minimalism's ern musicians. Not as new models of sound. interest in West first masterpiece" and "overtly influenced by (That's the old exoticism trip.) Those of us African music, non-Western music."3 who love the sounds will hopefully just go and learn how to play these musics. ' which intensified As early as 1 968, in his now famous es- just prior to his say, "Music as a Gradual Process," Reich ex- trip to Accra in the n the summer of 1 970, Reich traveled pressed displeasure with new music's empha- to Accra, Ghana, to study at the sis on improvisation and Indian music. In May summer of 1970, University of Ghana, Legon, with the master 1 969, in program notes for a concert at the then found a legiti- drummer Gideon Alorworye. After five weeks Whitney Museum of American Art, Reich stated of hard work, taking lessons and transcribing explicitly, "I am not interested in improvisation mized outlet in his music, Reich contracted malaria and returned or sounding exotic."8 A musical aesthetic own compositional to New York soon afterwards. In Reich's words, based on the intersection of Western and non- the musical experience was "overwhelming," Western music could be easily criticized by practice. In par- "like being in front of a tidal wave,"4 and after skeptics of musical fusion and lead to charges ticular, by positing a hiatus of creative activity during his stay in of contradicting his prior aesthetic stance. But the type of binary Accra, he began to compose again. The result the above-mentioned comments in May 1 970 - a year after his return - was Drumming. Reich demonstrate a shift in his distaste for musical opposition between and his performing ensemble premiered the hybrids. In anticipation of his formal study of sound and struc- piece on December 3, 1971 at the Museum of Ewe music - perhaps after having taken two Modern Art in New York, and received a stand- lessons with the Ewe master drummer, Alfred ture... ing ovation after a one and one-half-hour long Ladzepko in New York - Reich apparently be- performance. , a composer and gan to articulate a solution to the problem of critic for , attempted to explain music-cultural fusion, which had apparently the audience's overwhelming enthusiasm for seemed either unethical or in bad taste just a the piece, citing various reasons including the year earlier.9 work's eschewal of dissonance, unusual timbral What could be the reasons for such an combinations, and sensual appeal. One of aesthetic shift? In his 1972 essay, "The Phase- Johnson's comments, however, speaks to a dif- Shifting Pulse Gate, , 1968-1970: ferent aspect of the work's success: "...the An End to Electronics," he describes his in- pleasure of seeing African and European ele- creasing dissatisfaction with electronics as a ments so thoroughly fused - almost as if we compositional resource, which came about as really did live in one world."6 Johnson's ap- a result of an intense period of experimenta- preciation for the fusion of musical cultures is tion with a new device of his own invention. stated explicitly in the review, a perspective that After composing Four Organs (1970), Reich he would favor in later articles on new music. noted that: For example, in "Music for the Planet Earth," the experience of composing and then written on January 4, 1 973, about a year after rehearsing with my ensemble was so positive, the review of Drumming, Johnson states that after more than a year of preoccupation with "the single most important influence on con- electronics, that another piece for four organs, temporary music...[is] the infiltration of non- Phase Patterns, happened very spontaneously Western ideas.'"' a month later in February of 1970. In this Despite the enthusiasm Johnson showed piece the four of us were literally drumming for Drumming, the unqualified emphasis on on our keyboards in what is called a cultural fusion in the review might have alarmed 'paradiddle' pattern in Western rudimental Reich somewhat. The year before, just before drumming. This piece proved to be as posi- his trip to Ghana, Reich wrote in his mani- tive an experience as Four Organs and led, festo-like "Some Optimistic Predictions about together with other factors, to a trip to Africa to the Future of Music" of May 1 970: study drumming. • Non-Western music in general and Afri- Up to that point, electronics had played

<135> a significant role inthe composer's output. The tematically putting into practice and reaping the Many comparisons "phasing" process, which served as the basis benefits of his new non-Western based for most of his pieces of the late 1960s, had its compositional approach that avoided the use between the various origins in two pieces for tape: Its Gonna Rain of electronics. In May of the same year, an en- rhythmic and me- (1965) and (1966), In these pieces, semble billed as Sfeve Reich and Musicians two tape loops of the same recorded fragment gave a substantial concert of acoustical works lodic techniques in are played simultaneously, and gradually go at the John Weber Gallery in New York, includ- drumming and those out~af-sync due to the slight difference in the ing [1972) and the premiere found in Ewe music lengths of the two loops. Reich's disavowal of performances of and Music for |Ma3- electronics was a slap in the face of the musi- let instruments, Women's Voices, and Organ. have been made by cal avant-garde that had valorized electronics In the summer of the same year, Reich would SchwarZ Potter cts the future of composition. This shift required undertake a study of BalineseGamelan at the that he find a new basis for musical composi- University of Washington, . Thefollow- am* Others. In tion that could match the "cultural capital" of ing year was pivotal for the composer's careen particular, these electronic technology.11 Various historical and Reich's group would record Drumming, Six Pi- biographical factors, including Reich's prior anos, and Music for Mallet Instruments, Wom- scholars attribute exposure to and appreciation of non-Western en's Voices and Organ for the prestigious Reich's use of 12/8 musics as an undergraduate at Cornell and label, which recorded afterwards, the increased instifutio realization of various "avant-garde" composers including meter, hocket-ing, 13 ethnomusicology as a professional discipline, KarlheinzStockhausen. poly- the black liberation movement's promotion of the politics of difference, the intensification of rhythmic structures, the anti-Vietnam War protests, greater support and constant pulse for environmentalist (and anti-technological} causes, and the Immigration Act of 1965, which to his exposure to reopened the country's doors to foreigners af- rumm/nq (i97i) beginswith ter forty-one years, served to make the particu- u J • J* A* non-Western (and lar historical moment one in which the ideal of a single beat on a bongo arum tuned to A#, genuine musical-cultural fusion might have repeated several times in unison by two, three, particularly tradi- been valued over electronics-based composi- orfourdrummers. Then,suddenly,anothernote A!__ • r- v _..-:- tion within Reich's community of New York com- tionai ewe) music. is heard, a B, slightly after the A#, and the new posers, musicians, and artists. pattern repeats a number of times. Then we Reich's shift to a non-Western based mu- find another note (also a B, just before the A#), sical aesthetic required that he modify his harsh and another (a G# offer all three notes) and so opinions about the use of non-Western musics on, until we hear an energetic 12/8 pattern that and promote the importance of such music as uses the pitches G#, A#, B, and C#. (See a new basis for composition. The composer's example 1 for this sequence, in mm. 1 -8.) In interest in West African music, which intensi- this way, the rhythmic pattern that serves as the fied just prior to his trip to Accra in the summer basis for the entire composition is built up from of 1 970, then found a legitimized outlet in his a single, basic pulse. Once the complete ver- own compositional practice. In particular, by sion of the pattern is set in motion, all but two positing the type of binary opposition between of the drummers drop out. The remaining pair sound and structure which is implied by his of drummers engage in a "phase shift" - a comments of May 1970, non-Western influence characteristically Reichian technique found in is rendered acceptable on the structural Sevei, most of his compositions after Its Gonna Rain even as it remains unacceptable on the sur- (1965). One of the drummers begins playing face, sound-oriented level.13 By shifting the slightly faster than the other and continues do- focus of his critique away from musical fusion ing so until the two drummers are playing the in general and towards surface-imitation in same pattern one beat "out-of-sync" (see ex- particular, Reich leaves himself breathing space ample 2). to justify certain uses of non-Western music. Once the drummers settle into this new By 1973, Reich already had begun sys- configuration, a new possibility emerges: musi- cal patterns made from the new relationship between the two out-of-sync parts called "re-

tultant patterns." I he drummers who are not playing one of the phased parts then play vari- ous resultant patterns, either those suggested in the score or composed independently. The process then continues, as the drummers are phased again, and new resultant patterns emerge. At one point, a rhythmic process in- verts the opening "construction" process (called a "rhythmic reduction"), reducing the music back to a single pulse before gradually rebuild- ing the original rhythmic pattern (with different pitches). After proceeding on tuned bongo drums for some time, this set of musical proc- esses is then transferred to three in the second movement, and the resultant pat- terns are sung by women's voices. The third movement does the same with glockenspiels and whistling, and the final movement com- bines all groups of instruments, with the voices and a performing the resultant patterns. The complete performance time ranges between one hour and ninety minutes, depending on how quickly the different changes are made.u Many comparisons between the various rican bells (the gankogui and atolce) in his com- rhythmic and melodic techniques in Drumming position.1 8 Indeed, for the most part, the timbral and those found in Ewe music have been made fullness of the ensemble in Drumming was in- by Schwarz, Potter, and others. In particular, spired by a similar richness of sound found in these scholars attribute Reich's use of 12/8 Ewe music, even though the inclusion of meter, hocketing, polyrhythmic structures, and marimbas is not paralleled by any similar keyed constant pulse to his exposure to non-Western percussion in the Ewe ensemble. (and particularly traditional Ewe) music.15 A An important timbral difference, however, good example of this type of influence can be between the Ewe drumming ensemble - say in found in the complete 1 2/8 pattern of drum- a Drum (a performance genre) such as Gahu, 19 ming (see example 1, m. 8): the upward about which Reich has written an essay stemmed notes form a pattern with a different and Reich's ensemble in Drumming is the lack "downbeat" than the downward stemmed notes, of a deep bass sonority in the latter. In fact, which are played with a different hand than the Reich's mature works through Drumming ore upward stemmed notes.6 This technique is notable in their omission of bass frequencies, also found in pieces such as and thus from a certain perspective, Reich's timbral practice is merely a continuation of his (1 966), which suggests that Reich's reading of earlier work/1'1 However, a notable "absence" A.M. Jones's Studies may have been the source in Drumming is a function or role analogous of such ideas, rather than his later trip to Accra. to that of the master drummer: the performer/ Certain aspects of Drumming, however, musician who "control[s] the dramatic effect of merit closer comparison with Ewe music. For the entire performance."" The master drum- example, the timbral configuration of the piece mer plays the deep bass drum (boba) in the bears important similarities to and differences Ewe drumming ensemble, which provides a from Ewe drum ensembles. At the most basic timbral foundation for the rest of the ensemble. level, the emphasis on percussion instruments in the work was most certainly influenced by employing a Western transplant of the Ewe en- Ewe music, as is well documented. ' Even semble, in which the timbral and dramatic func- specific choices of instruments mirrored certain tion of the master drummer is omitted. important timbres in the Ewe drumming ensem- The exclusion of the "master drummer" ble. For example, as Reich has noted several function on a musical level suggests an inquiry times in print, the use of glockenspiels in Drum- into how an analogous role is carried out or ming reflected an earlier desire to use West Af- expressed in Drumming. In the Western classi-

<137> cal music tradition, control over the dramatic explicitly) that his "mediocre" performing abili- In an essay on effect of a performance is allocated in large ties have much to do with the sound of his part to the composer, the person who writes music. Henahan notes that "Reich is disarm- 6ahu of 1971, the musical score to be performed. However, ing in his insistence that his musical style flows Reich adopts a there are important social and cultural differ- largely out of his own limitations as a performer ences between the Western composer and the and a composer."28 One can sense a wistful somewhat apolo- Ewe master drummer: in Ewe culture, the mas- quality in his description of the composer (read: getic tone for his ter drummer is simultaneously a creator, lead himself) attempting to learn non-Western mu- performer, and figure of significant social sta- sic in "A Composer Looks East": scholarly incom- tus, whereas these roles are, to a large extent, Alternately, a composer can give up pleteness, which separated and autonomous from one another composing and devote himself to trying to 22 in contemporary Western art music culture. become a performer of some non-Western came about, in According to Locke, "master drummer" is "a music. This will take many years of study and part, as a result title that refers to the musician's social status, a may, even then, only lead to mediocre per- status earned not only through demonstrated forming abilities when judged by African, of his illness, but excellence in performance but also through Balinese, Indian, or whatever appropriate he seems nonethe- knowledge of traditional ways of living and a Non-Western standards. (If the performance 23 commitment to community." Despite the pro- of non-Western music were available for less proud that he nounced lack of cultural integration between musically gifted Western children and teen- provides "the first "the arts" and society in the West, the com- agers to study, this would then undoubtedly poser nevertheless plays an important social lead to American and European-bom virtuosos and at present the role within an artistic community, serving as a of non-Western music.)29 nexus of interpersonal connections and insti- only transcription Reich's sense of lack, concerning his own tutional affiliations that provides opportunities performance abilities, perhaps has its roots in of both the for him/her and performers of his/her music.24 his attempts to improvise collectively with an With respect to a work such as Drumming, ensemble in the early 1960s in San Francisco. Hatsyiatsya pat- then, it seems that Reich himself is the person The composer must have noticed the contrast terns and the basic who retains the most cultural and social au- in instrumental control - essential to the suc- thority within his community (the downtown New cess of improvisation - between , drumming of &ahu. York musical avant-garde of the early whom he observed at the workshops in ).25 San Francisco at the time, and himself, in his But the issue of authority is more compli- avant-garde improvisation ensemble.30 cated. Reich is also a performer in his ensem- The sublimation of Reich's desire for per- ble, playing a part that is non-authoritative in formance authority into the compositional the sense that it is not distinguishable from the sphere parallels another such transference - other parts and doesn't require any particular his desire for authority as a scholar of non- virtuosity above and beyond the rest of the parts. Western music. A self-described "amateur Unlike many composers in the Western tradi- musicologist,"31 Reich has undertaken a tion, Reich never maintains for himself a promi- number of scholarly projects including an nent solo role that reinscribes the social and analysis of the Ewe musical genre, Gahu, and cultural hierarchy between composer and per- an attempt to record performances of the He- former. The tension between Reich's authority brew cantillation tradition.32 However, Reich as a composer and his lack of authority as a has prioritized composition in his life, and as performer might in some way manifest itself in a result has never been able to produce "mas- the extreme control Reich exercises terpieces of scholarship like Colin McPhee's compositionally over his performers: relatively 'Music in Bali.'"33 In an essay on Gahu of little possibility of performer choice, no real free- 1971, Reich adopts a somewhat apologetic dom in the performance style (a mechanical tone for his scholarly incompleteness, which precision always being favored), and absolutely came about, in part, as a result of his illness, 26 no improvisation. While many authors, in- but he seems nonetheless proud that he pro- cluding the German critic , vides "the first and at present the only tran- have interpreted this tendency as a kind of scription of both the Hatsyiatsya patterns and musical fascism, Reich prefers to see rt as "more the basic drumming of Gahu."34 analogous to yoga," a form of control "im- 77 Interestingly enough, Reich's experience posed from within." as an ethnomusicologist is also transmuted In fact, Reich has expressed (implicitly and into the compositional structure of Drumming.

<6LEND0flA REVIEWxAMcan Quarterly on the ArtsxVoi3©No3S4> <138> Example 1 basic rhythmic patterns of Drumming, mm. 1- repeat each bar several times perceived downbeat «• X I 1 -*:

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particular, the process of rhythmic construc- gong-gong pattern and also continues without n and reduction that appears at transitional change throughout the entire performance. jments in the work is very similar to the kind We would then proceed to the drums by my analytic process Reich went through while playing the gong-gong while my teacher nanscribing Ewe music. Reich describes the played one of the drum patterns. We would process as follows: then exchange instruments and I would try and / foofe daily lessons with Gideon play the drum pattern while he played the bell. Alorworye and recorded each lesson. After- I found that while I could pick up the drum wards I would return to my room, and, by play- patterns fairly rapidly by rote, I would forget them almost as rapidly. I couldn't really re- or one quarter speed, I was able to transcribe member them until I could understand exactly the bell, rattle, and drum patterns I had what was going on rhythmically between the learned. The basis for learning each individual drum and bell patterns. This process of un- instrument was as follows: first I would learn derstanding was greatly aided and acceler- the basic double bell (gong-gong) pattern ated by re-playing the tapes of my lessons until which is the unchanging time line of the whole I could finally write down with certainty the re- drumming. Then I would learn the rattle lationship between any given drum and the (axatse) pattern which is quite similar to the bell pattern. One drum after the other was

<139> Example 2 "phasing" process

Drummer 1 gradually accelerates with each repetition until... p.

Diummer J> v J> •, -

Drummer 2

repeat several times

...this phase position is reached. 10

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repeat several times

learned and written down in relation to the aware of this phenomenon, noting with gravity bell until an entire ensemble was notated.35 that "[w]hen it is remembered that there is no Similar to the mastery of Ewe drumming indigenous written language in Africa, and patterns attained by the act of transcription, when the talking drums are considered, it may Reich demonstrates a compositional "mastery" be seen that.. .there is actually a literal recorded over his own materials in Drumming, by con- history of these people in the drum patterns 39 structing and deconstructing the basic 12/8 themselves." pattern of the piece in various ways. One re- In Drumming, on the other hand, "non- sult of this process is that, at various points sense syllables" are used, not to communicate within the construction or reduction, different linguistically, but rather to imitate the sounds beats sound like downbeats (or stressed points of instruments. In Schwarz's words, "[t]he of rhythmic articulation). This recalls Reich's voices do not employ any text; instead, they adoption of A.M. Jones's understanding of the are used to double and underscore the vari- various repeated patterns played on different ous resulting patterns that arise out of the phas- instruments in Ewe music: "each [has] its own ing process."40 Thus, the valued "meaning" separate down beat."36 of the work resides not in the transmission of 41 A final aspect of Drumming that reveals language but rather instrumental sound. both important similarities to and differences This completely inverted use of vocality bears from Ewe music is its relationship to language a powerful resemblance to David Locke's ap- and voice. Both musics demonstrate a signifi- preciation of Ewe music as "an aesthetically cant timbral relationship between vocalized syl- charged sonic phenomenon" rather than as a lables and instrumental sounds. In Ewe music, form of "story-telling," a "kaleidoscopic musi- 42 a set of "nonsense syllables" is used to provide cal context of shitting aural illusions." Such both a conceptual structure to the different drum a description almost perfectly coincides with pitches and a basis from which to mimic the the descriptions of Reich's music as a kind of sounds of language.37 The importance of the *op art," a music of "dazzling, constantly shitt- 45 "talking drum" phenomenon - the fact that lin- ing figures,* and suggests that a view of Ewe guistic messages can be directly communicated music similar to Locke's may have served as through drumming - is not to be underesti- an inspiration for Drumming. It is also worth mated; as John Chemoff argues, *[tjhe rela- keeping in mind that Reich's practice of trans- tionship of drumming to language is one of the forming language into sound is a predilection most important factors limiting the freedom of that begins at least as earty as the previously- improvisation."38 Reich himself was clearly mentioned tape pieces Its Gonna Rain (1965)

<140> . e compositions, (i.e., construct) himself- perhaps playing his While I do not be- fragments of speech are repeated and phased own music in a vaguely "exotic" context. Such numerous times, and are ultimately de-signi- an interpretation mirrors Reich's own descrip- lieve that Reich's fied and liquidated into impressive sonic pano- tion of the effect that his trip to Ghana had on sound/structure his music: opposition is either a The question often arises as to what in- fluence my visit to Africa had on Drumming? valid measure of The answer is confirmation. It confirmed my intuition that acoustic instruments could be (un)ethical appro- used to produce music that was genuinely priation or an accu- IVSPI these various aspects of richer in sound than that produced by Drumming ~ the typically Reichian technique electronic instruments, as well as confirming rate description of 7 of phasing, the various technical influences of my natural inclination towards percussion."' his own music (which Ewe music, the sublimated performer and The interpretation of Drumming as being does resemble cer- ethnomusicological impulses, and the disso- profoundly ethnomusicological speaks to its moment in U.S. cultural history. As Tom ciation from language - how does one go tain Ewe perform- Johnson noted, "almost all of the composers about constructing an interpretation of the [in the New York avant-garde of the 1 970s] ance genres in some piece? In my view, one can begin to make had a keen interest in non-Western music, and sense of the work by positing a crude narrative ways), Reich's act(s) ... their interaction with ethnic music and that situates the various elements in a tempo- ethnomusicologists was crucial in the evolu- of appropriation ral and hierarchical framework. For example, tion of this music at this time."45 Indeed, many the fact that Drumming begins with the "tran- musicians, including jazz players and popular must be situated scription" moment suggests to me a state of musicians, negotiated the boundary between within the context ethnographic discovery, in which the music is West and non-West through innumerable at- J "put together" by the ethnomusicologist-com- tempts at musical-cultural fusion. " The his- of Western poser protagonist.45 However, the music that torical moment is also central to Reich's ca- (post)modernity is "discovered" is not Ewe music (or any non- reer, redirecting his enduring preoccupation itself. Western music) but rather the music of the com- with (and possible self-definition through) The Other, from an "internal other" (African Ameri- poser (Steve Reich) himself, which constitutes cans) in his pieces of the early to mid-1 960s to an already-formed musical style inextricably an "external other" (West Africans) in Drum- linked to Ewe music. In particular, immedi- ming and beyond." And when we recall that ately after the opening "transcription" moment Reich's music both directly inspired ambient passes (mm. 1 -8), we hear a rhythmically com- and New Age musicians and generated a plex 12/8 drum pattern that undergoes a typi- market for itself, one begins to realize the im- cally Reichian phasing process and includes portant links between ethnomusicology and the the use of "resultant patterns." Excepting the music industry, which were realized in more different timbral effects of the drums, the music ways than simply the creation of a nascent 1 sounds quite similar to his earlier pieces, Pi- "world music" market." Indeed, Clytus ano Phase (1967) or (1967). Gottwald's dystopic critique of Reich's com- During the course of the four movements of positions as an industrialized non-Western music would augur the future imitations of Drumming, the timbres of this "discovered" pieces such as Music for Eighteen Musicians (read: constructed) music are also gradually (1976), which would go on to sell 20,000 cop- assembled (tuned bongo drums, marimbas/ ies in its first year of release."2 women's voices, glockenspiels/whistling, and all groups together), until a conglomerate, The previously outlined historical context pseudo-ethnic Reichian ensemble is found at might provide a way of assessing the cultural the end of the piece, replete with a birdsong- impact of a work like Drumming without either like resultant pattern played on the piccolo/6 ignoring the influence of Ewe traditional music In other words, one might view Drumming as on Reich's composition or simply characteriz- ing this influence as a "good" act of an ethnographic fantasy of self-validation, in multicultural hybridity or a "bad" act of ap- which the narrative subject transcribes and propriation.1-' Reich himself has discussed the analyzes the "music" in question only to "find" most negative of these interpretations, noting that his ostensible "skimming the surface off of

another art form" would make him "as guilty ward the possibility of Reich's rediscovery of his ,| as Picasso was when he looked at African Jewish ancestry. For these and other reasons, * sculpture.KS4 More recently, Reich has men- Drumming seems to stand on the brink of a tioned the term "cultural imperialism," suggest- broad set of cultural and personal changes that ing a full awareness that some scholars and the world and composer would undergo through writers critique the ethics of Western cultural in- the turbulent decade of the 1970s.GR teraction with the non-West.55 cc56 In James Clifford's view, the West has long been an "in- terconnected world," and thereby, "to varying Notes degrees, 'inauthentic'" - at least since the early I would like to thank Michael Veal, Patrick McCreless, twentieth century.57 James Hepokoski, Michael Klein, Matthew McDonald, Eric Drott, and Gabrielle Gopinath for helpful suggestions and Even if appropriation were simply an una- comments. voidable fact of such a world, two particular aspects of Reich's intersection with the music of 1 the non-Western Other, especially Ewe music, See Edward Strickland, Minimalism:Origins (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1993); Robert are worthy of mention. The first is that the Fink, "Arrows of Desire': Long-Range Linear Structure and "ethnomusicological moment* of the late 60s the Transformation of Musical Energy" (Ph.D. diss., and early 70s in the U.S. was one in which University of California at Berkeley, 1994); K. Robert composers and enthusiasts gained greater ac- Schwarz, Minimalists (: Phaidon, 1996); and Keith Potter, Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Teny cess to the music of non-Western cultures, Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass (Cambridge: Cambridge thereby democratizing a sphere of cultural in- University Press, 2000). teraction previously controlled by academic and 2 Some of the cultural-theoretical treatments of non-Westem 58 institutional figures. The second aspect of music in American experimentalism that discuss Reich's Reich's interaction with Ewe music is that his work include David Nicholls, Transethnicism and the American Experimental Tradition," The Musical Quarterly interaction was predicated on a search for ori- 80/4 (Winter 1996), 569-94; Alex Lubet, "Indeterminate gins - particularly those of African Americans. Origins: A Cultural Theory of American Experimental In particular, Reich has noted that in 1970 I Music," in Perspectives on American Music Since 1950, was still thinking about [African musical influ- ed. James R. Heintze (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1999), 95-140; and John Corbett, "Experimental ences on his own work] and about non-West- Oriental: New Music and Other Others," in Western Music ern civilization generally, and beginning to and Its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropria- appreciate its importance. Undoubtedly it tion in Music, ed. Georgina Born and David Hesmondhalgh (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 163-186. grew out of an interest in jazz and an interest Considering non-English scholarship, one might include in American black people. ... The interest in Sylvie Lannes, "Com de Berio et Drumming de Reich: African music was very much a feeling (par- Deux compositions integrant les polyrythmies africaines, comme experience de renouveau musical," Canadian ticularly with Coltrane in his late music) that University Music Review/Revue de musique des American black culture was simply a European universes canadiennes 11/1 (1991), 101-127, which does overlay on an African culture.59 attempt to map out some of the relationships between Reich's music and Ewe drumming. Such a fact might suggest that Reich's thinking at the time worked within what Edward 5 Schwarz, Minimalists, 73, 75. Said has called "the of redemption" 4 Steve Reich, "An Interview with Composer Steve - which I would (misinterpret as the possibility Reich," interview by Emily Wasserman, Artforum 10/9 (May 1972), 48. of self-discovery or validation through the re- covery of origins.60 Clifford points out that s The description of the premiere of Dnimming comes from [q]uestionable acts of purification are involved a number of accounts, including K. Robert Schwarz, 'Steve Reich: Music as a Gradual Process, Part II* in any attainment of a promised land, return Perspectives of New Music 20 (1981-82), 233; Edward to "original" sources, or gathering up of a true Strickland, Minimalism:Origins (Bloomington, Indiana tradition. Such claims to purity are in any event University Press, 1993), 224-5; and Tom Johnson, "Steve Reich's 'Drumming,'" Village Voice, 9 December 1971, always subverted by the need to stage airthen- reprinted in The Voice of New Music: 1972- ticity in opposition to external, often dominat- 1982: A Collection of Articles Originally Published in the ing alternatives.61 Village Voice (Eindhoven, The Netherlands: Het Apollohuis, 1989), 26-7: citation in The Voice of New Music, 26. Of course, the authenticity "staged" by 9 Reich's use of Ewe music, which was realized The Voice of New Music. 56. through the sound/structure dichotomy, sug- 7 Steve Reich, Writings about Music (New York: New gested the immediate paradox that the musical York University Press. 1974), 28. Many of Reich's writings in this volume read like manifestos. "origins" being sought were not related to the composer's personal heritage - pointing to- ' Writings about Music. 11, 44,

<142> estem mt JOC less 3. from .... tfcSphm Dahfhaus argues that is never completely ; the importance ot "'music, Central Europe.

. ri n

7 {discussion of "resulting [ Part II." 230-8 (comments on Aim:,

Schwtre, "Steve Reiwt, ran » thai the 12 8 rhythmic a conspicuous lesemblana factions acts m tension with his more Agbadza. though Reich a wises (manifested in precision and patterns are typical ol Ewe music in general r example. Banes discusses the a\ Tenzer. "Western Music in the Context ol We ixus. which appeared in New York Modem Times: From World War I to the Present, ed. on "amateurization" (61). i RoBerl P. Morgan (Basingstoke: Macmillan. 1993). 102. and Writings about Music, 34, See Clytus Gottwald. "Signale ustrie: Steve Retch auf der Suche ' David Locke's suggestion that there isn't necessarily nlitat von Klange und Struktur." M more than one downbeat in Ewe music is relevant here 1975), 5; See HIS comments in Drum Gahu An Introduction to African Rhyrhrn iTempe. A2 ami Gilsum, NH: White Clitt . ... :.. Media, 1998), 19, 34-6.

" Reich mentions the trip as the source of his use of drums in Talking Music, 305.

» Wasserman. 47 [T]he giocke my bells as opposed to those Afri

" "Gahu: A Dance of the Ewe Tribe In( Source Magazine 10 (Fa8 1972), reprinted in Musk, 29-37.

» Reich discusses the tack of bass tines and bass frequencies in his earlier music with Duckwoitts in Sftng Music, 310-311. " Locke, Drum Gahu, 68. unpublished interview with £v Grimes, December 15-16, 1986. New York. Reich's most recent recording of Drumming. See DammiBg, Steve Reich and NY, Major Figures in American Music Series, Oat History of American Music. Musicians, Sett* Nonesuch 7559-79170,1987, track 4 from 7:00 ur*l the , no. 186 a-t, 134, end. 88 Henahan, 013. 47 Writings about Music 58. The relationship of «w narrative of ethnographic 29 discovery to the "discovered* (constructed) musk; that is In part based on Ewe Steve Reich, "A Composer Looks East," New York Turns, 2 September music suggests at least two possible interpretations of Drumming. One 1873,0 9. possibility is that the ethnographic narrative and "exotic" timbres of the 30 Strickland, 183 (seeing Coltrane perform in San Francisco). Reich speaks ensemble reveal Reich's utJfization of traditional Ewe music in his style since disparagingly of his early improvisation ensemble, noting: "Jupmateiy, I felt it Piano Phase, particularly 0% 12$ meter and ambiguous rhythmic patterns was kind of vapid and didn't realty have enough musical content.' In Talking (heard in groups Of both 3 and 4). Another possibility is that the narrative of Musk, 295. The sense of performance inferiority seems to to a common trait self-discover/ serves to mask Reich's prior use of Ewe music. Particularly, in many American experimental composers and is possibly symptomatic of Reich's use of lie rhythmic construction paten creates the semblance of the tie encounter between white Western enthusiast-composers and nonwhHe or narrative subject's discovery of the composer's own signature style, a notion | non-Western virtuoso improviser-performers. For example, the composer that possibly could deflect attention away from that style's Ewe-based Catherine Christer Henrtix recently commented on Pandit Prat Nath - the influences.

Indian virtuoso singer who taught La Monte Young and Terry Riley - noting, "I 48 remember La Monte playing {for Plan Nath} John Coltrane and he was very The Voice of New Musk:, 357. taken with Mm, he could lee) the enormous soul behind Cottrane's music. But •In addition to rock bands such as the Beatles, who explored tie use of Indian I don't think he feri we were up to Cottrane's level. He thought probably we music 'm several albums, jazz musicians such as Herbie Hancock should have practised tuning the tambura and singing our scales instead of demonstrated ways to integrate West African musics into an experimental jazz doing our own adventures.* Quoted in Marcus Boon, Infinity's Pathfinder,* aesthetic. See, tar example, the track "Sleeping Giant" on the album The Wire, September 2001,43. Crossings {1972}, which starkly juxtaposes pseudo-West African percussion music with electronic effects and a drum solo. In this instance, we find the 31 "Steve Reich in Conversation with Philip Dadson," interview by Philip drummer substituting for the "master drummer* but also providing a conceptual Dadson, Music in New Zealand 9 (Winter 1990), 30. bridge to the (Western) experimental jazz-fusion and electronic musk; also 32 See Writings, 29-37. and Schwarz. Minimalists, 34. found on the track. On the CD compilation Herbie Hancock, Mwandishi: The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings, Warner Bros. 2-45732,1994. ''"A Composer Looks East,' D 9. K This distinction was suggested to me by Michael Veal. Veal also noted that « Writings about Music, 34. Ms source might be the language of the "internal colony" - i.e., comparing the treatment of African Americans in the U.S. with the colonial treatment of

36 Africans abroad - which was common in African American circles during and Ibid., 32. For example, in Vie opening rhythmic construction of Drumming after the late 1960s. Wilfrid Meliers implicitly suggests that Reich negotiates {in example t), the downbeat first appears on beat 9 (with the A#) in m. 1. this process of seif-definition through the 'external otter* by importing the ritual then, the downbeat shifts to the B on beat 11 in m. 2, and is reinforced in m. aspect of Ewe music Mo tie concert hat. For Meters, the popularity of the 3. in m. 4, however, the downbeat shifts to beat 1 (with the G#), ami, for me, piece is predicated on the existing lack of and human need for such rituals in {Western) urban centers. See Wilfrid Meliers, Singing in fte Wilderness: Music 37 John Milter Chernoff, African and African Sensibility: Aesthetics mid Ecology m the Twentieth Century (Urbana and Chicago: University of and Social Action in African Musical Idioms (Chicago and London: University linois Press, 2001), 104. Others have rioted the "ritual* aspect of the Reich of Chicago Press, 1978), 75-79. Ensemble's performances of Drumming. See K. Robert Schwarz, Minimalists, 75. * lbkt, 7S, 81. 51 John Schaeffer notes that the New Age pianist George Winston plays » Writings about Music, 37. works inspired by Steve Reich; see his New Sounds: A Listener's Guide to * Schwarz, "Steve Reich, Part IP 237. New MUSK (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 199. Reich himself noted with dismay mat the New Age group 's soundtrack to the film 41 As Michael Klein has noted to me, the separation of sound from language is Risky Business was an imitation of Music for Eighteen Musicians (Strickland. part of a larger modernist musical tradition that seems intent upon stripping 248). Also, Reich has recently discussed the influence of his own music on sounds of their coded meanings. that of . the founder of (which is sonically related to New Age music). See Andrew Clements, looping the looper: Andrew 42 Locke, Orm Gahu, 7. Ctements meets composer Steve Reich, an inspiration to everyone from 43 Schwarz, "Steve Reich, Part r 385. Bowie to ," (London), April 2,1999, The Guarcfian Friday Review Page, 14. " David Schwarz notes that "It s Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966) Two well-known articles both impScHty point to the late '60s and early 70s as use repetition obsessively to strip meaning just as it is about to take shape,* a critical moment in the development of the "world music* market. Vert in listening Subjects: Semiotics, Psychoanalysis, and the Music of John Ertmarm, The Aesthetics of the Global Imagination: Reflections of World Music Adams and Steve Reich,* Perspectives of New Music 31/2 {Summer 1993), in the 1990s," Public Culture 8 (1996), 474; Steven Feld, "Notes on World 43. Ateo, the racial aspect of Ws treatment of language should not go Beat," Public Outturn Bulletin 1/1 (Fall 1988), 31. unnoticed. In the two tape pieces, the recorded fragments are of African- American voices, and Reich's denaturing of African musical language revests 52. See endnote 50; K. Robert Schwarz, Minimalists, 82. This notion of a strange tendency to represent the removal of "black* voices, which are mWmaBsm as industrialized, processed music suggested by Clytus GottwakJ instead transformed into 'pure* sound. This tendency, whether a subcon- ami others was later picked up by Fink in "Arrows of Desire," 217-52. scious reification or conscious critique of Western civilization, might be understood within the context of Reich's implicit musical interest in the 53. Examples of all three perspectives can be found in the scholarly literature problems of "race." Lloyd VMteseii interprets these compositional procedures on Reich. In an extreme example of ignoring Ewe (and non-Western music in the tape pieces as implicitly representing racial "whiteness;* see "White generally), Jonathan Bernard argues that " is not non-Western to Noise: Race and Erasure in the Cultural Avant-Garde," American Musks 19/2 any meaningful sense," ami that there is no particularly compelling reason to (Summer 2001), 176-77. expect the various analytical methodotogies developed for non-Western music to have relevance to (thoroughly Western) minimal music." See Theory, 49 Eric Drott suggested to me that this moment might ateo be one that evokes Analysis, and the 'Problem1 of Minimal Music," in Concert Music, Rock, and music's historical and conceptual "origins," a kind of cmatio ex nihito that Jazz since 1945: Essays and Analytical Studies, ed. Elizabeth West Marvin posits Reich's own musk: as the teleotogical endpoint of an evolutionary and Richard Hermann (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1995), progression from •primWveness." 263. K. Robert Schwarz celebrates Raich's rejection of "the exclusive primacy of the Classical Western heritage" parallels "a general turn against an " This resultant pattern played by the piccolo is quite prominent on the

•cQLENDORA REVIEWxAfrican Quarterly on the ArtsxVc43@No3«4> <144> or ignorance in knowledge-production, and the creation of institutions, John Corbett, on the other hand, appears to accuse Reich of companies, and markets. "'"«' orientalism" in reference to his use of non-Western musics I Oriental," 173-74). Also, Wim MerteriS argues that the 57. James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century use of non-V¥estem music appears as "a symptom of the ability of Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, rn culture industry to annex a foreign culture, strip it of its specific 1988), 11. ideological context and incorporate it into its own culture products." See 58. One might argue that this "democratization* still only held for educated :an Minimal Music: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip people of middle-class and higher socioeconomic backgrounds and was trans. J. Hautekiet (London: Kahn & Averilt, 1983 [1980)), 88. probably accessed primarily by those with liberal political beliefs. Such liberal tilking Music. 305 values - with their roots in free-market ideologies - in turn, might have served to channel this new accessibility through a market-based system, setting the ft a recent public discussion, Reich noted that cultural studies scholars stage for the world music market of today. accuse one of 'cultural imperialism" if they imitated 9m sound of non- •n music (instead of simply the structure). Composers Seminar, 18 59. Talking Music, 304-5. I 2001, Yale University, School of Music, New Haven, CT, cassette 60. See Edward Said, After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives (New York: -,ng included In American Music Series, Oral History of American Music, Pantheon, 1986), 150. Quoted in Clifford, 11. Yale University, no. 186 p-q. For a good discussion of the term, see John Tomlinson Cultural Imperialism A Critical Introduction (Baltimore. Johns 61. Clifford, 11-12. Hopkins University Press, 1991).

56. Although devising a more adequate ethics of appropriation is not Jie purpose of this paper, t would suggest that any such claims would have to be grounded in the material consequences of such acts. As such, some avenues of investigation might focus on personal financial gain and career advance- ment, possible destruction of the appropriated culture, willful misrepresentation

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