Works by Reich which use pre-recorded sounds and speech samples

Works by Reich which use pre-recorded sounds and speech samples

1. 'It's Gonna Rain' (1965)

   • Opens with the story of Noah
   • 2 identical tapes loops of black preacher intoning 'it's gonna rain' on 2 different tape recorders
   • Beginning in unison 2 simultaneous tracks shift out of sync (phase shifting)
   • Subdivided into 4 then 8 parts that phase against each other
     • Produce a variety of resulting harmonic, melodic and polyrhythmic combinations

2. 'Come Out' (1966)

   • Uses spoken speech from voice of a Harlem boy
   • "Come out to show them" re-recorded on two channels
     • Phase shifting effect created as they slip out of sync
   • Gradually the gap widens to become a reverberation and then almost a canon
     • 2 voices split into 4, looped continuously, then 8, until actual words are unintelligible
       • Only rhythmic and tonal patterns of spoken words are left

3. 'Electric Counterpoint' (1987)

   • Comissioned for jazz guitarist Pal Metheny
     • Metheny recorded all guitar tracks under Reich's supervision to create a stereo backing track
       • Metheny would then perform a live part to create an ensemble performance with himself
   • Written for 12 guitars and 2 bass guitars
   • Tonal ambiguity caused by frequent key shifts between E minor and C minor
   • Features change of metre between 3/2 and 12/8 but not in all parts
   • Difficult to accomplish due to need for precise timing

4. 'Different Trains' (1988)

   • 3 movements
     • Live string quartet
     • Taped string quartet
     • Taped sampled speech fragments
     • Train sounds
   • Described as politically motivated ‘documentary and musical reality’
   • Based on child experiences
     • Jewish children travelling around Europe
     • Himself as a child travelling from New York to LA
   • Contains speech fragments selected on the basis of their natural rhythmic and melodic phrasing
     • Not metrically precise and requires tempo adjustments
       • His governess
       • Three Holocaust survivors
       • A retired Pullman porter
   • Use of tape meant live players had to keep with the tempo of the recording
   • Musical and verbal continuity provided with unifying semiquaver string motive

5. 'The Cave' (1993)

   • Multimedia opera in 3 acts
     • Speech fragments
     • Video
     • Music
   • Presents differing views of Muslims, Jews and Christians as to their ‘claim’ on the Cave of the Patriarchs
   • Melodic lines are first used in conjunction with the speech that gave rise to them and then used independently
   • Melodic lines and video images developed by fragmentation and repetition

6. 'City Life' (1995)

   • Orchestral work
     • Unpitched, unamplified percussion
     • 2 flutes
     • 2 oboes
     • 2 clarinets
     • 2 vibraphones
     • 2 samplers
     • 2 pianos
     • String quartet
     • Double bass
   • Digital samples play back sounds and speech samples such as car horns, car alarms, air brakes, pile drivers recorded in New York City
     • Last movement uses extracts from field communications from the New York Fire Department during 1993 World Trade Centre bombing
     • Reich integrates these into the ensemble
     • Include fragments of speech, some of which have their 'speech melody' performed by the other instruments
   • Divided into 5 movements in an arch-like form (ABCBA)
     • Each named after a sample within it
     • A: wind chorale B: rhythmic sampled sounds C: speech driven
     • Paired movements share a chord cycle

7. 'WTC' (2011)

   • 3 movements with no pause between them
   • 1. 9/11/01
     • Uses speech samples from New York Fire Department and eye witnesses
   • 2. 2010
     • Uses taped recollections of the day recorded by Reich
   • 3. WTC
     • Uses recordings of the Jewish hymn of the dead