Terry Riley

Terry Riley (born 24 June 1935 in Colfax, California) is an American composer associated with the minimalist school.

Musical style and techniques

While his early endeavors were influenced by Stockhausen, Riley changed direction after first encountering La Monte Young, whose Theater of Eternal Music he performed in 1955 and 1956. Riley has referred to him as "the freakiest guy I have ever met in my life," stating that it was Young's ideas that were at the heart of minimalism, though more composers would come to name Riley as an influence. The 1960 String Quartet would be his first work in this new style, followed shortly thereafter by a string trio in which he first latched on to the repetitive short phrases he (and minimalism) would be known for.

Related Topics:
Stockhausen - Theater of Eternal Music

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His music is usually based on improvising through a series of modal figures of different lengths, such as in In C and the Keyboard Studies. In C (1964) is Riley's best-known work, and one that brought the minimalistic music movement to prominence. Its first performance was given by Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, Pauline Oliveros, and Morton Subotnick, among others, and it would go on to influence their work and that of countless others, including John Adams and Philip Glass. Its form was an innovation: the piece consists of 53 separate modules of roughly one measure apiece each containing a different musical pattern (but each, as the title implies, in C). One performer beats a steady stream of Cs on the piano to keep tempo. The others, in any number and on any instrument, perform these musical modules following a few loose guidelines, with the different musical modules interlocking in various ways as time goes on. The Keyboard Studies are similarly structured – a single-performer version of the same concept.

Related Topics:
Modal - Different lengths - In C - Steve Reich - Jon Gibson - Pauline Oliveros - Morton Subotnick - John Adams - Philip Glass

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This format, with a collection of minimal musical elements coming together to form a complex and cohesive whole, launched a movement that was a step away from the increasing academicism in Western classical music. The complex formal structures of the Second Viennese School and the neoclassicists had been dominating the musical landscape throughout the middle of the 20th century; the minimalistic movement abandoned that formalism. Riley often further denied strict structure by introducing improvisational elements into his compositions (though he had long been improvising in solo performance); one of the primary pieces to use this was the 1968 A Rainbow In Curved Air. This work and Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band, its companion piece on a 1969 recording, are intended to give a (necessarily truncated) impression of the sound of Riley's all-night concerts.

Related Topics:
Second Viennese School - Neoclassicists

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For a time Riley had stopped notating his works at all, focusing on Indian classical music and solo performance. Working with the Kronos Quartet has led him back toward more structured, notatable music, but improvisatory elements remain an important part even of the works composed for them.

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Being on the leading edges of music was nothing new for Riley; in the 1950s he was working with tape loops, a technology then in its infancy, and has continued working with manipulating tapes to musical effect, both in the studio and in live performance, throughout his career. He has composed in just intonation as well as microtonal pieces. Collaborators of Riley's include the Rova Saxophone Quartet, Pauline Oliveros, the Kronos Quartet, as well as Michael McClure, a playwright with whom he has written music and collaborated on an album. A Rainbow In Curved Air inspired Pete Townshend's synthesizer parts on The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Baba O'Riley", the latter named in tribute to Riley as well as to Meher Baba.

Related Topics:
Tape loop - Just intonation - Microtonal - Rova - Pauline Oliveros - Kronos Quartet - Michael McClure - Pete Townshend - Synthesizer - The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again - Baba O'Riley - Meher Baba

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