"Music as a Gradual Process," by Steve Reich
I do not mean the process of composition, but rather pieces of music that are,
literally, processes.
The distinctive thing about musical processes is that they determine all the
note-to-note (sound-to-sound) details and the over all form simultaneously.
(Think of a round or infinite canon.)
I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process
happening throughout the sounding music.
To facilitate closely detailed listening a musical process should happen extremely
gradually.
Performing and listening to a gradual musical process resembles:
pulling back a swing, releasing it, and observing it
gradually come to rest;
turning over an hour glass and watching the sand slowly run through
the bottom;
placing your feet in the sand by the ocean's edge and watching,
feeling, and listening to the waves gradually bury them.
Though I may have the pleasure of discovering musical processes and
composing the musical material to run through them, once the
process is set up and loaded it runs by itself.
Material may suggest what sort of process it should be run through
(content suggests form), and processes may suggest what sort of
material should be run through them (form suggests content). If
the shoe fits, wear it.
As to whether a musical process is realized through live human
performance or through some electro-mechanical means is not finally
the main issue. One of the most beautiful concerts I ever heard
consisted of four composers playing their tapes in a dark hall. (A
tape is interesting when it's an interesting tape.)
It is quite natural to think about musical processes if one is
frequently working with electro-mechanical sound equipment. All
music turns out to be ethnic music.
Musical processes can give one a direct contact with the impersonal
and also a kind of complete control, and one doesn't always think
of the impersonal and complete control as going together. By "a
kind" of complete control I mean that by running this material
through the process I completely control all that results, but also
that I accept all that results without changes.
John Cage has used processes and has certainly accepted their
results, but the processes he used were compositional ones that
could not be heard when the piece was performed. The process of
using the I Ching or imperfections in a sheet of paper to
determine musical parameters can't be heard when listening to music
compsed that way. The compositional processes and the sounding
music have no audible connection. Similarly in serial music, the
series itself is seldom audible. (This is a basic difference
between serial (basically European) music and serial (basically
American) art, where the perceived series is usually the focal
point of the work.)
What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding
music that are one and the same thing.
James Tenney said in conversation, "then the composer isn't privy
to anything". I don't know any secrets of structure that you can't
hear. We all listen to the process together since it's quite
audible, and one of the reasons it's quite audible is, because it's
happening extremely gradually.
The use of hidden structural devices in music never appealed to me.
Even when all the cards are on the table and everyone hears what is
gradually happening in a musical process, there are still enough
mysteries to satisfy all. These mysteries are the impersonal,
unattended, psycho-acoustic by-products of the intended process.
These might include sub-melodies heard within repeated melodic
patterns, stereophonic effects due to listener location, slight
irregularities in performance, harmonics, difference tones,
etc.
Listening to an extremely gradual musical process opens my ears to
it, but it always extends farther than I can hear,
and that makes it interesting to listen to the musical process
again. That area of every gradual (completely controlled) musical
process, where one hears the details of the sound moving out away
from intentions, occuring for their own acoustic reasons, is
it.
I begin to perceive these minute details when I can sustain close
attention and a gradual process invites my sustained attention. By
"gradual" I mean extremely gradual; a process happening so slowly
and gradually that listening to it resembles watching a minute hand
on a watch--you can perceive it moving after you stay with it a
little while.
Several currently popular modal musics like Indian classical and
drug oriented rock and roll may make us aware of minute sound
details because in being modal (constant key center, hypnotically
droning and repetitious) they naturally focus on these details
rather than on key modulation, counterpoint and other peculiarly
Western devices. Nevertheless, these modal musics remain more or
less strict frameworks for improvisation. They are not
processes.
The distinctive thing about musical processes is that they
determine all the note-to-note details and the over all form
simultaneously. One can't improvise in a musical process--the
concepts are mutually exclusive.
While performing and listening to gradual musical processes one can
participate in a particular liberating and impersonal kind of
ritual. Focusing in on the musical process makes possible that
shift of attention away from he and she and
you and me outwards towards it.