Editing Steve Reich (section)

=== 1970s ===

In June 1970, Reich travelled to the [[University of Ghana]] to study [[polyrhythmic]] music for five weeks with the [[Ewe people|Ewe]] master drummer Gideon Alorwoyie.<ref name=Schwarz1981b>{{cite journal |last1=Schwarz |first1=K. Robert |title=Steve Reich: Music as a Gradual Process Part II |journal=Perspectives of New Music |date=1981 |volume=20 |issue=1/2 |pages=225–286 |doi=10.2307/942414 |url=https://sites.nd.edu/choral-lit/files/2018/10/Reich-Music-as-Gradual-Process-II.pdf |issn=0031-6016}}</ref> From this experience, as well as [[A. M. Jones]]'s ''[[Studies in African Music]]'' about the [[Ewe music|music of the Ewe]] people, Reich drew inspiration for his extensive piece ''[[Drumming (Reich)|Drumming]]'' (1970–1971), which he started to compose shortly after his return. Composed for a nine-piece percussion ensemble with female voices and [[piccolo]], ''Drumming'' marked the beginning of a new stage in his career, for around this time he formed his ensemble, [[Steve Reich and Musicians]], and increasingly concentrated on composition and performance with them. Steve Reich and Musicians was the sole ensemble to interpret his works for many years,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-09-30 |title=Keep on working, it'll get you through anything – interview with Steve Reich |url=https://jarijuhanikallio.wordpress.com/2021/09/30/keep-on-working-itll-get-you-through-anything-interview-with-steve-reich/ |access-date=2024-06-07 |website=AIM – Adventures in Music |language=en}}</ref> and they remain a "living laboratory" for his music.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Service |first=Tom |date=2012-10-22 |title=A guide to Steve Reich's music |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2012/oct/22/steve-reich-contemporary-music-guide |access-date=2024-06-07 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> The ensemble still remains active with many of its original members.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Steve Reich · Biography · Artist ⟋ RA |url=https://ra.co/dj/stevereich/biography |access-date=2024-06-07 |website=Resident Advisor |language=en}}</ref>

After ''Drumming'', Reich moved on from the "phase shifting" technique that he had pioneered, and began writing more elaborate pieces. He started investigating other musical processes such as [[augmentation (music)|augmentation]] (the temporal lengthening of phrases and melodic fragments). In the summers of 1973 and 1974, he studied [[Music of Bali|Balinese]] gamelan [[Gamelan semar pegulingan|semar pegulingan]] and [[Gamelan gambang|gambang]]<ref name=Reich2022/> (at [[Seattle]] and [[University of California, Berkeley|Berkeley]]).<ref name=Schwarz1981b/><ref>{{cite EBO |title=Steve Reich: American composer |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Steve-Reich |language=en |access-date=2025-03-03}}</ref> This experience influenced the composition of ''[[Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ]]'' (1973).<ref name=Reich2022>{{cite book| last=Reich| first=Steve| title=Conversations |publisher=Hanover Square Press |year=2022 |location=New York City |isbn=978-1-335-42572-0 |page=22}}</ref> Another work from this period is ''[[Six Pianos]]'' (1973).

In 1974, Reich began writing ''[[Music for 18 Musicians]]''. This piece involved many new ideas, although it also recalls earlier pieces. It is based on a [[cycle (music)|cycle]] of [[chord progression|eleven chords]] introduced at the beginning (called "Pulses"), followed by a small section of music based on each [[chord (music)|chord]] ("Sections I-XI"), and finally a return to the original cycle ("Pulses"). This was Reich's first attempt at writing for larger [[musical ensemble|ensembles]]. The increased number of performers resulted in more scope for psychoacoustic effects, which fascinated Reich, and he noted that he would like to "explore this idea further". Reich remarked that this one work contained more harmonic movement in the first five minutes than any other work he had written. Steve Reich and Musicians made the [[Music for 18 Musicians (album)|premier recording]] of this work on [[ECM Records]].

One of Reich’s characteristic compositional strategies for his minimalist work is his omission of bass notes to avoid tonal structure. “The reason lay in his antipathy to the functionality, which Reich thought inevitable, of the bass in determining and spelling out a tonal center and the relationships developed around this”. "Music for 18 Musicians” maintains his minimalist feel through these “phases” and harmonic shifts. A piece with rich tonal exploration about an hour’s length performance can only provide so much melodic opportunity, so repetitive rhythmic structure also plays a large role in this.<ref>{{Citation |last=Potter |first=Keith |title=Sketching a New Tonality: A Preliminary Assessment of Steve Reich's Sketches for Music for 18 Musicians in Telling the Story of This Work's Approach to Tonality |date=2019-05-30 |work=Rethinking Reich |page=193 |editor-last=Gopinath |editor-first=Sumanth |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/34984/chapter-abstract/298657133?redirectedFrom=fulltext |access-date=2025-01-22 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/oso/9780190605285.003.0010 |isbn=978-0-19-060528-5 |editor2-last=ap Siôn |editor2-first=Pwyll}}</ref>

Reich explored these ideas further in his frequently recorded pieces ''[[Music for a Large Ensemble]]'' (1978) and ''[[Octet (Reich)|Octet]]'' (1979). In these two works, Reich experimented with "the human breath as the measure of musical duration ... the chords played by the trumpets are written to take one comfortable breath to perform".<ref>Liner notes for ''Music for a Large Ensemble''</ref> Human voices are part of the musical palette in ''Music for a Large Ensemble'' but the wordless vocal parts simply form part of the texture (as they do in ''Drumming''). With ''Octet'' and his first orchestral piece ''[[Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards]]'' (also 1979), Reich's music showed the influence of Biblical [[Hebrew cantillation|cantillation]], which he had studied in Israel since the summer of 1977. After this, the human voice singing a text would play an increasingly important role in Reich's music.

{{quote|The technique ... consists of taking pre-existing melodic patterns and stringing them together to form a longer melody in the service of a holy text. If you take away the text, you're left with the idea of putting together small motives to make longer melodies – a technique I had not encountered before.<ref>Schwarz, K. Robert. ''Minimalists'', Phaidon Press, 1996, pp. 84, 86.</ref>}}

In 1974 Reich published the book ''Writings About Music'', containing essays on his philosophy, aesthetics, and musical projects written between 1963 and 1974. An updated and much more extensive collection, ''Writings On Music (1965–2000)'', was published in 2002.