0:00:02 > 0:00:04SIMPLE BEAT STARTS
0:00:04 > 0:00:07COMPOSITION SLOWLY BUILDS
0:00:11 > 0:00:15This is ground zero of a musical revolution.
0:00:18 > 0:00:23In C, written and first performed by Terry Riley in 1964,
0:00:23 > 0:00:26ushered in a whole new musical form.
0:00:26 > 0:00:31Arguably the most important musical form of the 20th century.
0:00:31 > 0:00:33Believe me, I've tried in this whole lifetime
0:00:33 > 0:00:37to come up with another idea, that could be that simple and inclusive,
0:00:37 > 0:00:40and I haven't been able to do it either.
0:00:40 > 0:00:43Minimalism's power lay in repetition,
0:00:43 > 0:00:46in transcendence and in technology.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49And it changed the face of music instantly.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55From 1958 to 1976,
0:00:55 > 0:00:59minimalism was the last big idea in classical music.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04Born in California before exploding in New York,
0:01:04 > 0:01:07minimalism kicked down the barriers between rock and roll
0:01:07 > 0:01:09and the concert hall
0:01:09 > 0:01:12and influenced some of the biggest albums and bands of the era.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15I'm a minimalist. Come on!
0:01:16 > 0:01:21Four revolutionary composers changed what we thought of as music.
0:01:22 > 0:01:24I love it. Are we rolling?
0:01:26 > 0:01:29I mean, he was all on the stuff, learning to write music.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32I mean, that's really good.
0:01:32 > 0:01:35I'm very unusual. There's no doubt about it.
0:01:35 > 0:01:39But I have talents that are beyond compare.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42And this is the story of the two Californians,
0:01:42 > 0:01:46La Monte Young and Terry Riley, who kicked it all off.
0:01:47 > 0:01:49Nothing would be quite the same again.
0:01:58 > 0:02:01MUSIC: G Song by Kronos Quartet
0:02:04 > 0:02:08California - land of freedom, opportunity
0:02:08 > 0:02:10and the home of minimalism.
0:02:15 > 0:02:17This is an exploration of the impact
0:02:17 > 0:02:21of the two Californian pioneering wizards in minimalism.
0:02:21 > 0:02:23La Monte Young and Terry Riley.
0:02:23 > 0:02:27What they shared was a love of eastern influences, of drones,
0:02:27 > 0:02:31and the blissful absorption of chaos and transcendence
0:02:31 > 0:02:33through repetition.
0:02:33 > 0:02:35Riley and Young were prophets without honour,
0:02:35 > 0:02:38visionaries who pre-scored the road ahead.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41Their music had a new sensuality and freedom.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45It prefigured the adventure, love and sheer subversive fun
0:02:45 > 0:02:50that was shortly to sweep right across West Coast '60s America.
0:02:53 > 0:02:55Late '50s America was optimistic.
0:02:55 > 0:02:58It was the end of the Eisenhower era.
0:02:58 > 0:03:01A time of post-war economic boom, 2.5 children,
0:03:01 > 0:03:05shiny new suburbs and white picket fences.
0:03:08 > 0:03:13And in California, a flowering world of freedom, new possibility
0:03:13 > 0:03:14and sunshine,
0:03:14 > 0:03:17with a soundtrack of cool jazz.
0:03:18 > 0:03:20Minimalism had to start in California.
0:03:20 > 0:03:23I think if it hadn't started in California,
0:03:23 > 0:03:25it might not have started at all.
0:03:25 > 0:03:28Barriers were breaking down.
0:03:28 > 0:03:32Fun was being had in the traditional world of classical music.
0:03:33 > 0:03:34DRUM CRASH
0:03:34 > 0:03:38One Californian throwing down a gauntlet to the music establishment
0:03:38 > 0:03:41was pre-minimalist composer John Cage.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47Seen here turning the pages on his own work.
0:03:54 > 0:03:55He was out there...
0:03:56 > 0:03:58..yet deadly serious.
0:03:58 > 0:04:03In terms of a minimalist piece, it doesn't get more minimalist
0:04:03 > 0:04:07than 4' 33" - the silent piece of 1951.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14That same sense of freedom and the kind of limitlessness
0:04:14 > 0:04:16of what you could be as a composer.
0:04:16 > 0:04:18Not even the sounds you could come up with
0:04:18 > 0:04:20but what it meant to be a composer.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23Cage had given them that freedom.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28Cage's outrageous work was all about challenging
0:04:28 > 0:04:31what the world understood as music.
0:04:31 > 0:04:35In 1952, he scandalously declared that Beethoven was wrong.
0:04:35 > 0:04:39An utterance that would sow the seeds of minimalism.
0:04:43 > 0:04:45Pretty much since forever, music has been linear.
0:04:45 > 0:04:47It's been goal-oriented.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50A melody will be broken up into, sort of, subsections
0:04:50 > 0:04:53but each one building on the last one - taking you somewhere.
0:04:53 > 0:04:55Usually in groups of three, by the way. Look at this.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58HE PLAYS "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" Setting out its stall.
0:04:59 > 0:05:01Little bit of development and then, third phrase,
0:05:01 > 0:05:03we get emancipation
0:05:03 > 0:05:05and everything is aiming to there.
0:05:05 > 0:05:08Now, along comes the amazing,
0:05:08 > 0:05:11iconoclastic, avant-garde composer John Cage in the 1950s
0:05:11 > 0:05:14and he says, maybe that's all wrong.
0:05:14 > 0:05:16Maybe there's another way of making music
0:05:16 > 0:05:18which is about vertical slices of time,
0:05:18 > 0:05:22about the eternal now, about perhaps very, very intense repetition.
0:05:22 > 0:05:25So, perhaps... REPEATS SEQUENCE OF NOTES
0:05:25 > 0:05:27The whole piece could just be about that.
0:05:27 > 0:05:31One element from Happy birthday or many other opportunities besides
0:05:31 > 0:05:34and the minimalists took that idea to the Nth degree.
0:05:39 > 0:05:41It was just the idea of repetition.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43That you could hear a process going on
0:05:43 > 0:05:46and you could get drawn into something very subtle
0:05:46 > 0:05:51after years in which music had had a kind of kitchen-sink approach
0:05:51 > 0:05:54where you were supposed to use everything in the world.
0:05:54 > 0:05:56Big brass sections, big percussion sections.
0:05:56 > 0:05:58Every piece was supposed to do everything
0:05:58 > 0:06:00and all of a sudden you had these little pieces
0:06:00 > 0:06:03that would just hammer on one sound for a while
0:06:03 > 0:06:06and you would hear something really interesting going on
0:06:06 > 0:06:08and it would just capture your attention
0:06:08 > 0:06:11and you couldn't stop listening to it.
0:06:11 > 0:06:13RHYTHMIC CLAPPING
0:06:18 > 0:06:21MUSIC: Facades by Philip Glass Ensemble
0:06:27 > 0:06:32It was one of Cage's disciples who invented minimalism
0:06:32 > 0:06:34by slowing down time.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41La Monte Young is a mysterious shaman, now in his 80s,
0:06:41 > 0:06:44who lives in New York, and I've come to find him.
0:06:51 > 0:06:53So, behind this door lives the man
0:06:53 > 0:06:55known as the grandaddy of minimalism.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57A somewhat mystical figure,
0:06:57 > 0:07:00so I don't really know quite what to expect.
0:07:00 > 0:07:02You can't buy his music, he doesn't release it,
0:07:02 > 0:07:05it fetches enormous sums when bartered over online,
0:07:05 > 0:07:08and he's never, ever been on the BBC before.
0:07:08 > 0:07:09We shall see.
0:07:09 > 0:07:11Here you go.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23This is the only known performance footage of La Monte Young,
0:07:23 > 0:07:27performing The Well-tuned Piano in 1987.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35La Monte, he was the most dramatic.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38In those days, he was dressed in leather, leather boots,
0:07:38 > 0:07:42like a biker's, and chains.
0:07:42 > 0:07:44He wasn't misleading you.
0:07:44 > 0:07:46I mean, the clothes went with the man.
0:07:46 > 0:07:48They weren't just assumed.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52There was always a strong feeling of authenticity about La Monte,
0:07:52 > 0:07:54no matter what you thought of the music and whatever.
0:07:54 > 0:07:56It didn't matter, he was for real.
0:07:57 > 0:08:02Young was born in 1935 and grew up in the Golden State.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08Can I take you back to growing up in California and what impact that
0:08:08 > 0:08:10landscape and that environment had upon your development?
0:08:10 > 0:08:12Well, you know, as Gertrude Stein said it,
0:08:12 > 0:08:14that no matter where you are,
0:08:14 > 0:08:16the environment has a big effect on you.
0:08:18 > 0:08:20In California,
0:08:20 > 0:08:22people think nothing of driving eight hours across town
0:08:22 > 0:08:24to visit a friend,
0:08:24 > 0:08:26then they spend eight hours there,
0:08:26 > 0:08:28and then they have to drive eight hours back,
0:08:28 > 0:08:31sometimes they wait till the next day.
0:08:31 > 0:08:33The sense of time gets really...
0:08:35 > 0:08:39..stretched out, and it's just quite the opposite in New York City,
0:08:39 > 0:08:41where everything is jammed together.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45Time was an important part of the California experience.
0:08:50 > 0:08:55Young's Trio For Strings of 1958 was written in the lofty compositional
0:08:55 > 0:08:59style that held sway at the time, serialism,
0:08:59 > 0:09:02invented by the great Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg.
0:09:05 > 0:09:07The idea is that you create melodies
0:09:07 > 0:09:09through using all 12 of the semitones
0:09:09 > 0:09:10that lie within an octave.
0:09:13 > 0:09:14Yeah? 12 semitones.
0:09:14 > 0:09:17And the rule is you can use all of those semitones,
0:09:17 > 0:09:20in fact you must use all of them, in whatever order you like,
0:09:20 > 0:09:22but you can't repeat one until you've had all of the others,
0:09:22 > 0:09:25and thus whole pieces of music were created.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28So, to give you an example, this is from a waltz in the 1920s
0:09:28 > 0:09:30of Schoenberg which is purely serial.
0:09:36 > 0:09:42Now, that strange, capricious little melody has all 12 semitones,
0:09:42 > 0:09:43but in a very particular order,
0:09:43 > 0:09:47and then the joy of the piece is in how he can develop that row
0:09:47 > 0:09:50of notes, but again, without ever repeating one
0:09:50 > 0:09:51until he's had all of the others.
0:09:55 > 0:09:58But what made La Monte Young's Trio For Strings the first work of
0:09:58 > 0:10:01minimalism was the length of the notes.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06Nominally, it started with a 12-tone string trio
0:10:06 > 0:10:08that La Monte Young wrote in 1958
0:10:08 > 0:10:13that was just the only thing that differentiated it from any other
0:10:13 > 0:10:1512-tone chamber piece was
0:10:15 > 0:10:20it was extremely long and the notes were held for a really long time.
0:10:20 > 0:10:25SINGLE NOTE PLAYS
0:10:25 > 0:10:29It's an hour-long piece almost,
0:10:29 > 0:10:31I think there are about 88 notes in it.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38And the first sound lasts for four and a half minutes.
0:10:41 > 0:10:44And then there's a silence, and then it goes on to the next.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54The Trio For Strings was probably the first...
0:10:54 > 0:10:57..work in the history of music that really...
0:10:58 > 0:11:00..laid out long, sustained tones.
0:11:02 > 0:11:06The Trio is only an hour, but five or ten years ago,
0:11:06 > 0:11:10I made a version that was, I think, three hours
0:11:10 > 0:11:13that was probably what I could have,
0:11:13 > 0:11:15should have done in the beginning...
0:11:16 > 0:11:19..but I was a very...
0:11:19 > 0:11:23You know, you're very constrained by the performance possibilities.
0:11:24 > 0:11:26Like all music students in the 1950s,
0:11:26 > 0:11:29La Monte Young was taught that serialism
0:11:29 > 0:11:32was THE compositional style of the day.
0:11:35 > 0:11:38But music such as Alban Berg's Chamber Concerto belonged
0:11:38 > 0:11:40to an austere European past
0:11:40 > 0:11:44and spoke little to a forward-looking, modern America.
0:11:48 > 0:11:51This music is probably past its peak,
0:11:51 > 0:11:53it's on the way down, you know.
0:11:53 > 0:11:56We're really talking about the endgame,
0:11:56 > 0:11:58though it carried on for another 40 years.
0:11:59 > 0:12:01No-one stopped them, and so they kept on going.
0:12:01 > 0:12:04But the brilliant music was pretty much composed by then.
0:12:05 > 0:12:09La Monte Young's Damascene moment occurred when he visited Darmstadt
0:12:09 > 0:12:12in Germany in 1959 for a composition seminar
0:12:12 > 0:12:14with Karlheinz Stockhausen.
0:12:14 > 0:12:17And it was there that he met the American composer John Cage -
0:12:17 > 0:12:22the towering daddy of post-war American experimentalism.
0:12:22 > 0:12:23So under his tutelage,
0:12:23 > 0:12:27Young's compositions strayed further from pure notation and became much
0:12:27 > 0:12:29more about conceptualism.
0:12:30 > 0:12:33How was it meeting John Cage, did that resonate for you?
0:12:33 > 0:12:35Well, John was interested in me
0:12:35 > 0:12:38because he was one of the first people who
0:12:38 > 0:12:41was well-established who really promoted me.
0:12:43 > 0:12:47La Monte's Compositions 1960 are unusual,
0:12:47 > 0:12:50some of them even frankly unperformable.
0:12:50 > 0:12:52But each of them explores a certain supposition
0:12:52 > 0:12:58about the nature of music and art and carries ideas to the extreme.
0:12:58 > 0:13:02One instructs, "Draw a straight line and follow it."
0:13:06 > 0:13:10Another simply states that the piece is a little whirlpool,
0:13:10 > 0:13:11out in the middle of the ocean.
0:13:15 > 0:13:18Piece Number 2 from Compositions 1960
0:13:18 > 0:13:20is pretty remarkable.
0:13:20 > 0:13:22Here are the instructions.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25"Build a fire in front of the audience,
0:13:25 > 0:13:26"preferably use wood,
0:13:26 > 0:13:29"although any combustibles may be used as necessary
0:13:29 > 0:13:32"for starting the fire or controlling the kind of smoke.
0:13:32 > 0:13:36"The fire may be of any size, but it should not be the kind which is
0:13:36 > 0:13:41"associated with another object such as a candle or a cigarette lighter.
0:13:41 > 0:13:43"The lights may be turned out.
0:13:43 > 0:13:44"After the fire is burning,
0:13:44 > 0:13:48"the builder may sit by and watch it for the duration of the composition.
0:13:48 > 0:13:49"However he, they,
0:13:49 > 0:13:52"should not sit between the fire and the audience
0:13:52 > 0:13:55"in order that its members will be able to see and enjoy the fire."
0:13:58 > 0:14:01Young was influenced by conceptual art of the time -
0:14:01 > 0:14:04groups like Fluxus, a collection of artists, poets,
0:14:04 > 0:14:08and musicians whose shared impulse was to integrate life into art and
0:14:08 > 0:14:10bring about social change.
0:14:12 > 0:14:13An artist such as La Monte Young,
0:14:13 > 0:14:17and he's very much involved with the Fluxus movement
0:14:17 > 0:14:20about the idea of art of all kinds as performance,
0:14:20 > 0:14:24how an audience reacts to it when they're in the room with it
0:14:24 > 0:14:25at any given time.
0:14:25 > 0:14:27So, for example, the piece
0:14:27 > 0:14:31where he builds a fire and the music is really...
0:14:31 > 0:14:35..the sounds and the spectacle of this fire happening at very close
0:14:35 > 0:14:38quarters, all the fear that that engenders,
0:14:38 > 0:14:39all the worry for the equipment,
0:14:39 > 0:14:42cos he says that the fire has got to be close-miked,
0:14:42 > 0:14:45that is all part of it.
0:14:45 > 0:14:48Those links with the visual art world are not accidental.
0:14:48 > 0:14:50It's because of the freedom of thought that's happening,
0:14:50 > 0:14:53and the Fluxus movement, and the connections that John Cage
0:14:53 > 0:14:54had already established.
0:14:54 > 0:14:57There was a freedom of thought there which certainly the institutional
0:14:57 > 0:15:00classical music culture simply didn't have.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02He's expanding the consciousness of everyone, right?
0:15:02 > 0:15:05The visual art world through sound,
0:15:05 > 0:15:07the classical music world, well, I mean, it just...
0:15:07 > 0:15:11..it blows that apart into a kind of cosmic harmony.
0:15:13 > 0:15:16Of Young's Compositions 1960,
0:15:16 > 0:15:19it's Number 7 that has retrospectively become known
0:15:19 > 0:15:23as having the most significance for minimalism.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27It consists simply of two notes to be played together and held
0:15:27 > 0:15:29for a very long time.
0:15:29 > 0:15:30Simply a B...
0:15:31 > 0:15:34..and then an F sharp, which is exactly five notes above it.
0:15:36 > 0:15:37There's the F sharp.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41Those two notes together, what's known as a perfect fifth.
0:15:41 > 0:15:43And the one, by the way, inextricably linked,
0:15:43 > 0:15:46almost umbilically bound to the other.
0:15:46 > 0:15:48If I show you what I mean...
0:15:48 > 0:15:51If I was the place down the B silently so that
0:15:51 > 0:15:54the string is ready to resonate, and I just strike the F sharp...
0:15:56 > 0:15:59..you can hear that resonating in the B,
0:15:59 > 0:16:01so the F sharp is in the B already,
0:16:01 > 0:16:04it's completely, inextricably linked.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07This is an endless open suggestion.
0:16:10 > 0:16:13That gave rise to a headline, I believe, in The New Yorker,
0:16:13 > 0:16:17which said, "When La Monte Young says, 'Take it from the top,'
0:16:17 > 0:16:18"he means last Wednesday."
0:16:18 > 0:16:21That's the kind of timescale we were talking about.
0:16:30 > 0:16:32Long hypnotic tones.
0:16:33 > 0:16:35A wide sense of space.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41La Monte's work slowed the world down.
0:16:46 > 0:16:51Young's ever-evolving masterpiece is The Well-Tuned Piano,
0:16:51 > 0:16:53a work conceived in 1964,
0:16:53 > 0:16:56not yet finished or indeed published by the composer.
0:16:57 > 0:16:59A nod to Bach's Well-Tempered Keyboard,
0:16:59 > 0:17:04the piano is tuned to Young's own inventive tuning.
0:17:04 > 0:17:05He's still working on it now,
0:17:05 > 0:17:08and a performance of it will typically take
0:17:08 > 0:17:10five or six hours out of your life.
0:17:13 > 0:17:18Minimalism is a music that imposes its own listening mode
0:17:18 > 0:17:24by the fact that events happen less frequently than you expect.
0:17:27 > 0:17:32So there is a slowed down progression of information,
0:17:32 > 0:17:35and the normal left-brain processes
0:17:35 > 0:17:40with which we listen to pop music or classical music get
0:17:40 > 0:17:42frustrated and have to give up.
0:17:42 > 0:17:46And if the music works, then it's all the more enjoyable
0:17:46 > 0:17:51because you quit keeping track of time, you quit all of that logic,
0:17:51 > 0:17:53syntax stuff and you surrender to the music.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59- How's that? - HE LAUGHS
0:18:05 > 0:18:08And you're still working on The Well-tuned Piano, right?
0:18:08 > 0:18:11- That piece is unfinished?- Yeah, I mean, I will play it if I'm given
0:18:11 > 0:18:13the right circumstances,
0:18:13 > 0:18:16but you have to understand that it's not a joke.
0:18:18 > 0:18:23I began to realise that, the more I got into music,
0:18:23 > 0:18:26that music requires its own time.
0:18:26 > 0:18:30And, I was not suited to this world.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34But I am suited for the world I have created.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39La Monte's use of long tones was a world within itself
0:18:39 > 0:18:40at the turn of the decade.
0:18:40 > 0:18:44But it would alter the shape of popular music in 1965
0:18:44 > 0:18:47when a student of his, viola player John Cale,
0:18:47 > 0:18:51took the technique into his own band, The Velvet Underground.
0:18:54 > 0:19:00# And what costume shall the poor girl wear?
0:19:03 > 0:19:08# To all tomorrow's parties. #
0:19:08 > 0:19:11Like minimalism, this was music that was based in the art world.
0:19:11 > 0:19:14The Velvet Underground started life
0:19:14 > 0:19:16as the house band of Andy Warhol's Factory.
0:19:19 > 0:19:21When you listen to, like, you know, old classics,
0:19:21 > 0:19:22like say Velvet Underground,
0:19:22 > 0:19:26can you hear, can you sense that much-lauded connection
0:19:26 > 0:19:30between, you know, La Monte Young influencing John Cale,
0:19:30 > 0:19:34and therefore influencing that music?
0:19:34 > 0:19:37It feels just like All Tomorrow's Parties or something,
0:19:37 > 0:19:39you've got that kind of viola rhythm...
0:19:40 > 0:19:42..droning away in the background.
0:19:42 > 0:19:45I guess that that must have come from
0:19:45 > 0:19:47him working with La Monte Young.
0:19:47 > 0:19:51And that's also probably what set off an audience
0:19:51 > 0:19:54to get into minimalism as well because...
0:19:55 > 0:19:58..they've kind of absorbed it through The Velvet Underground
0:19:58 > 0:20:00and stuff that came from there, you know.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12Enter our second wizard of minimalism.
0:20:12 > 0:20:15Terry Riley studied composition at the University of California in
0:20:15 > 0:20:20Berkeley with La Monte Young, but rather than writing for traditional
0:20:20 > 0:20:24instruments, Terry experimented with cutting-edge technology.
0:20:24 > 0:20:27In particular, early synthesizers and tape recorders,
0:20:27 > 0:20:29pieces of kit that would play a crucial role
0:20:29 > 0:20:31in the story of minimalism.
0:20:37 > 0:20:39You've heard his influence everywhere.
0:20:39 > 0:20:43From Pete Townsend's 1971 homage Baba O'Riley...
0:20:43 > 0:20:47MUSIC: Baba O'Riley by The Who
0:20:51 > 0:20:54..to the opening notes of one of the '70s biggest albums -
0:20:54 > 0:20:57Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00MUSIC: Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield
0:21:05 > 0:21:06OK, Lucy, let's go.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13Terry is one of my all-time favourite composers,
0:21:13 > 0:21:15and I'm off to visit him
0:21:15 > 0:21:17on his ranch, five hours outside San Francisco.
0:21:19 > 0:21:22Terry is kind of a mystic, he's a really...
0:21:23 > 0:21:25..open-minded,
0:21:25 > 0:21:27just beautiful musician
0:21:27 > 0:21:31whose music feels like he's still sort of 50 years in the future,
0:21:31 > 0:21:34and the rest of us are still catching up.
0:21:34 > 0:21:36The first time I heard Terry Riley's music, I was really young.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39I mean, I was like sort of nine or ten. I was obsessed with the organ.
0:21:39 > 0:21:42An old groovy kind of hippie music teacher in my primary school had a
0:21:42 > 0:21:45record called A Rainbow In Curved Air,
0:21:45 > 0:21:46which is the most insane,
0:21:46 > 0:21:49psychedelic, trippy, looping,
0:21:49 > 0:21:51organ overdubbing music,
0:21:51 > 0:21:53which Terry made, I think, so the story goes,
0:21:53 > 0:21:57in the course of one week in a studio in 1969.
0:21:57 > 0:22:01And I'll never forget being sat down by this cool primary school
0:22:01 > 0:22:05hippie music teacher and being introduced to this music.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27But Riley's story began long before 1969.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32And the musical journey he took to A Rainbow In Curved Air
0:22:32 > 0:22:33is what I want to talk to him about.
0:22:33 > 0:22:34Great to meet you last!
0:22:34 > 0:22:37- Thanks for coming all this way. - Thank you.- Good to meet you too.
0:22:37 > 0:22:39Thank you for having us. Really, really good to be here.
0:22:39 > 0:22:40Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44- Would you like to take a look around?- Yeah.
0:22:47 > 0:22:48I went to school with La Monte Young,
0:22:48 > 0:22:53graduate school, which was a real big event in my life,
0:22:53 > 0:22:55meeting La Monte, and we would sit around and talk.
0:22:55 > 0:23:00And La Monte's main concern when he...
0:23:00 > 0:23:03He didn't really have to have this concern cos it's already happening,
0:23:03 > 0:23:06but he wanted to be the most original composer ever.
0:23:06 > 0:23:12And I also felt like what La Monte was saying was something I felt for
0:23:12 > 0:23:16myself, too, that I didn't want to just do music, I wanted to find
0:23:16 > 0:23:17a way...
0:23:19 > 0:23:21..to really get into who I was.
0:23:21 > 0:23:26So, this influenced you in that it made you want to slow down as well?
0:23:26 > 0:23:29Did you find yourself adopting some of the same?
0:23:29 > 0:23:33It made me start hearing details in what I was doing like, say,
0:23:33 > 0:23:35even if it's a tape loop,
0:23:35 > 0:23:37how does the landscape of the tape loop change
0:23:37 > 0:23:39every time it's replayed?
0:23:39 > 0:23:42We know it does if we sit there and listen to it.
0:23:42 > 0:23:45Can be, you know, a short loop, maybe one, two, three seconds.
0:23:45 > 0:23:47If you play that for an hour,
0:23:47 > 0:23:51you will continually hear new things in that landscape.
0:23:51 > 0:23:55And it's a psychological property of music.
0:24:02 > 0:24:05When did you first actually discover the possibility of tape?
0:24:05 > 0:24:07This was probably 1960,
0:24:07 > 0:24:11got a Wollensak tape recorder and I was working...
0:24:11 > 0:24:14La Monte and I were both working with Anna Halprin, this dancer,
0:24:14 > 0:24:17very visionary dancer that lives in Marin County,
0:24:17 > 0:24:20and she kind of made us her musical directors,
0:24:20 > 0:24:24so I was making pieces for her out of tape loops,
0:24:24 > 0:24:27and I only had a monophonic single machine,
0:24:27 > 0:24:30so I had to do sound-on-sound.
0:24:30 > 0:24:34Obviously, very quickly, you build up tremendous amounts of noise,
0:24:34 > 0:24:37and that started becoming interesting to me.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40I see, so the noise is like hiss and other forms of distortion
0:24:40 > 0:24:42- on the tape?- Yes, hiss and hum.
0:24:42 > 0:24:47Yeah, limitation actually changed kind of a direction in my thinking,
0:24:47 > 0:24:49so it changed the way I thought about music.
0:24:49 > 0:24:51MUSIC: So What by Miles Davis
0:24:58 > 0:25:02In the late '50s, the USA was in the grip of the sound of jazz,
0:25:02 > 0:25:05and the Miles Davis classic So What...
0:25:07 > 0:25:11..was the basis for one of Riley's early tape experiments.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16Played by the West Coast jazz great Chet Baker.
0:25:19 > 0:25:22Got to work in RTF, the French radio studios,
0:25:22 > 0:25:27so they arranged for me to work with Chet there,
0:25:27 > 0:25:31and Chet had a quintet, so then I asked them to all
0:25:31 > 0:25:35record So What as a group,
0:25:35 > 0:25:37and then I asked them to record their solos separately.
0:25:37 > 0:25:40More or less the same as they had been playing in the full
0:25:40 > 0:25:44- ensemble?- Yeah, and then I took it upstairs and I put those together,
0:25:44 > 0:25:47I looped them and then I recombined it all.
0:25:47 > 0:25:49So, it was... The first thing,
0:25:49 > 0:25:51the ding for me was, "This can be
0:25:51 > 0:25:54"an instrumental music process of writing."
0:26:09 > 0:26:13Music For The Gift, as the Baker experiment became known,
0:26:13 > 0:26:16was a crucial game-changer in minimalism's development.
0:26:24 > 0:26:28It pioneered the idea of electronic manipulation of time,
0:26:28 > 0:26:33a technique Riley would describe as time-lag accumulation.
0:26:33 > 0:26:37Electronic repetition was a key element in Riley's minimalist work.
0:26:40 > 0:26:42To understand what this means,
0:26:42 > 0:26:45I've enlisted the help of Portishead's Adrian Utley
0:26:45 > 0:26:48and two tape machines for an old-school experiment.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51REPETITIVE, ECHOING TONES
0:27:13 > 0:27:15So I don't really understand how this is working.
0:27:15 > 0:27:18Um...
0:27:18 > 0:27:22It's like an internal looping or delay effect, isn't it?
0:27:22 > 0:27:24- Yeah.- But how does it actually work?
0:27:25 > 0:27:28It's got one reel on one tape machine,
0:27:28 > 0:27:32the tape goes like this along to the next tape machine
0:27:32 > 0:27:34which is playing it,
0:27:34 > 0:27:37so that is our distance of delay.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40So record it here, wait,
0:27:40 > 0:27:42play. And that's what's happening.
0:27:42 > 0:27:44So with the regeneration of feeding it
0:27:44 > 0:27:49back into the first recorder, you get this endless delay.
0:27:57 > 0:28:01The recording machine not only picks up the guitar being played,
0:28:01 > 0:28:05but also the sound from the machine playing it back,
0:28:05 > 0:28:07creating a seemingly endless echo.
0:28:09 > 0:28:12And that's why there's quite a lot of hiss on it as well because...
0:28:12 > 0:28:14Yeah, it's building up hiss.
0:28:14 > 0:28:15- It's building up hiss.- Yeah.
0:28:15 > 0:28:17Which is lovely, actually, it's sort of warm.
0:28:19 > 0:28:22I think we like that sound because it's not clinical.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25Did Terry Riley call it the ghost in the machine?
0:28:25 > 0:28:26Right.
0:28:26 > 0:28:31It's a build-up of atmosphere that you couldn't...
0:28:32 > 0:28:33..get from an acoustic instrument.
0:28:41 > 0:28:43Effectively, what you've set up here, then,
0:28:43 > 0:28:48is what Terry Riley I think called his time-lag accumulation technique.
0:28:48 > 0:28:49Yeah, I guess that's it.
0:29:07 > 0:29:11The artistic climate in San Francisco in 1961
0:29:11 > 0:29:13was ringing with new ideas.
0:29:13 > 0:29:16A number of adventurous composers including Terry Riley,
0:29:16 > 0:29:20Ramon Sender, Morton Subotnick and Pauline Oliveros decided
0:29:20 > 0:29:24to create their own improvised electronic music studio -
0:29:24 > 0:29:27the San Francisco Tape Music Center.
0:29:29 > 0:29:31Now a dance studio,
0:29:31 > 0:29:34this unremarkable building on Divisadero Street
0:29:34 > 0:29:37was once the nexus of a group of visionaries who dragged the past
0:29:37 > 0:29:42into the future in front of an audience essentially of themselves.
0:29:44 > 0:29:49The Tape Music Center was a kind of countercultural little hall where...
0:29:49 > 0:29:51Nothing like any concert hall,
0:29:51 > 0:29:53it really was just kind of a small room.
0:29:53 > 0:29:56They had a radio station, KPFA, that
0:29:56 > 0:29:59had the room right next door, and a lot of really interesting things
0:29:59 > 0:30:01started happening there.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09If you've enjoyed electronic music's rich tapestry
0:30:09 > 0:30:11since Kraftwerk emerged in the '70s...
0:30:15 > 0:30:18..then consider the pioneers who were exploring it
0:30:18 > 0:30:19over a decade earlier.
0:30:23 > 0:30:27The Tape Music Center's gift to the future of minimalism was the first
0:30:27 > 0:30:28complete synthesizer.
0:30:31 > 0:30:35And this is it, the original Buchla 100,
0:30:35 > 0:30:39commissioned by composer and Riley peer Morton Subotnick.
0:30:39 > 0:30:41It has become important partly
0:30:41 > 0:30:43because it may have been the first
0:30:43 > 0:30:46complete system that you would have that would do everything
0:30:46 > 0:30:48you wanted it to do,
0:30:48 > 0:30:51not just something to add on to something else,
0:30:51 > 0:30:54which would make it the first total analogue synthesizer.
0:30:56 > 0:31:01The sequencer was originally conceptualised by me...
0:31:02 > 0:31:06..to be a sequence of events.
0:31:06 > 0:31:09MELODIC BEEPS
0:31:46 > 0:31:48While Riley and the San Fran Tape Center
0:31:48 > 0:31:51were experimenting with electronics,
0:31:51 > 0:31:54in 1960 La Monte Young moved from California to New York
0:31:54 > 0:31:57to pursue an ambitious vision -
0:31:57 > 0:32:00a light and sound installation designed with his partner,
0:32:00 > 0:32:01the artist Marian Zazeela,
0:32:01 > 0:32:04where minimal music could exist multi-dimensionally,
0:32:04 > 0:32:0624 hours a day.
0:32:12 > 0:32:15A Dream House,
0:32:15 > 0:32:19and it still exists to this day in the same Chamber Street loft.
0:32:20 > 0:32:24On my visit, I was immediately immersed in a striking collection of
0:32:24 > 0:32:28audiovisual works created by long-time La Monte Young disciple
0:32:28 > 0:32:29Jung Hee Choi.
0:32:32 > 0:32:34The concept of a Dream House
0:32:34 > 0:32:38was invented by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela in 1962,
0:32:38 > 0:32:40and Jung Hee Choi is the only artist
0:32:40 > 0:32:44that we have ever given long-term installations
0:32:44 > 0:32:45in our Dream House.
0:32:45 > 0:32:47She is our senior disciple.
0:32:47 > 0:32:51she performs with us in all of our performances
0:32:51 > 0:32:55and appears with us in all of our presentations.
0:33:00 > 0:33:03In the early '60s, Young's work was centred around drones.
0:33:03 > 0:33:08Sparse, sustained tones continuously sounded throughout most
0:33:08 > 0:33:10or all of a piece.
0:33:10 > 0:33:13At first, it just sounded like one big buzz,
0:33:13 > 0:33:14or tinnitus amplified
0:33:14 > 0:33:17or something, you know.
0:33:17 > 0:33:20But there were loads and loads of speakers all over the place,
0:33:20 > 0:33:23and it seems like they were all just doing different tones.
0:33:23 > 0:33:26They probably just create those tones all the time.
0:33:26 > 0:33:30But the amazing thing and the thing that I always will remember about it
0:33:30 > 0:33:33was suddenly realising... You know, at first, "All right, OK,
0:33:33 > 0:33:37"there's a big buzz, whatevs, sounds like a giant bee, whatever."
0:33:37 > 0:33:40But then when you start to walk through the room,
0:33:40 > 0:33:42so then you're nearer to one speaker than another,
0:33:42 > 0:33:45you get all these kind of weird wobbly patterns happening
0:33:45 > 0:33:48actually inside your head because you've got the interference
0:33:48 > 0:33:51of this note just a bit lower than this one, so you get that...
0:33:51 > 0:33:54- RAPID VIBRATING NOISE - Then you turn your head a bit, and it goes...
0:33:54 > 0:33:55SLOWER VIBRATING NOISE
0:33:55 > 0:33:58And so suddenly, it became the most fascinating thing
0:33:58 > 0:33:59in the world because you think,
0:33:59 > 0:34:02"Well, what if I put my head like this?"
0:34:02 > 0:34:04And you could be like walking through and then,
0:34:04 > 0:34:06"Oh, that's good, that one."
0:34:06 > 0:34:08So you become really active in it and explore this...
0:34:08 > 0:34:10You could stay in that room forever
0:34:10 > 0:34:14because just a tiny tilt of your head
0:34:14 > 0:34:16creates a completely different experience.
0:34:16 > 0:34:19And you kind of look at other people in the room,
0:34:19 > 0:34:22but obviously they're not hearing what you're hearing at all.
0:34:22 > 0:34:26It's really... It was a unique thing and I keep meaning to...
0:34:26 > 0:34:29I wish I could go back.
0:34:29 > 0:34:32What was so interesting about you putting forward the idea of
0:34:32 > 0:34:35drone music in Western culture?
0:34:35 > 0:34:38Drone music had been there since the beginning of time.
0:34:38 > 0:34:40But in the West not so much?
0:34:40 > 0:34:44Well, yes, it's true that I introduced it in a way
0:34:44 > 0:34:46that really made waves,
0:34:46 > 0:34:48and I did it because I liked it,
0:34:48 > 0:34:52and I wanted the world to have that experience.
0:34:56 > 0:34:59You have to kind of not expect big events, and then you start wondering
0:34:59 > 0:35:02whether you're just imagining things that are happening,
0:35:02 > 0:35:05and I think that's one of the interesting things
0:35:05 > 0:35:06about La Monte Young's music.
0:35:06 > 0:35:08Is that you think nothing's happening,
0:35:08 > 0:35:12you think it's a static thing, but then suddenly...
0:35:13 > 0:35:15..after maybe 20 minutes, you realise that
0:35:15 > 0:35:18what you're listening to is totally different to what
0:35:18 > 0:35:19you started off listening to,
0:35:19 > 0:35:22but you've got no recollection of how you got there.
0:35:27 > 0:35:31The idea of meditative, long-held notes was at the root
0:35:31 > 0:35:34of minimalism, but it was not a new concept.
0:35:34 > 0:35:38Both La Monte and Terry studied Indian classical music,
0:35:38 > 0:35:40an ancient style rooted in drones.
0:35:45 > 0:35:48This is called a tanpura.
0:35:48 > 0:35:52It is essentially a drone instrument
0:35:52 > 0:35:57which you play so that you can sing at a certain scale.
0:35:58 > 0:36:00It's very meditative.
0:36:00 > 0:36:05It obviously gives a sense of peacefulness,
0:36:05 > 0:36:09and there is a little austerity
0:36:09 > 0:36:15which one associates with very high order of notes,
0:36:15 > 0:36:17high order of music.
0:36:17 > 0:36:20In its simplicity, there is a lot of depth.
0:36:24 > 0:36:28These composers studying Indian music was at a time
0:36:28 > 0:36:30in the '60s when people
0:36:30 > 0:36:35in the West were looking to Asia, to India,
0:36:35 > 0:36:40to other cultures for an alternative state of mind.
0:36:40 > 0:36:43We think of The Beatles, of course, most famously -
0:36:43 > 0:36:46George Harrison studying sitar with Ravi Shankar,
0:36:46 > 0:36:51and them going off to study meditation in India.
0:36:51 > 0:36:54It was the thing at the time.
0:36:54 > 0:36:57HE HOLDS NOTE
0:37:00 > 0:37:06In 1970, Young and Riley both became disciples of the great raga vocalist
0:37:06 > 0:37:07Pandit Pran Nath
0:37:07 > 0:37:10and would study with him for the next 26 years.
0:37:12 > 0:37:17We found ourselves attracted to him like iron filings to a magnet.
0:37:17 > 0:37:21It became essentially a force
0:37:21 > 0:37:25that was much more powerful than any of us
0:37:25 > 0:37:29or him in that we found ourselves drawn together.
0:37:29 > 0:37:36And he insisted that we become his disciples in order to study.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44As well as drones, Indian music is based around the raga,
0:37:44 > 0:37:46a kind of microtonal scale.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32I felt like I was in kindergarten again
0:38:32 > 0:38:36when I started studying Indian music because I had to learn a whole new
0:38:36 > 0:38:38way of perceiving and listening.
0:38:39 > 0:38:42You and the note, the note and you.
0:38:42 > 0:38:46HE SINGS IN HINDI
0:38:58 > 0:39:00I always practise early in the morning.
0:39:00 > 0:39:03First thing I do is do my ragas in the morning.
0:39:04 > 0:39:08And, you know, it kind of tunes me up for the whole day.
0:39:09 > 0:39:13It's a lot of work just to maintain the huge vocabulary of raga that I
0:39:13 > 0:39:16learned over the many years with Pandit Pran Nath.
0:39:27 > 0:39:31Ragas share minimalism's aversion to Western music narrative.
0:39:34 > 0:39:36Time often moves like an arrow in Western music.
0:39:36 > 0:39:38We imagine there's a beginning and end, and somebody,
0:39:38 > 0:39:42something or somebody, usually it's a composer, telling you the story,
0:39:42 > 0:39:43that's going from a beginning to an end.
0:39:43 > 0:39:46Well, in the music of Indian classical music,
0:39:46 > 0:39:49and in La Monte Young's music, and Terry Riley's music especially,
0:39:49 > 0:39:50you don't have that arrow.
0:39:50 > 0:39:55You have instead an ocean of time in which you can be in,
0:39:55 > 0:39:59in which you feel that the universe operates according to cycles
0:39:59 > 0:40:00as opposed to arrows.
0:40:01 > 0:40:06And to use a Western music to tap into that same energy that Indian
0:40:06 > 0:40:08classical music, kind of, has always done,
0:40:08 > 0:40:10is an amazing act of imagination.
0:40:14 > 0:40:16Riley and Young's original experiments in sound abstraction
0:40:16 > 0:40:20and repetition have been shared amongst a close-knit community,
0:40:20 > 0:40:22but the crossover moment,
0:40:22 > 0:40:26the Big Bang, if you like, would come in 1964.
0:40:26 > 0:40:28The date was November 4th
0:40:28 > 0:40:32and ground zero was the San Francisco Tape Music Center.
0:40:40 > 0:40:44Riley's big idea was to translate techniques of repetition
0:40:44 > 0:40:46and an immersive attitude to time
0:40:46 > 0:40:50into a work for musicians rather than machines.
0:40:52 > 0:40:56The result was the ground-breaking In C.
0:40:57 > 0:40:59Let's talk about that first performance of In C,
0:40:59 > 0:41:02because obviously with that first performance,
0:41:02 > 0:41:04you launched a kind of musical revolution.
0:41:04 > 0:41:05Believe me, I tried...
0:41:07 > 0:41:11..in this whole lifetime since In C to come up with another idea,
0:41:11 > 0:41:15that it could be that simple and inclusive.
0:41:15 > 0:41:17And I haven't been able to do it either.
0:41:25 > 0:41:27You know, I got back after working with Chet Baker,
0:41:27 > 0:41:30I thought, "I should write something new like this."
0:41:30 > 0:41:32So I had this, you know,
0:41:32 > 0:41:35idea to write for a large group of instruments.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38But I was writing it all out, you know.
0:41:38 > 0:41:40And afterwards, at some point, I was thinking,
0:41:40 > 0:41:41"Boy, this is hard, you know,
0:41:41 > 0:41:44"because it doesn't have the freedom that I really want.
0:41:44 > 0:41:46"And I'm actually writing the structure out."
0:42:11 > 0:42:14Isn't it the most beautifully baffling and illogical thing?
0:42:14 > 0:42:17That here is a piece, called In C, that can take upwards of three
0:42:17 > 0:42:19or four hours to perform,
0:42:19 > 0:42:24and the entire score is contained on one sheet of paper.
0:42:24 > 0:42:2753 beautiful little melodic extracts,
0:42:27 > 0:42:29all basically in the key of C major.
0:42:44 > 0:42:47Every player is the master or mistress of their own destiny.
0:42:47 > 0:42:50They can choose how many times exactly they want to repeat
0:42:50 > 0:42:52Extract One before they move to Extract Two.
0:42:52 > 0:42:54They can choose to play at exactly the speed of the pulse
0:42:54 > 0:42:58or they can choose to play at double the speed or quarter the speed.
0:43:10 > 0:43:12But, of course, the essence of the magic of the piece
0:43:12 > 0:43:15is what happens when one extract is being played by one player
0:43:15 > 0:43:17while another player is playing the same extract
0:43:17 > 0:43:19but slightly out of phase with the first player.
0:43:19 > 0:43:21Or a third player is playing the extract in front
0:43:21 > 0:43:24of that same extract or the one just behind it.
0:43:24 > 0:43:27Cos let's remember the rule of this piece is that however many members
0:43:27 > 0:43:31there are in the ensemble, no-one is allowed to get more than three
0:43:31 > 0:43:34extracts either ahead or behind anyone else.
0:43:37 > 0:43:40None of those present at the premiere
0:43:40 > 0:43:44on November he 4th, 1964, had seen or heard anything like it.
0:43:45 > 0:43:48What was the impact on the audience that night?
0:43:48 > 0:43:50Well, it was significant.
0:43:50 > 0:43:53I mean, people were really blown away.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57We all knew. I think everybody in the group knew that there was
0:43:57 > 0:43:59something special happening that night.
0:44:01 > 0:44:05In C marked a moment when the world began to prick up its ears to this
0:44:05 > 0:44:07whole movement.
0:44:07 > 0:44:11The memorably named critic of the San Francisco Sunday Chronicle
0:44:11 > 0:44:15Alfred Frankenstein came to the first performance of In C.
0:44:15 > 0:44:18And he was completely knocked for six by it.
0:44:18 > 0:44:21The headline is, "Music like none other on Earth."
0:44:21 > 0:44:23And most brilliantly he says,
0:44:23 > 0:44:27"At times you feel you have never done anything all your life long but
0:44:27 > 0:44:29"listen to this music,
0:44:29 > 0:44:33"and as if that is all there is or ever will be."
0:44:42 > 0:44:44I think this piece is the Big Bang of minimalism.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47Because, for a start, it's total democracy in action.
0:44:47 > 0:44:50It's not the conventional or traditional model
0:44:50 > 0:44:52where the composer imposes
0:44:52 > 0:44:55a very precise, tight and defined structure.
0:44:55 > 0:44:58Exactly who plays what, and in what direction of travel,
0:44:58 > 0:45:00and in what order of play.
0:45:00 > 0:45:05This is absolutely about whoever's in any ensemble who decide to
0:45:05 > 0:45:07play In C, each and every one of those musicians
0:45:07 > 0:45:09making their own choices
0:45:09 > 0:45:12within, of course, as we've said, very controlled parameters.
0:45:12 > 0:45:17So that there can't ever be two even remotely similar performances
0:45:17 > 0:45:19of In C. Every single time it's performed,
0:45:19 > 0:45:22it is a world apart from any previous performance.
0:45:22 > 0:45:25So that in itself is like a kind of revolution
0:45:25 > 0:45:26of the most extreme sort.
0:45:33 > 0:45:34It is an amazing piece.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37It's an amazing piece because it expresses all sorts of...
0:45:39 > 0:45:40You know, the sort of gestures
0:45:40 > 0:45:43which became sort of quite central to minimalism.
0:45:43 > 0:45:46It's, you know, that sort of political aspect of it,
0:45:46 > 0:45:49in the sense that it's a kind of community project
0:45:49 > 0:45:51and, you know, there's no leader,
0:45:51 > 0:45:56and all of these sorts of ideas were sort of encapsulated in that.
0:45:56 > 0:45:58There's a great liberation that this music gives musical culture.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01Not just in the way it sounds but the way it's made,
0:46:01 > 0:46:03so that you can have a roomful of people
0:46:03 > 0:46:08and it's defined by the way they interact with each other,
0:46:08 > 0:46:09the journey through that piece.
0:46:09 > 0:46:13As much as, really more than, what the composer tells them.
0:46:14 > 0:46:17It's also, by the way, I think, a democracy of listening because it
0:46:17 > 0:46:22involves being hyperaware of one another as performers.
0:46:22 > 0:46:24And you're aware that your own contribution is, you know,
0:46:24 > 0:46:28maximally important, you have to be totally responsible for it.
0:46:28 > 0:46:31And yet, at the same time, you're also part and responsible
0:46:31 > 0:46:37for this bigger ocean that's being created by the whole piece.
0:46:37 > 0:46:42In C crystallised ideas of freedom three years before anyone heard the
0:46:42 > 0:46:44words summer of love.
0:46:48 > 0:46:51Do you think that that had anything to do with location?
0:46:51 > 0:46:53The West Coast of America has always been a place where people are more
0:46:53 > 0:46:56free to experiment, that there's less sense of judgment.
0:46:56 > 0:47:00I think you're right. It had to happen, not only in the West Coast,
0:47:00 > 0:47:03but it had to happen in San Francisco.
0:47:03 > 0:47:07My whole history of spending a lot of time in San Francisco,
0:47:07 > 0:47:13there's a kind of Pacific Rim mentality that is connected to Asia,
0:47:13 > 0:47:15whereas East Coast is connected to Europe.
0:47:15 > 0:47:17I think it had to happen where it happened.
0:47:36 > 0:47:39Terry Riley makes it very clear in his somewhat bold instructions
0:47:39 > 0:47:41to the piece that the way that the piece finishes
0:47:41 > 0:47:44is that everyone eventually in the ensemble arrives
0:47:44 > 0:47:46at extract number 53.
0:47:46 > 0:47:50And then they end up kind of in unison on extract number 53 before
0:47:50 > 0:47:52gradually disintegrating.
0:47:52 > 0:47:55So a musician will decide to cut out.
0:47:55 > 0:47:57Leaving four left.
0:47:57 > 0:48:00And then another one cuts out, and then a third, and a fourth.
0:48:00 > 0:48:02And eventually there's just one lonely player left.
0:48:02 > 0:48:04And then he or she cuts out.
0:48:04 > 0:48:07And then finally the pulse is switched off.
0:48:22 > 0:48:24With In C,
0:48:24 > 0:48:28an appreciation of minimalism began to spill beyond the fringes of the
0:48:28 > 0:48:30Tape Music Center.
0:48:30 > 0:48:33Meanwhile, the new technologies the Center had been trialling were about
0:48:33 > 0:48:34to break out, too.
0:48:41 > 0:48:44Coming into contact with this relatively new technology
0:48:44 > 0:48:48of the tape recorder and the possibility of manipulating
0:48:48 > 0:48:51recorded sound made...
0:48:52 > 0:48:55..a whole new set of things possible
0:48:55 > 0:48:56in music.
0:48:56 > 0:48:58I'm thinking particularly of Steve Reich,
0:48:58 > 0:49:02for whom the technology of the tape recorder opened up
0:49:02 > 0:49:04a whole new world of possibilities.
0:49:06 > 0:49:0928-year-old San Francisco inhabitant Steve Reich was a friend
0:49:09 > 0:49:11of Terry Riley who'd been involved
0:49:11 > 0:49:13in rehearsals for the premiere of In C.
0:49:15 > 0:49:18- TV NARRATOR:- The people of San Francisco dress well,
0:49:18 > 0:49:20walk briskly, and their friendliness,
0:49:20 > 0:49:22as much as the charm of their city,
0:49:22 > 0:49:26causes visitors to return again and again.
0:49:26 > 0:49:30In former days, Union Square was the heart of the city.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33It is still the centre of the downtown shopping area.
0:49:35 > 0:49:39In late '64, Reich heard about an extraordinary black preacher
0:49:39 > 0:49:43who could be heard every Sunday in Union Square.
0:49:43 > 0:49:46He began to warn the people, he said,
0:49:46 > 0:49:48"After all, it's going to rain after all."
0:49:48 > 0:49:50For 40 days and for 40 nights.
0:49:50 > 0:49:51And the people didn't believe him,
0:49:51 > 0:49:54and they began to laugh at him, and they began to mock him,
0:49:54 > 0:49:57and they began to say, "It ain't gonna rain!"
0:49:58 > 0:50:01Brother Walter was the black Pentecostal preacher
0:50:01 > 0:50:05who I recorded in Union Square in 1964,
0:50:05 > 0:50:07and in January '65 did the piece.
0:50:08 > 0:50:10He's talking about the end of the world.
0:50:10 > 0:50:13It's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:50:13 > 0:50:15it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:50:15 > 0:50:18it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain
0:50:18 > 0:50:20it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:50:20 > 0:50:23it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:50:23 > 0:50:25it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:50:25 > 0:50:28it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:50:28 > 0:50:29it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain...
0:50:29 > 0:50:33Now, this is 1964.
0:50:33 > 0:50:35The Cuban missile crisis was '62.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38I've mentioned this before, but it bears re-mentioning.
0:50:38 > 0:50:42And I think almost everybody in America, certainly myself,
0:50:42 > 0:50:45were thinking, you know, when that happened, you know,
0:50:45 > 0:50:48one false move and we're all so much radioactive dust.
0:50:48 > 0:50:51It's the kind of thing that stays with you.
0:50:51 > 0:50:52It's unsettling. So,
0:50:52 > 0:50:55if you hear something about the end of the world, which is biblical and
0:50:55 > 0:50:59which was contemporary, and which was musical.
0:50:59 > 0:51:02"It's gonna rain," bam-ba-da-dum, bam-ba-da-dum...
0:51:02 > 0:51:05The pigeon drummer who happened to take-off at the moment he said that.
0:51:05 > 0:51:06The pigeons...
0:51:06 > 0:51:08It's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:51:08 > 0:51:10it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:51:10 > 0:51:13it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:51:13 > 0:51:15it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:51:15 > 0:51:17it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain...
0:51:17 > 0:51:21Playing two identical loops simultaneously on old tape recorders
0:51:21 > 0:51:24that ran at slightly different speeds,
0:51:24 > 0:51:26Reich chanced upon the future.
0:51:27 > 0:51:30So, I made the two tape loops as perfectly as I could.
0:51:30 > 0:51:33In those days, you put tape into a splicing box,
0:51:33 > 0:51:34cut it with a razor blade,
0:51:34 > 0:51:36and then put the two ends together, back in the block,
0:51:36 > 0:51:38and then put some splicing tape over it.
0:51:38 > 0:51:40And then I just pressed the go button.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43And I am just glued to this process,
0:51:43 > 0:51:46going... I'm thinking, "Wow, you know, what's going on here?"
0:51:46 > 0:51:48Cos there's all kinds of irrational things and then
0:51:48 > 0:51:51you get something that really makes musical sense.
0:51:51 > 0:51:54And then there's this sort of blur and then there's more.
0:51:54 > 0:51:56And then finally you're back together again.
0:51:56 > 0:51:58Wow, you know. That's a whole lot more interesting
0:51:58 > 0:52:01than just, "It's gonna, it's gonna..."
0:52:01 > 0:52:03It's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:52:03 > 0:52:05it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:52:05 > 0:52:08it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain...
0:52:08 > 0:52:10And so that was really a chance procedure,
0:52:10 > 0:52:12even though you hadn't ordained it as such,
0:52:12 > 0:52:14it happened by chance to you.
0:52:14 > 0:52:18Well, I don't see things as ever by chance.
0:52:18 > 0:52:20I think there's no such thing as coincidence.
0:52:20 > 0:52:23The eternal's hand is at work...
0:52:23 > 0:52:25But, in no causative way, I mean,
0:52:25 > 0:52:28in no way that I could care to discuss or whatnot.
0:52:28 > 0:52:31But I think that that viewpoint makes life a little bit more...
0:52:33 > 0:52:39..liveable and optimistic and hopeful in an admittedly dark time.
0:52:39 > 0:52:41It's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:52:41 > 0:52:43it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:52:43 > 0:52:46it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
0:52:46 > 0:52:48it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain after all!
0:52:51 > 0:52:54It's Gonna Rain represented a technological breakthrough
0:52:54 > 0:52:56for minimalism, known as phasing.
0:52:59 > 0:53:01To find out how it worked,
0:53:01 > 0:53:04I've decided to replicate Reich's experiment.
0:53:08 > 0:53:10Ade and I have recorded a long synth loop
0:53:10 > 0:53:13on two rickety old tape machines.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21OK, Ade, so we've got that beautiful seven-beat sequence
0:53:21 > 0:53:24identically recorded on both of these machines.
0:53:24 > 0:53:26Yep. We've lined them up.
0:53:28 > 0:53:30- At the beginning of the sequence. - Yep.
0:53:30 > 0:53:33By finding the very beginning of it.
0:53:33 > 0:53:35All we need to do is push go.
0:53:35 > 0:53:37MACHINE PLAYS
0:53:40 > 0:53:44Due to the analogue vagaries of old-school tech,
0:53:44 > 0:53:47the tape machines play back at slightly different speeds.
0:53:53 > 0:53:55We've started off with seven notes.
0:53:55 > 0:53:58I haven't got seven fingers on each hand but if I did,
0:53:58 > 0:54:01let's say this that each one of my fingers is a note.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06They start off together like that
0:54:06 > 0:54:08and they slowly slip out of time,
0:54:08 > 0:54:11so one is falling behind the other one.
0:54:11 > 0:54:12Or...
0:54:12 > 0:54:14And so it's doing this.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17And this, when it's like that, you hear...
0:54:17 > 0:54:20That's the duh-duh-duh-duh-duh kind of rhythm.
0:54:20 > 0:54:22And then they slip back into time
0:54:22 > 0:54:25but their notes are not in sync with each other any more.
0:54:25 > 0:54:28So that's where we get our harmonies from.
0:54:28 > 0:54:30MACHINE CONTINUES PLAYING
0:54:38 > 0:54:41- It's awesome, isn't it? - It's absolutely amazing.
0:54:41 > 0:54:43- Yeah.- It gets so densely populated.
0:54:43 > 0:54:44Yeah.
0:54:44 > 0:54:46When they're really forming across each other.
0:54:46 > 0:54:49- Yeah, it's not unmusical either. - No.
0:54:51 > 0:54:54For me this is another absolutely bull's-eye example of what
0:54:54 > 0:54:56minimalism is about. That it is very busy, this.
0:54:56 > 0:54:58There's a heck of a lot of information
0:54:58 > 0:55:00coming through our senses right now.
0:55:00 > 0:55:02And yet it's incredibly transcendent.
0:55:02 > 0:55:06That's something that I've heard from all of the composers within that genre,
0:55:06 > 0:55:10that there's a kind of meditative thing happening quite a lot.
0:55:10 > 0:55:12Even with its uptight, fairly frantic music,
0:55:12 > 0:55:17there's kind of very slow melodies happening underneath this thing.
0:55:17 > 0:55:18And it's quite spiritual.
0:55:19 > 0:55:22And the smell of the hot tapes.
0:55:24 > 0:55:26Ah... Sends me into a complete paroxysm of joy.
0:55:56 > 0:56:00Phasing, repetition with gradual change over time,
0:56:00 > 0:56:04represented the start of minimalism's halcyon period.
0:56:04 > 0:56:06From the late '60s into the '70s,
0:56:06 > 0:56:09Steve Reich and new kid on the block Philip Glass
0:56:09 > 0:56:13would preside over a high court of New York minimalism
0:56:13 > 0:56:15and take it into the stratosphere.
0:56:19 > 0:56:24The composers who began it all, Terry Riley and La Monte Young,
0:56:24 > 0:56:26have continued in their own vain,
0:56:26 > 0:56:30remaining to this day happy, experimental musicians.
0:56:31 > 0:56:35What do you think of the term minimalism and do you think it applies to you in any way?
0:56:35 > 0:56:37Well, you know, minimalism, what does it mean?
0:56:37 > 0:56:39I have my definition.
0:56:39 > 0:56:41- Go on.- You want it?
0:56:41 > 0:56:43That which is created with a minimal...
0:56:43 > 0:56:45A minimum of means.
0:56:45 > 0:56:49Minimalism is that which is created with a minimum of means.
0:56:49 > 0:56:50But what do you think it is?
0:56:51 > 0:56:55What it does to me, it sounds like we're a bunch of simpletons, you know, minimalists.
0:56:55 > 0:57:01We can't be more complex thinkers, or even feelers, you know.
0:57:01 > 0:57:06So it doesn't explain the spiritual aspects to the music at all.
0:57:06 > 0:57:11And it also doesn't approach explaining who we all are.
0:57:33 > 0:57:38What the term minimalism does do, however, is help the listener.
0:57:38 > 0:57:42It's a gateway into a world of extraordinary transcendental music
0:57:42 > 0:57:44of wildly differing styles
0:57:44 > 0:57:48that could only have been born in the USA.
0:57:54 > 0:57:56We did all happen that you, er...
0:57:56 > 0:57:59All being ourselves in the '60s,
0:57:59 > 0:58:02and we all used repetition to some degree.
0:58:02 > 0:58:05But then everybody went their own way.
0:58:05 > 0:58:09I haven't kept up. I mean, in all honesty, I haven't kept up with it.
0:58:09 > 0:58:12Because it's not my favourite music to listen to.
0:58:16 > 0:58:20Next time, I go to New York and explore how Steve Reich and Philip Glass
0:58:20 > 0:58:23took minimalism into the mainstream and beyond.