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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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| The Notes Between The man behind ‘Pendulum Music’ gives feedback on microphone show By Howard Ho DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF hho@media.ucla.edu Steve Reich remains at the forefront of the musical movement known as minimalism, and his 1968 piece, "Pendulum Music," was a seminal work of the genre's early years. The piece is played with four swinging microphones that create screeching feedback when they swing by a speaker. The patterns of this screeching is determined by the performers who set the microphones in motion like a pendulum. It ends when all the microphones come to rest and are in unison. The Daily Bruin talked to him about the enigmatic piece. Daily Bruin: "Pendulum Music" is a piece that represented a certain time for you. SR: It was a one-off piece. Nowadays you could call it visual sculpture and performance art. DB: Where did you come up with the idea? SR: There was a tape recorder with a little microphone attached to it like a late '50s, early '60s Wollensack tape recorder. It started to squeal feedback when the microphone was in front of it. When it swung to either side it didn't, and the light bulb went off in my head. DB: That contradicts people's image of you as being a scientific control-freak, not intuitive. SR: Intuition is the rock bottom level of everything I've done. You could have a microphone in your hand, dangle it in front of the speaker, and when it starts to feedback, you turn it off. That's a perfectly normal reaction. Something else occurred to me partly because of who I am. I was being Western and dangling my lasso. DB: People have said it's a very impersonal piece. How would you respond? SR: It should be funny. It shouldn't be painful, which is when people get too serious. You should have short pendulums so the whole thing doesn't take longer than five to seven minutes. You should use poor fidelity equipment, poor funky equipment so that the screech isn't painful. If you do it that way, it's a really good intelligent musical joke. And there's a place for that. Interview conducted by Howard Ho, Daily Bruin Senior Staff. |
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