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It's Gonna Rain
''It's Gonna Rain'' is a minimal music, minimalist musical composition for magnetic tape written by Steve Reich in 1965. It lasts about 18 minutes. It was Reich's first major work and a landmark in minimalism and process music. Analysis The source material of ''It's Gonna Rain'' consists entirely of a tape recording made in 1964 at Union Square (San Francisco), San Francisco's Union Square. In the recording, a Pentecostalism, Pentecostal preacher, Brother Walter, rails about the end of the world, while accompanying background noises, including the sound of a pigeon taking flight, are heard. The piece opens with the story of Noah, and the phrase "It's Gonna Rain" is repeated and eventually loop (music), looped throughout the first half of the piece. For the recording, Reich used two normal Wollensak tape recorders with the same recording, originally attempting to align the phrase with itself at the halfway point (180 degrees). However, due to the imprecise technology in 1965, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minimal Music
Minimal music (also called minimalism)"Minimalism in music has been defined as an aesthetic, a style, and a technique, each of which has been a suitable description of the term at certain points in the development of minimal music. However, two of these definitions of minimalism—aesthetic and style—no longer accurately represent the music that is often given that label." Johnson 1994, 742. is a form of art music or other compositional practice that employs limited or minimal musical materials. Prominent features of minimalist music include repetitive patterns or pulses, steady drones, consonant harmony, and reiteration of musical phrases or smaller units. It may include features such as phase shifting, resulting in what is termed phase music, or process techniques that follow strict rules, usually described as process music. The approach is marked by a non-narrative, non-teleological, and non- representational approach, and calls attention to the activity of listening by focu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wollensak
Wollensak Optical was an American manufacturer of audio-visual products located in Rochester, New York. At the height of their popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, many brands of movie cameras came with a Wollensak Velostigmat lens. Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorders were prized for their robust construction and value. In the 1960s, Wollensak was the choice tape recorder for amateur home, school, and office uses. They were produced in both stereo and mono designs. The firm was founded in 1899 by Andrew Wollensak to produce camera shutters. At its peak in the 1950s, it employed over 1000 people. The company had several owners, including Revere Camera Company and 3M Company. Wollensak ceased operation in 1972. Camera equipment Wollensak began making camera lenses in 1902. The company also produced camera shutters for large format cameras. They made shutters such as the Betax, Alphax, Optimo and, for the Graflex Corporation, Rapax. The Betax shutters were patented in 1912 and re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1965 Compositions
Events January–February * January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years. * January 20 ** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lyndon B. Johnson, sworn in for a full term as President of the United States. ** Indonesian President Sukarno announces the withdrawal of the Indonesian government from the United Nations. * January 30 – The Death and state funeral of Winston Churchill, state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill takes place in London with the largest assembly of dignitaries in the world until the 2005 funeral of Pope John Paul II. * February 4 – Trofim Lysenko is removed from his post as director of the Institute of Genetics at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academy of Sciences in the Soviet Union. Lysenkoism, Lysenkoist theories are now treated as pseudoscience. * February 12 ** The African and Malagasy Republic, Malagasy Common Organization ('; OCA ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perfect Sound Forever (magazine)
''Perfect Sound Forever'' (est. 1995) is one of the longest-running online-only music magazines. Along with Michael Goldberg's ''Addicted to Noise'' (est. 1994), it is one of the first publications to post recurring, feature-length music journalism online. PSF's origins trace back to New York freelance writer Jason Gross, who began a now-defunct website called Furious Green Thoughts (from the noted Noam Chomsky quote). The site was first hosted by the pre-Earthlink ISP Pipeline, and included articles covering politics, music and fiction. In 1995, Furious Green Thoughts was splintered into three sections, with the main title covering political (usually far-left) stories, "Assorted Realities" covering fiction and "Perfect Sound Forever" covering music. Laboring as a staff of one, Gross eventually folded Furious Green Thoughts and Assorted Realities, simplifying the zine's name to ''Perfect Sound Forever'' by the mid-1990s. PSF also moved from monthly to bi-monthly publication, wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ambient Music
Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody.The Ambient Century by Mark Prendergast, Bloomsbury, London, 2003. It uses textural layers of sound that can reward both passive and active listening and encourage a sense of calm or contemplation. The genre is said to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual",Prendergast, M. ''The Ambient Century''. 2001. Bloomsbury, USA or "unobtrusive" quality. Nature soundscapes may be included, and the sounds of acoustic instruments such as the piano, strings and flute may be emulated through a synthesizer. The genre originated in the 1960s and 1970s, when new musical instruments were being introduced to a wider market, such as the synthesizer. It was presaged by Erik Satie's furniture music and styles such as musique concrète, minimal music, and German electronic music, but was prominently named and popularized by British mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop and electronica. A self-described "non-musician", Eno has helped introduce unconventional concepts and approaches to contemporary music. He has been described as one of popular music's most influential and innovative figures. Born in Suffolk, Eno studied painting and experimental music at the art school of Ipswich Civic College in the mid 1960s, and then at Winchester School of Art. He joined glam rock group Roxy Music as its synthesiser player in 1971, recording two albums with the group before departing in 1973. Eno then released a number of solo pop albums beginning with ''Here Come the Warm Jets'' (1974) and, also in the mid-1970s, began exploring a minimalist direction on influential recordings such as '' Discreet Music'' (1975) and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Long Now Foundation
The Long Now Foundation, established in 1996, is an American non-profit organization based in San Francisco that seeks to start and promote a long-term cultural institution. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today's "faster/cheaper" mindset and to promote "slower/better" thinking. The Long Now Foundation hopes to "creatively foster responsibility" in the framework of the next 10,000 years. In a manner somewhat similar to the Holocene calendar, the foundation uses 5-digit dates to address the Year 10,000 problem (e.g., by writing the current year "0" rather than ""). The organisation's logo is , a capital X with an overline, a representation of 10,000 in Roman numerals. Projects The foundation has several ongoing projects, including a 10,000-year clock known as the ''Clock of the Long Now'', the ''Rosetta Project'', the ''Long Bet Project'', the open source ''Timeline Tool'' (also known as Longviewer), the ''Long Server'' and a monthly seminar series. Clo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Come Out (Reich)
''Come Out'' is a 1966 piece by American composer Steve Reich. Reich was asked to edit down tape footage into a form of collage for a benefit for the Harlem Six and ''Come Out'' was a byproduct of the collage's production. The Harlem Six were six black youths arrested for a murder of Margit Sugar, a Hungarian refugee, in Harlem in the weeks following the Little Fruit Stand Riot of 1964. Only one of the six was responsible while the lead witness is generally considered the actual perpetrator. Truman Nelson, a civil rights activist and New Yorker who had asked Reich to compose a sound collage that was separate from ''Come Out'', gave him a collection of tapes with recorded voices to use as source material. Nelson agreed to give Reich creative freedom with the tapes that he presented him for the sound collage. ''Come Out'' was a loop of four seconds from the more than 70 hours of tapes Nelson presented to Reich. Analysis Reich eventually used the voice of Daniel Hamm, one of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phasing (music)
Phase music is a form of music that uses phasing as a primary compositional process. It is an approach to musical composition that is often associated with minimal music, as it shares similar characteristics, but some commentators prefer to treat phase music as a separate category. Phasing is a compositional technique in which the same part (a repetitive phrase) is played on two musical instruments, in steady but not identical tempi. Thus, the two instruments gradually shift out of unison, creating first a slight echo as one instrument plays a little behind the other, then a doubling effect with each note heard twice, then a complex ringing effect, and eventually coming back through doubling and echo into unison. Phasing is the rhythmic equivalent of cycling through the phase of two waveforms as in phasing. Note that the tempi of the two instruments are almost identical, so that both parts are perceived as being in the same tempo: the changes only separate the parts gradually. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tape Recorder
An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present-day form, it records a fluctuating signal by moving the tape across a tape head that polarizes the magnetic domains in the tape in proportion to the audio signal. Tape-recording devices include the reel-to-reel tape deck and the cassette deck, which uses a cassette for storage. The use of magnetic tape for sound recording originated around 1930 in Germany as paper tape with oxide lacquered to it. Prior to the development of magnetic tape, magnetic wire recorders had successfully demonstrated the concept of magnetic recording, but they never offered audio quality comparable to the other recording and broadcast standards of the time. This German invention was the start of a long string of innovations that have led to present-day magnetic t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loop (music)
In music, a loop is a repeating section of sound material. Short sections can be repeated to create ostinato patterns. Longer sections can also be repeated: for example, a player might loop what they play on an entire verse of a song in order to then play along with it, accompanying themselves. Loops can be created using a wide range of music technologies including turntables, digital samplers, looper pedals, synthesizers, sequencers, drum machines, tape machine An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present- ...s, and digital delay, delay units, and they can be Programming (music), programmed using computer music software. The feature to loop a section of an audio track or video footage is also referred to by electronics vendors as ''A–B repeat''. Royalty-free loops can be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called composers. Composers of primarily songs are usually called songwriters; with songs, the person who writes lyrics for a song is the lyricist. In many cultures, including Western classical music, the act of composing typically includes the creation of music notation, such as a sheet music "score," which is then performed by the composer or by other musicians. In popular music and traditional music, songwriting may involve the creation of a basic outline of the song, called the lead sheet, which sets out the melody, lyrics and chord progression. In classical music, orchestration (choosing the instruments of a large music ensemble such as an orchestra which will play the different parts of music, such as the melody, accompaniment, counte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
