Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Marimba
image capt	Marimba, model Antonko AMC-12
classification	Percussion instrument (Idiophone)
hornbostel sachs	111.212
range
musicians	List of marimbists
builders	List of marimba manufacturers
articles	}}

The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys (similar to a piano) to aid the performer both visually and physically. This instrument is a type of xylophone, but with broader and lower tonal range and resonators.

The chromatic marimba was developed in Guatemala from the diatonic marimba, an instrument whose ancestor was a type of balafon that African slaves built in Central America.

Modern uses of the marimba include solo performances, woodwind ensembles, marimba concertos, jazz ensembles, marching band (front ensembles), drum and bugle corps, and orchestral compositions. Contemporary composers have utilized the unique sound of the marimba more and more in recent years.

Bars

Marimba bars are typically made of either wood or synthetic material, rosewood being the most desirable. Padouk is commonly used as a more affordable alternative. Bars made from synthetic materials generally fall short in sound quality in comparison to wooden bars, but are less expensive and yield added durability and weather resistance, making them suitable for outdoor use; marimbas with wooden bars are usually played inside because the bars are susceptible to pitch change due to weather. Bubinga and mahogany have also been cited as comparable to rosewood in quality for use as marimba bars. The specific rosewood used is universally from Honduras, ''Dalbergia stevensonii''. This wood has a Janka rating of 2200, which is about three times harder than Silver Maple. The bars are wider and longer at the lowest pitched notes, and gradually get narrower and shorter as the notes get higher. During the tuning, wood is taken from the middle underside of the bar to lower the pitch. Because of this, the bars are also thinner in the lowest pitch register and thicker in the highest pitch register.

In Africa, most marimbas are made by local artisans from locally available materials.

Marimba bars produce their fullest sound when struck just off center, while striking the bar in the center produces a more articulate tone. On chromatic marimbas, the accidentals (''black keys'') can also be played on the space between the front edge of the bar and its node (the place where the string goes through the bar) if necessary. Playing on the node produces a sonically weak tone, and the technique is only used when the player or composer is looking for a muted sound from the instrument.

Range

There is no standard range of the marimba, but the most common ranges are 4 octaves, 4.3 octaves and 5 octaves; 4.5, 4.6 and 5.5 octave sizes are also available.

:4 octave: C3 to C7. :4.3 octave: A2 to C7. The 3 refers to three notes below the 4 octave instrument. This is the most common range. :4.5 octave: F2 to C7. The .5 means "half"; :4.6 octave: E2 to C7, one note below the 4.5. Useful for playing guitar literature and transcriptions. :5 octave: C2 to C7, one full octave below the 4 octave instrument, useful for playing cello trascriptions e.g. Bach's ''cello suites''.

The range of the marimba has been gradually expanding, with companies like Marimba One adding notes up to F above the normal high C (C7) on their 5.5 octave instrument, or marimba tuners adding notes lower than the low C on the 5 octave C2. Adding lower notes is somewhat impractical; as the bars become bigger and the resonators become longer, the instrument must be taller and the mallets must be heavier in order to produce a tone rather than just a percussive attack. Adding higher notes is also impractical because the hardness of the mallets required to produce the characteristic tone of a marimba are much too hard to play with in almost any other, lower range on the instrument.

The marimba is a non-transposing instrument with no octave displacement, unlike the xylophone which sounds one octave higher than written and the glockenspiel which sounds two octaves higher than written.

Resonators

Part of the key to the marimba's rich sound is its resonators. These are metal tubes (usually aluminium) that hang below each bar. The length varies according to the frequency that the bar produces. Vibrations from the bars resonate as they pass through the tubes, which amplify the tone in a manner very similar to the way in which the body of a guitar or cello would. In instruments exceeding 4½ octaves, the length of tubing required for the bass notes exceeds the height of the instrument. Some manufacturers, such as DeMorrow and Malletech, compensate for this by bending the ends of the tubes. This involves soldering smaller straight sections of tubes to form "curved" tubes. Both DeMorrow and Malletech use brass rather than aluminium. Others, such as Adams and Yamaha, expand the tubes into large box-shaped bottoms, resulting in the necessary amount of resonating space without having to extend the tubes. This result is achieved by the custom manufacturer Marimba One by widening the resonators into an oval shape, with the lowest ones reaching nearly a foot in width, and doubling the tube up inside the lowest resonators.

Resonator tuning involves adjusting "stops" in the tubes themselves to compensate for temperature and humidity conditions in the room where the instrument is stored. Some companies offer adjustment in the upper octaves only. Others do not have any adjustable stops. Still some companies (Malletech and DeMorrow) offer full range adjustable stops.

On many marimbas, decorative resonators are added to fill the gaps in the accidental resonator bank. In addition to this, the resonator lengths are sometimes altered to form a decorative arch, such as in the Musser M-250. This does not affect the resonant properties, because the end plugs in the resonators are still placed at their respective lengths.

Mallets

The mallet shaft is commonly made of wood, usually birch, but may also be rattan or fibreglass. The most common diameter of the shaft is around 5/16". Shafts made of rattan have a certain elasticity to them, while birch has almost no give. Professionals use both depending on their preferences, whether they are playing with two mallets or more, and which grip they use if they are using a four-mallet grip.

Appropriate mallets for the instrument depend on the range. The material at the end of the shaft is almost always a type of rubber, usually wrapped with yarn. Softer mallets are used at the lowest notes, and harder mallets are used at the highest notes. Mallets that are too hard will damage the instrument, and mallets that might be appropriate for the upper range could damage the notes in the lower range (especially on a padouk or rosewood instrument). On the lower notes, the bars are larger, and require a heavier mallet to bring out a strong fundamental. Because of the need to use different hardnesses of mallets, some players, when playing with four or more mallets, might use graduated mallets to match the bars that they are playing (softer on the left, harder on the right).

Some mallets, called "two-toned" or "multi-tonal", have a hard core, loosely wrapped with yarn. These are designed to sound articulate when playing at a loud dynamic, and broader at the quieter dynamics.

Mallet technique

Modern marimba music calls for simultaneous use of between two and four mallets (sometimes up to six), granting the performer the ability to play chords or music with large interval skips more easily. Multiple mallets are held in the same hand using any of a number of techniques or ''grips''. For two mallets in each hand, the most common grips are the Burton grip (made popular by Gary Burton), the Traditional Grip (or "cross grip") and the Musser-Stevens grip (made popular by Leigh Howard Stevens). Each grip is perceived to have its own benefits and drawbacks. For example, some marimbists feel the Musser-Stevens grip is more suitable for quick interval changes, while the Burton grip is more suitable for stronger playing or switching between chords and single-note melody lines. The Traditional Grip gives a greater dynamic range and freedom of playing. The choice of grip varies by region (the Musser-Stevens grip and the Burton grip are more popular in the United States, while the traditional grip is more popular in Japan), by instrument (the Burton grip is less likely to be used on marimba than on a vibraphone) and by the preference of the individual performer.

The six-mallet grip is generally a combination of these three grips. Six mallet marimba grip has been used for years by Mexican and Central American marimbists. Keiko Abe has written a number of compositions for six mallets, including a section in her concerto ''Prism Rhapsody.'' Other marimbists/composers using this technique include Dean Gronemeier, Robert Paterson and Kai Stensgaard.

The traditional instrument

In the most traditional versions, various sizes of natural gourds are attached below the keys to act as resonators; in more sophisticated versions carved wooden resonators are substituted, allowing for more precise tuning of pitch. In Central America, a hole is often carved into the bottom of each resonator and then covered with thin sheep skin to add a characteristic "buzzing" or "rattling" sound known as ''charleo''. In more contemporary-style marimbas, wood is replaced by PVC tubing. The holes in the bottoms of the tubes are covered with a thin layer of paper to produce the buzzing noise.

Traditional marimba bands are especially popular in Guatemala where they are the national symbol of culture, but are also strongly established in southern Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, as well as among Afro-Ecuadorians and Afro-Colombians.

Classical works with the marimba

Paul Creston: ''Concertino for Marimba'' (1940)

John Harbison: ''Concerto for Bass Viol'' (2005)

Hans Werner Henze: ''Five Scenes from the Snow Country'' for Marimba solo (1978)

Linda Maxey: The Artistry of the Marimba (1994)

Olivier Messiaen: ''La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ'' ("The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ"), large 10-part chorus, piano solo, cello solo, flute solo, clarinet solo, xylorimba solo, vibraphone solo, large orchestra (1965–69)

Olivier Messiaen: ''Saint-François d'Assise'' (''Saint Francis of Assisi'', opera)

Darius Milhaud: ''Concerto for Marimba, Vibraphone and Orchestra'', Op. 278 (1947)

Luigi Morleo: ''Concerto per Marimba e Archi'' (1993)

Thea Musgrave: ''Journey through a Japanese Landscape'' (1994)

Andrea Poggiali: ''Volution'' (2008)

Carlos Rafael Rivera: ''Popol-Vuh (Four Mayan Scenes for Orchestra)'', small orchestra (2005)

Steve Reich: ''Music for 18 Musicians'' (1976), ''Six Marimbas'' (1986), ''Nagoya Marimbas'' (for two marimbas) (1994)

Anders Koppel: ''Marimba Concertos 1-4'' (1995-2005), ''Tarantella' (for violin and marimba) (2001), ''Toccata'' (for marimba and vibraphone) (1990)

Ney Rosauro: ''Concerto For Marimba and Orchestra'' (1986), Concerto No. 2 for Marimba and Orchestra (2001), numerous solo works

Joseph Schwantner: ''Velocities'' (1990)

Paul Smadbeck: ''Rhythm Song'' (1984)

William Susman: ''Amores Montuños'' (2008) for flute & marimba, ''Marimba Montuño'' (2002) for solo marimba

William Susman: ''Three Different Keyboards'' (2001) for accordion, marimba & piano, ''Exposé'' (1989) for two marimbas, two violins & piano

Josef Tal: ''Chamber Music'' (1982) for Recorder, Marimba and Harpsichord

Noah D. Taylor: ''Concerto No. 1'', for Marimba and Orchestra (2003)

Augusta Read Thomas: ''Silhouettes'' (2004)

Aisha Duo: ''Quiet Songs'' (2005)

Safri Duo: ''Baya Baya''

Mitchell Peters: "Yellow After the Rain"

The marimba in other music

There have been numerous jazz vibraphonists who also played the marimba. Notable among them are Gary Burton, David Friedman, Stefon Harris, Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Locke, Steve Nelson, Red Norvo, Dave Pike, Gloria Parker, Dave Samuels and Arthur Lipner.

Marimba was played famously by Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones' songs "Under My Thumb" and "Out of Time." "Island Girl" by Elton John and "Moonlight Feels Right" by Starbuck also prominently feature the instrument. Ruth Underwood played an electrically amplified marimba in Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention. Art Tripp played the marimba on several of Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band's albums, most notably on ''Lick My Decals Off, Baby'' and ''The Spotlight Kid''. Victor Feldman played the marimba on several of Steely Dan's early albums. It is played at the start of "Mamma Mia" by ABBA. Percussionist Evelyn Glennie has collaborated with Björk and can be heard playing the marimba on ''Post'' and ''Telegram'', as well as "Oxygen". Jack White played marimba on "The Nurse", a song on The White Stripes' album ''Get Behind Me Satan''. In 2003, Marina Calzado Linage recorded an album bridging the gap between academic and popular music, ''Marimba de Buenos Aires'', featuring music by Ástor Piazzolla. In 2009, Canadian musician Spencer Krug, working under the moniker 'Moonface', released a 20 minute continuous piece called ''Dreamland EP: Marimba And Shit-Drums'' with Jagjaguwar. The recording consists entirely of marimba, drums and vocals and comprises many movements and recurring themes.

See also

List of marimba performers

List of marimba manufacturers

Keyboard percussion

Front ensemble

Xylophone

Glass Marimba

Glockenspiel

Vibraphone

Xylorimba

Marimbaphone

Crotales

Musical Stones of Skiddaw

References

External links

Science of the Marimba—Scientific aspects of its construction and performance

The La Favre 5 Octave Marimba—Physics and construction with images, sounds, animations and data

Origin of Southern African marimbas, by Andrew Tracey

Category:Keyboard percussion Category:Pitched percussion Category:Idiophones Category:Marching percussion Category:Pop culture words of Bantu origin Category:Costa Rican musical instruments Category:Guatemalan musical instruments Category:Salvadoran musical instruments Category:Mexican musical instruments Category:Melodic percussion

ar:ماريمبا bg:Маримба ca:Marimba cs:Marimba da:Marimba de:Marimbaphon et:Marimbafon es:Marimba fa:ماریمبا fr:Marimba fy:Marimba gl:Marimba it:Marimba he:מרימבה lt:Marimba li:Marimba nl:Marimba nds-nl:Marimba ja:マリンバ no:Marimba pl:Marimba pt:Marimba ro:Marimbafon ru:Маримба sl:Marimba fi:Marimba sv:Marimba tr:Marimba uk:Маримба zh:马林巴

Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich (; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimalist music. His innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns (examples are his early compositions, "It's Gonna Rain" and "Come Out"), and the use of simple, audible processes to explore musical concepts (for instance, "Pendulum Music" and "Four Organs"). These compositions, marked by their use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm and canons, have significantly influenced contemporary music, especially in the US. Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage, notably the Grammy Award-winning ''Different Trains''.

Reich's style of composition influenced many other composers and musical groups. Reich has been described, in The Guardian by music critic Andrew Clements, as one of "a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history", and the critic Kyle Gann has said Reich "may...be considered, by general acclamation, America's greatest living composer." On January 25, 2007, Reich was named the 2007 recipient of the Polar Music Prize, together with jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins. On April 20, 2009, Reich was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his ''Double Sextet''.

Career

Early life

Reich was born in New York City to the Broadway lyricist June Sillman. When he was one year old, his parents divorced, and Reich divided his time between New York and California. He was given piano lessons as a child and describes growing up with the "middle-class favorites", having no exposure to music written before 1750 or after 1900. At the age of 14 he began to study music in earnest, after hearing music from the Baroque period and earlier, as well as music of the 20th century. Reich studied drums with Roland Kohloff in order to play jazz. While attending Cornell University, he took some music courses, but he graduated in 1957 with a B.A. in Philosophy. Reich's B.A. thesis was on Ludwig Wittgenstein; later he would set texts by that philosopher to music in ''Proverb'' (1995) and ''You Are (variations)'' (2006).

For a year following graduation, Reich studied composition privately with Hall Overton before he enrolled at Juilliard to work with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti (1958–1961). Subsequently he attended Mills College in Oakland, California, where he studied with Luciano Berio and Darius Milhaud (1961–1963) and earned a master's degree in composition. At Mills, Reich composed ''Melodica'' for melodica and tape, which appeared in 1986 on the three-LP release ''Music from Mills''.

Reich worked with the California Tape Music Centre along with Pauline Oliveros, Ramon Sender, Morton Subotnick, and Terry Riley. He was involved with the premiere of Riley's ''In C'' and suggested the use of the eighth note pulse, which is now standard in performance of the piece.

1960s

Reich's early forays into composition involved experimentation with twelve-tone composition, but he found the rhythmic aspects of the twelve-tone series more interesting than the melodic aspects. Reich also composed film soundtracks for ''Plastic Haircut'', ''Oh Dem Watermelons'', and ''Thick Pucker'', three films by Robert Nelson. The soundtrack of ''Plastic Haircut'', composed in 1963, was a short tape collage, possibly Reich's first. The ''Watermelons'' soundtrack used two old Stephen Foster minstrel tunes as its basis, and used repeated phrasing together in a large five-part canon. The music for ''Thick Pucker'' arose from street recordings Reich made walking around San Francisco with Nelson, who filmed in black and white 16mm. This film no longer survives. A fourth film from 1965, about 25 minutes long and tentatively entitled "Thick Pucker II", was assembled by Nelson from outtakes of that shoot and more of the raw audio Reich had recorded. Nelson was not happy with the resulting film and never showed it.

Reich was influenced by fellow minimalist Terry Riley, whose work ''In C'' combines simple musical patterns, offset in time, to create a slowly shifting, cohesive whole. Reich adopted this approach to compose his first major work, ''It's Gonna Rain''. Composed in 1965, the piece used a fragment of a sermon about the end of the world given by a black Pentecostal street-preacher known as Brother Walter. Reich built on his early tape work, transferring the last three words of the fragment, "it's gonna rain!", to multiple tape loops which gradually move out of phase with one another.

The 13-minute "Come Out" (1966) uses similarly manipulated recordings of a single spoken line given by Daniel Hamm, one of the falsely accused Harlem Six, who was severely injured by police. The survivor, who had been beaten, punctured a bruise on his own body to convince police about his beating. The spoken line includes the phrase "to let the bruise’s blood come out to show them." Reich rerecorded the fragment "come out to show them" on two channels, which are initially played in unison. They quickly slip out of sync; gradually the discrepancy widens and becomes a reverberation. The two voices then split into four, looped continuously, then eight, and continues splitting until the actual words are unintelligible, leaving the listener with only the speech's rhythmic and tonal patterns.

A similar, lesser known example of process music is "Pendulum Music" (1968), which consists of the sound of several microphones swinging over the loudspeakers to which they are attached, producing feedback as they do so. "Pendulum Music" has never been recorded by Reich himself, but was introduced to rock audiences by Sonic Youth in the late 1990s.

Reich's first attempt at translating this phasing technique from recorded tape to live performance was the 1967 ''Piano Phase'', for two pianos. In ''Piano Phase'' the performers repeat a rapid twelve-note melodic figure, initially in unison. As one player keeps tempo with robotic precision, the other speeds up very slightly until the two parts line up again, but one sixteenth note apart. The second player then resumes the previous tempo. This cycle of speeding up and then locking in continues throughout the piece; the cycle comes full circle three times, the second and third cycles using shorter versions of the initial figure. ''Violin Phase'', also written in 1967, is built on these same lines. ''Piano Phase'' and ''Violin Phase'' both premiered in a series of concerts given in New York art galleries.

Reich also tried to create the phasing effect in a piece "that would need no instrument beyond the human body". He found that the idea of phasing was inappropriate for the simple ways he was experimenting to make sound. Instead, he composed ''Clapping Music'' (1972), in which the players do not phase in and out with each other, but instead one performer keeps one line of a 12-quaver-long (12-eighth-note-long) phrase and the other performer shifts by one quaver beat every 12 bars, until both performers are back in unison 144 bars later.

The 1967 prototype piece ''Slow Motion Sound'' was never performed, but the idea it introduced of slowing down a recorded sound until many times its original length without changing pitch or timbre was applied to ''Four Organs'' (1970), which deals specifically with augmentation. The piece has maracas playing a fast eighth note pulse, while the four organs stress certain eighth notes using an 11th chord. This work therefore dealt with repetition and subtle rhythmic change. It is unique in the context of Reich's other pieces in being linear as opposed to cyclic like his earlier works— the superficially similar ''Phase Patterns'', also for four organs but without maracas, is (as the name suggests) a phase piece similar to others composed during the period. ''Four Organs'' was performed as part of a Boston Symphony Orchestra program, and was Reich's first composition to be performed in a large traditional setting.

1970s

In 1971, Reich embarked on a five-week trip to study music in Ghana, during which he learned from the master drummer Gideon Alorwoyie. Reich also studied Balinese gamelan in Seattle. From his African experience, as well as A. M. Jones's ''Studies in African Music'' about the music of the Ewe people, Reich drew inspiration for his 90-minute piece ''Drumming'', which he composed 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, which was to be the sole ensemble to interpret his works for many years, still remains active with many of its original members.

After ''Drumming'', Reich moved on from the "phase shifting" technique that he had pioneered, and began writing more elaborate pieces. He investigated other musical processes such as augmentation (the temporal lengthening of phrases and melodic fragments). It was during this period that he wrote works such as ''Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ'' (1973) and ''Six Pianos'' (1973).

In 1974, Reich began writing what many would call his seminal work, ''Music for 18 Musicians''. This piece involved many new ideas, although it also hearkened back to earlier pieces. It is based on a cycle of eleven chords introduced at the beginning (called "Pulses"), followed by a small section of music based on each chord ("Sections I-XI"), and finally a return to the original cycle ("Pulses"). This was Reich's first attempt at writing for larger 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 premier recording of this work on ECM Records.

Reich explored these ideas further in his frequently recorded pieces ''Music for a Large Ensemble'' (1978) and ''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". 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 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. In 1974 Reich published a book, ''Writings About Music'' (ISBN 0814773583), 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)'' (ISBN 0195111710), was published in 2002.

1980s

Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage. ''Tehillim'' (1981), Hebrew for ''psalms'', is the first of Reich's works to draw explicitly on his Jewish background. The work is in four parts, and is scored for an ensemble of four women's voices (one high soprano, two lyric sopranos and one alto), piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, two clarinets, six percussion (playing small tuned tambourines without jingles, clapping, maracas, marimba, vibraphone and crotales), two electronic organs, two violins, viola, cello and double bass, with amplified voices, strings, and winds. A setting of texts from psalms 19:2–5 (19:1–4 in Christian translations), 34:13–15 (34:12–14), 18:26–27 (18:25–26), and 150:4–6, ''Tehillim'' is a departure from Reich's other work in its formal structure; the setting of texts several lines long rather than the fragments used in previous works makes melody a substantive element. Use of formal counterpoint and functional harmony also contrasts with the loosely structured minimalist works written previously.

''Different Trains'' (1988), for string quartet and tape, uses recorded speech, as in his earlier works, but this time as a melodic rather than a rhythmic element. In ''Different Trains'' Reich compares and contrasts his childhood memories of his train journeys between New York and California in 1939–1941 with the very different trains being used to transport contemporaneous European children to their deaths under Nazi rule. The Kronos Quartet recording of ''Different Trains'' was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition in 1990. The composition was described by Richard Taruskin as "the only adequate musical response—one of the few adequate artistic responses in any medium—to the Holocaust", and he credited the piece with earning Reich a place among the great composers of the 20th century.

1990s to present

In 1993, Reich collaborated with his wife, the video artist Beryl Korot, on an opera, ''The Cave'', which explores the roots of Judaism, Christianity and Islam through the words of Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans, echoed musically by the ensemble. The work, for percussion, voices, and strings, is a musical documentary, named for the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron, where a mosque now stands and Abraham is said to have been buried. The two collaborated again on the opera ''Three Tales'', which concerns the Hindenburg disaster, the testing of nuclear weapons on Bikini Atoll, and other more modern concerns, specifically Dolly the sheep, cloning, and the technological singularity.

As well as pieces using sampling techniques, like ''Three Tales'' and ''City Life'' (1994), Reich also returned to composing purely instrumental works for the concert hall, starting with ''Triple Quartet'' (1998) written for the Kronos Quartet that can either be performed by string quartet and tape, three string quartets or 36-piece string orchestra. According to Reich, the piece is influenced by Bartók's and Alfred Schnittke's string quartets, and Michael Gordon's ''Yo Shakespeare''. This series continued with ''Dance Patterns'' (2002), ''Cello Counterpoint'' (2003), and sequence of works centered around Variations: ''You Are (Variations)'' (2004) (a work which looks back to the vocal writing of works like ''Tehillim'' or ''The Desert Music''), ''Variations for Vibes, Pianos, and Strings'' (2005, for the London Sinfonietta) and ''Daniel Variations'' (2006).

Invited by Walter Fink, he was the 12th composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2002.

In an interview with ''The Guardian'', Reich stated that he continues to follow this direction with his piece ''Double Sextet'' (2007) commissioned by eighth blackbird, an American ensemble consisting of the instrumental quintet (flute, clarinet, violin or viola, cello and piano) of Schoenberg's piece ''Pierrot Lunaire'' (1912) plus percussion. Reich states that he was thinking about Stravinsky's ''Agon'' (1957) as a model for the instrumental writing.

Reich was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music, on April 20, 2009, for ''Double Sextet''.

December 2010 NoneSuch and Indaba Music held a community remix contest where over 250 submissions were received, and Steve Reich and Christian Carey judged the finals. Reich spoke in a related BBC interview that once he composed a piece he would not alter it again himself "when it's done, it's done". On the other hand he acknowledged that "remixes" have an old tradition e.g. famous religious music pieces where melodies were further developed into new songs.

In May 2011, Steve Reich received an honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music.

Influence

Reich's style of composition has influenced many other composers and musical groups, including John Adams, the progressive rock band King Crimson, the new-age guitarist Michael Hedges, the art-pop and electronic musician Brian Eno, the experimental art/music group The Residents, the composers associated with the Bang on a Can festival (including David Lang, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe), and numerous indie rock musicians including songwriter Sufjan Stevens and instrumental ensembles Tortoise, The Mercury Program (themselves influenced by Tortoise), So Many Dynamos, Do Make Say Think and A Silver Mt. Zion. Godspeed You! Black Emperor composed a song, unreleased, entitled "Steve Reich".

John Adams commented, "He didn't reinvent the wheel so much as he showed us a new way to ride." He has also influenced visual artists such as Bruce Nauman, and many notable choreographers have made dances to his music, Eliot Feld, Jiří Kylián, Douglas Lee and Jerome Robbins among others; he has expressed particular admiration of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's work set to his pieces.

In featuring a sample of Reich's ''Electric Counterpoint'' (1987) the British ambient techno act the Orb exposed a new generation of listeners to the composer's music with its 1990 production “Little Fluffy Clouds.” Further acknowledgment of Reich's influence on various electronic dance music producers came with the release in 1999 of the ''Reich Remixed'' tribute album which featured reinterpretations by artists such as DJ Spooky, Kurtis Mantronik, Ken Ishii, and Coldcut, among others.

Reich often cites Pérotin, J.S. Bach, Debussy and Stravinsky as composers he admires, whose tradition he wished as a young composer to become part of. Jazz is a major part of the formation of Reich's musical style, and two of the earliest influences on his work were vocalists Ella Fitzgerald and Alfred Deller, whose emphasis on the artistic capabilities of the voice alone with little vibrato or other alteration was an inspiration to his earliest works. John Coltrane's style, which Reich has described as "playing a lot of notes to very few harmonies", also had an impact; of particular interest was the album ''Africa/Brass'', which "was basically a half-an-hour in F." Reich's influence from jazz includes its roots, also, from the West African music he studied in his readings and visit to Ghana. Other important influences are Kenny Clarke and Miles Davis, and visual artist friends such as Sol LeWitt and Richard Serra. Reich recently contributed the introduction to ''Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture'' (The MIT Press, 2008) edited by Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky.

Upcoming projects

Reich has the world premiere of a piece, WTC 9/11, written for String Quartet and Tape, a similar instrumentation to that of Different Trains. It premiered in March 2011 by the Kronos Quartet, at Duke University, North Carolina, USA. Piano Counterpoint, a piece for solo piano and tape, is being written and recorded by Vincent Corver, pianist and founder of The London Steve Reich Ensemble for premiere in 2011–12. London Sinfonietta have also commissioned a piece with working title London Counterpoint, for ensemble and tape; an ensemble playing against a recording of themselves.

Quotations

Works

Soundtrack for ''The Plastic Haircut'', tape (1963)

''Music for two or more pianos'' (1964)

''Livelihood'' (1964)

''It's Gonna Rain'', tape (1965)

Soundtrack for ''Oh Dem Watermelons'', tape (1965)

''Come Out'', tape (1966)

''Melodica'', for melodica and tape (1966)

''Reed Phase'', for soprano saxophone and tape (1966)

''Piano Phase'' for two pianos, or two marimbas (1967)

''Slow Motion Sound'' ''concept piece'' (1967)

''Violin Phase'' for violin and tape or four violins (1967)

''My Name Is'' for three tape recorders and performers (1967)

''Pendulum Music'' for 3 or 4 microphones, amplifiers and loudspeakers (1968) (revised 1973)

''Four Organs'' for four electric organs and maracas (1970)

''Phase Patterns'' for four electric organs (1970)

''Drumming'' for 4 pairs of tuned bongo drums, 3 marimbas, 3 glockenspiels, 2 female voices, whistling and piccolo (1970/1971)

''Clapping Music'' for two musicians clapping (1972)

''Music for Pieces of Wood'' for five pairs of tuned claves (1973)

''Six Pianos'' (1973) – transcribed as ''Six Marimbas'' (1986)

''Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ'' (1973)

''Music for 18 Musicians'' (1974–76)

''Music for a Large Ensemble'' (1978)

''Octet'' (1979) – withdrawn in favor of the 1983 revision for slightly larger ensemble, ''Eight Lines''

''Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards'' for orchestra (1979)

''Tehillim'' for voices and ensemble (1981)

''Vermont Counterpoint'' for amplified flute and tape (1982)

''The Desert Music'' for chorus and orchestra or voices and ensemble (1983, text by William Carlos Williams)

''Sextet'' for percussion and keyboards (1984)

''New York Counterpoint'' for amplified clarinet and tape, or 11 clarinets and bass clarinet (1985)

''Three Movements'' for orchestra (1986)

''Electric Counterpoint'' for electric guitar or amplified acoustic guitar and tape (1987, for Pat Metheny)

''The Four Sections'' for orchestra (1987)

''Different Trains'' for string quartet and tape (1988)

''The Cave'' for four voices, ensemble and video (1993, with Beryl Korot)

''Duet'' for two violins and string ensemble (1993)

''Nagoya Marimbas'' for two marimbas (1994)

''City Life'' for amplified ensemble (1995)

''Proverb'' for voices and ensemble (1995, text by Ludwig Wittgenstein)

''Triple Quartet'' for amplified string quartet (with prerecorded tape), or three string quartets, or string orchestra (1998)

''Know What Is Above You'' for four women’s voices and 2 tamborims (1999)

''Three Tales'' for video projection, five voices and ensemble (1998–2002, with Beryl Korot)

''Dance Patterns'' for 2 xylophones, 2 vibraphones and 2 pianos (2002)

''Cello Counterpoint'' for amplified cello and multichannel tape (2003)

''You Are (Variations)'' for voices and ensemble (2004)

''For Strings (with Winds and Brass)'' for orchestra (1987/2004)

''Variations for Vibes, Pianos, and Strings'' dance piece for three string quartets, four vibraphones, and two pianos (2005)

''Daniel Variations'' for four voices and ensemble (2006)

''Double Sextet'' for 2 violins, 2 cellos, 2 pianos, 2 vibraphones, 2 clarinets, 2 flutes or ensemble and pre-recorded tape (2007)

''2x5'' for 2 drum sets, 2 pianos, 4 electric guitars and 2 bass guitars (2008)

''Mallet Quartet'' for 2 marimbas and 2 vibraphones or 4 marimbas (or solo percussion and tape) (2009)

''WTC 9/11'' for String Quartet and Tape (2010)

Selected discography

''Drumming''. Steve Reich and Musicians (Two recordings: Deutsche Grammophon and Nonesuch) So Percussion (Cantaloupe)

''Music for 18 Musicians''. Steve Reich and Musicians (Two recordings: ECM and Nonesuch), Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble (Innova), Ensemble Modern (RCA).

''Octet/Music for a Large Ensemble/Violin Phase''. Steve Reich and Musicians (ECM)

''Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards/Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ/ Six Pianos''. San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Edo de Waart, Steve Reich & Musicians (Deutsche Grammophon)

''Tehillim/The Desert Music''. Alarm Will Sound and OSSIA, Alan Pierson (Cantaloupe)

''Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint''. Kronos Quartet, Pat Metheny (Nonesuch)

''You Are (Variations)/Cello Counterpoint''. Los Angeles Master Chorale, Grant Gershon, Maya Beiser (Nonesuch)

''Steve Reich: Works 1965-1995''. Various performers (Nonesuch).

''Daniel Variations'', with ''Variations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings''. London Sinfonietta, Grant Gershon, Alan Pierson (Nonesuch)

''Double Sextet/2x5'', Eighth Blackbird and Bang on a Can (Nonesuch)

''Piano Phase'', transcribed for guitar, Alexandre Gérard (Catapult)

''Phase to Face'', a film documentary about Steve Reich by Eric Darmon & Franck Mallet (EuroArts) DVD

Further reading

D.J. Hoek. ''Steve Reich: A Bio-Bibliography.'' Greenwood Press, 2002.

Steve Reich. ''Writings about Music.'' Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1974.

K. Robert Schwarz. ''Minimalists.'' Phaidon Press, 1996.

See also

Minimalist music

Steve Reich and Musicians

Notes

References

Potter, Keith (2000). ''Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass. Music in the Twentieth Century series. Cambridge, UK; New York, New York: Cambridge University Press.

External links

SteveReich.com – Official Website

Boosey & Hawkes, Official Publisher: biography, works list, resources

London Steve Reich Ensemble – Official website

Music and the Holocaust – Different Trains

;Interviews

A Steve Reich Interview with Christopher Abbot

Two interviews with Steve Reich by Bruce Duffie (October, 1985 & November, 1995)

Steve Reich Interview (7/98) with Richard Kessler

Time and Motion: an interview with Steve Reich, by Robert Davidson, 1999

A Steve Reich Interview with Marc Weidenbaum, 1999

"Drumming" – Interview & analysis, selected as one of the NPR 100 most important musical works of the 20th century. Realaudio format, timing: 12:46, July, 2000

Steve Reich Interview with Jakob Buhre, August 2000

In Conversation with Steve Reich, by Molly Sheridan, June 2002

Steve Reich and Beryl Korot interviewed by David Allenby, 2002

An interview in ''The Guardian'', January 2, 2004

The Next Phase: Steve Reich talks to Richard Kessler About Redefinition and Renewal, 2004

"How Small a Thought it Takes to Fill a Whole Life" – An Interview with Not-So-Minimalist Composer Steve Reich on AdventuresInMusic.biz, 2005

A Steve Reich Interview with Hermann Kretzschmar on ''You Are (Variations)'', 2005

The beaten track, an interview with Reich, by Andrew Clements, The Guardian, October 28, 2005

An interview with Steve Reich on RTE television, National Broadcaster in Ireland, May 29, 2006

An interview with Steve Reich on musicOMH.com, October 2006

Interview: Steve Reich, by Joshua Klein, November 22, 2006.

"Steve Reich at 70" from NPR ''Fresh Air'' broadcast October 6, 2006 includes interview about "It's Gonna Rain", "Drumming", and "Tehillim" that first aired in 1999 and another on "Different Trains" from 1989 (Realaudio format, timing: 39:25)

"Video Interview (Feb. 2006)", Cité de la musique, Paris, France

"Two Arts Beating As One" – Interviews with Steve Reich and his wife Beryl Korot with video and audio clips, May 2009

;Listening

Steve Reich at UC Berkeley University Museum (November 7, 1970) Streaming audio

Steve Reich at the Whitney "October 15, 2006" MP3

Reich speaks about Daniel Variations for the South Bank Show

;Others

Classical Music Pages: Steve Reich biography

''A Description/documentary of Steve Reich'' from Duke University, includes sound samples and quotes

EST: ''Steve Reich'' by Roger Sutherland

Music as a Gradual Process by Steve Reich

Steve Reich: You Are (Variations) premiere in LA (October 2004)

New York Fetes Composer Steve Reich at 70 from NPR

Fascinating rhythm. Celebrating Steve Reich. Article by Alex Ross from The New Yorker.

Steve Reich & Sonny Rollins winners of the Polar Music Prize for 2007 Press release of Polar Prize announcement

Category:20th-century classical composers Category:21st-century classical composers Category:Postmodern composers Category:Minimalist composers Category:Opera composers Category:Nonesuch Records artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:ECM artists Category:Pulitzer Prize winners Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Category:Juilliard School alumni Category:Cornell University alumni Category:1936 births Category:Living people Category:Guggenheim Fellows

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is a Japanese composer and marimba player. She has been a primary figure in the development of the marimba, in terms of expanding both technique and repertoire, and through her collaboration with the Yamaha musical instrument company, developed the modern five-octave concert marimba.

Biography

Born in Tokyo, Japan, Abe began playing the xylophone while in elementary school. She studied xylophone with Eiichi Asabuki in Tokyo. At age 13, she won an NHK talent contest and began performing professionally on live radio. She attended Tokyo Gakugei University where she completed a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Music Education. She began working in the Columbia Japan, NHK and other recording studios while in college.

In 1962, she and two friends (who were also students of Asabuki) founded the Xebec Marimba Trio, performing popular music, arrangements of folk songs and some of Abe's arrangements. They recorded more than seven albums between 1962 and 1966. During this period she had her own show on Japanese television, instructing schoolchildren in xylophone playing, as well as a radio show called "Good Morning Marimba". She also began her recording career with a bang, putting out 13 albums in a five-year span.

In 1963, the Yamaha Corporation sought Japanese marimba players to assist in the design of their new instruments; Keiko Abe was chosen for her original and clear ideas of the marimba sound and design, particularly her concept of how the marimba should be able to blend in ensembles, for example, moving away from the inconsistencies and lack of focus of folk percussion instruments. Her ideas for the desired sound of the instruments guided Yamaha's design, and in the 1970s began production. In addition, at her urging, the range of the new marimba was stretched from four octaves to five, which has become the standard for soloists. Abe has been closely associated with Yamaha ever since, and their first ever signature series of keyboard percussion mallets bears her name.

Her compositions, including "Michi", "Variations on Japanese Children's Songs", and "Dream of the Cherry Blossoms", have become standards of the marimba repertoire. Abe is active in promoting the development of literature for the marimba, not only by writing pieces herself, but also by commissioning works by other composers and encouraging young composers. She has added at least 70 compositions to the repertoire. She uses improvisation as an important element in developing her musical ideas which she then uses in her compositions.

In addition to her heavy composing, touring, and recording schedule, Abe has been a lecturer, then professor, at the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo since 1970. She was the first woman to be inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame in 1993.

She uses the YM-6000 Marimba made by Yamaha: The alligators

Her music is mainly published by Xebec Music Publishing and Schott, Japan.

References

J. Michele Edwards. "Keiko Abe", ''Grove Music Online'', ed. L. Macy (accessed February 14, 2006), grovemusic.com (subscription access).

Rebecca Kite. "Keiko Abe, A Virtuosic Life: Her Musical Career and the Development of the Concert Marimba", published 2007, GP Percussion

External links

Keiko Abe's web page

Category:1937 births Category:20th-century classical composers Category:21st-century classical composers Category:Living people Category:Japanese composers of classical music Category:Women classical composers Category:Japanese musicians Category:Japanese percussionists Category:Musicians from Tokyo Category:Marimbists Category:Academics of the Toho Gakuen School of Music

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