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The King & Carter Jazzing Orchestra photographed in Houston, Texas, January 1921

The Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra is an example of a musical ensemble.

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music, typically known by a distinct name. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families (such as piano, strings, and wind instruments) or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles. In jazz ensembles, the instruments typically include wind instruments (one or more saxophones, trumpets, etc.), one or two chordal "comping" instruments (electric guitar, piano, or organ), a bass instrument (electric bass guitar or double bass), and a drummer or percussionist. In rock ensembles, usually called rock bands, there are usually guitars and keyboards (piano, electric piano, Hammond organ, synthesizer, etc.) and a rhythm section made up of a bass guitar and drum kit.

Classical chamber music[link]

The Kneisel String Quartet, led by Franz Kneisel, is an example of chamber music. This American ensemble debuted Dvořák's American Quartet, opus 96.

In Western Art music, commonly referred to as classical music, smaller ensembles are called chamber music ensembles. The terms duet, trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet, nonet and dectet are used to describe groups of two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten musicians, respectively. A group of eleven musicians, such as found in The Carnival of the Animals, is called either a "hendectet" or an "undectet" (see Latin numerical prefixes). A solo is not an ensemble because it only contains one musician.

Four parts[link]

Strings[link]

A string quartet usually consists of two violins, a viola and a cello. An upper string quartet features two violins and two violas. A lower string quartet features 1 viola, 2 cellos and a double bass.

Wind[link]

A woodwind quartet usually features a clarinet, bassoon, flute and oboe. A brass quartet features 2 trumpets, a trombone and a tuba. A wind quartet features a horn, flute, oboe and bassoon. A lower wind quartet features a tuba, a bassoon, a bass clarinet and a trombone.

Five parts[link]

The string quintet is a common type of group. It is similar to the string quartet, but with two violas, two cellos, or more rarely, the addition of a double bass. Terms such as "piano quintet" or "clarinet quintet" frequently refer to a string quartet plus a fifth instrument. Thus, a piano quintet is usually a string quartet plus a piano. Mozart's Clarinet Quintet is similarly a piece written for an ensemble consisting of 2 violins, a viola, a cello and a clarinet, the last being the exceptional addition to a "normal" string quartet.

Other common groupings in classical music are the woodwind quintet, usually consisting of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn and the brass quintet, consisting of two trumpets, one french horn, a trombone and a tuba.

Six or more instruments[link]

Classical chamber ensembles for more than six musicians are occasionally used, such as septets (seven musicians), octets (eight musicians), or nonets (nine musicians). However, in many cases a larger classical group is referred to as an orchestra of some type. A small orchestra with fifteen to thirty members (violins, violas, cellos, double basses, and several woodwind or brass instruments) is called a chamber orchestra In the American education system, sitting groups are known as wind ensembles or concert bands (to differentiate from marching bands). Music is similar to that of a pops orchestra, orchestrated for woodwinds, brass, and percussion. A sinfonietta usually denotes a somewhat smaller orchestra (though still not a chamber orchestra). Larger orchestras are called symphony orchestras or philharmonic orchestras.^[1]

A pops orchestra is an orchestra that mainly performs light classical music (often in abbreviated, simplified arrangements) and orchestral arrangements and medleys of popular jazz, music theater, or pop music songs. A string orchestra has only strings, i.e., violins, violas, cellos and basses.

A symphony orchestra is an ensemble usually comprising at least thirty musicians; the number of players is typically between seventy and ninety-five and may exceed one hundred. A symphony orchestra is divided into families of instruments. In the string family, there are sections of violins (I and II), violas, cellos, and basses. The winds consist of the woodwind family of instruments (flutes and piccolo, oboes and English horn, clarinets [made up of the E♭ clarinet, clarinet, and bass clarinet], saxophones, and bassoons [often including contrabassoon]) and the brass family (horns, trumpets, trombones, euphonium and tuba). The percussion family includes the timpani, bass drum, snare drum, and any other percussion instruments called for in a score (e.g., triangle, glockenspiel, chimes, cymbals, wood blocks).

When orchestras are performing baroque music (from the 17th century and early 18th century), they may also use a harpsichord or pipe organ. When orchestras are performing Romantic-era music (from the 19th century), they may also use harps or unusual instruments such as the wind machine. When orchestras are performing music from the 20th century or the 21st century, occasionally instruments such as electric guitar, theremin, or even an electronic synthesizer may be used.

Jazz ensembles[link]

Count Basie and band, with vocalist Ethel Waters, from the film Stage Door Canteen (1943)

Three parts[link]

In jazz, there are several types of trios. One type of jazz trio is formed with a piano player, a bass player and a drummer. Another type of jazz trio that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s is the organ trio, which is composed of a Hammond organ player, a drummer, and a third instrumentalist (either a saxophone player or an electric jazz guitarist). In organ trios, the Hammond organ player performs the bass line on the organ bass pedals while simultaneously playing chords or lead lines on the keyboard manuals. Other types of trios include the "drummer-less" trio, which consists of a piano player, a double bassist, and a horn (saxophone or trumpet) or guitar player; and the jazz trio with a horn player (saxophone or trumpet), double bass player, and a drummer. In the latter type of trio, the lack of a chordal instrument means that the horn player and the bassist have to imply the changing harmonies with their improvised lines.

Four parts[link]

Jazz quartets typically add a horn (the generic jazz name for saxophones, trombones, trumpets, or any other wind instrument commonly associated with jazz) to one of the jazz trios described above. Slightly larger jazz ensembles, such as quintets (five instruments) or sextets (six instruments) typically add other soloing instruments to the basic quartet formation, such as different types of saxophones (e.g., alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, etc.) or an additional chordal instrument.

Larger ensembles[link]

The lineup of larger jazz ensembles can vary considerably, depending on the style of jazz being performed. In a 1920s-style dixieland jazz band, a larger ensemble would be formed by adding a banjo player, woodwind instruments, as with the clarinet, or additional horns (saxophones, trumpets, trombones) to one of the smaller groups. In a 1940s-style Swing big band, a larger ensemble is formed by adding "sections" of like instruments, such as a saxophone section and a trumpet section, which perform arranged "horn lines" to accompany the ensemble. In a 1970s-style jazz fusion ensemble, a larger ensemble is often formed by adding additional percussionists or sometimes a saxophone player would "double" or "triple" meaning that they would also be proficient at the clarinet, flute or both. Also by the addition of soloing instruments.

Rock and pop bands[link]

The Black Keys are a two-part band consisting of drummer and a vocalist/guitarist lineup.

Two parts[link]

Two-member rock and pop bands are relatively rare, because of the difficulty in providing all of the musical elements which are part of the rock or pop sound (vocals, chords, bass lines, and percussion or drumming) with trios or quartets. Two-member rock and pop bands typically omit one of these musical elements. In many cases, two-member bands will omit a drummer, since guitars, bass guitars, and keyboards can all be used to provide a rhythmic pulse. Examples of two-member bands are The Lightning Strikers, Local H, Pet Shop Boys, Hella, Flight of the Conchords, Death from Above 1979, Francis Xavier, I Set My Friends On Fire, Middle Class Rut, No Age, The Pity Party, Little Fish (band), The White Stripes, Big Business, Two Gallants, Lightning Bolt, The Ting Tings, The Black Box Revelation, Satyricon, The Black Keys, Panic! At the Disco, Tenacious D, They Might Be Giants (until 1992), Simon and Garfunkel, Hall & Oates, and The Pack A.D..

When electronic sequencers became widely available in the 1980s, this made it easier for two-member bands to add in musical elements that the two band members were not able to perform. Sequencers allowed bands to pre-program some elements of their performance, such as an electronic drum part and a synth-bass line. Two-member pop music bands such as Soft Cell, Blancmange and Yazoo used pre-programmed sequencers. Other pop bands from the 1980s which were ostensibly fronted by two performers, such as Wham! and Tears for Fears, were not actually two-piece ensembles, because other instrumental musicians were used "behind the scenes" to fill out the sound.

Two-piece bands in rock music are quite rare. However, starting in the 2000s, blues-influenced rock bands such as The White Stripes and The Black Keys utilized a guitar and drums scheme. However, this is predated by the Flat Duo Jets from the '80s. Death From Above 1979 featured a drummer and bass guitarist. Tenacious D is a two-guitar band; One Day as a Lion and The Dresden Dolls both feature a keyboardist and a drummer. The band Welk consists of a two-man psychedelic flute band, with the occasional synthesizer. Two-person bands have grown in popularity in experimental rock music. W.A.S.P. guitarist Doug Blair is also known for his work in the two-piece progressive rock band signal2noise, where he manages to be the lead guitarist and bassist at the same time, thanks to a special custom instrument he invented (an electric guitar with five regular guitar strings paired with three bass guitar strings). Heisenflei of Los Angeles duo The Pity Party plays drums, keyboards, and sings simultaneously. Providence-based Lightning Bolt is a two-member band. Bassist Brian Gibson augments his playing with delay pedals, pitch shifters, looping devices and other pedals, occasionally creating harmony. Local H, No Age, Blood Red Shoes, PS I Love You, The Redmond Barry's and Warship are other prominent two-person experimental rock bands.

Example line-up[link]

• Lead vocals, Bass, Guitar
• Drums, Percussion, Backing vocals

or

• Lead vocals, Keyboard, Guitar
• Drums, Percussion, Backing vocals

or

• Lead vocals, Bass, Drum machine
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals, Drum machine

or

• Lead vocals, Guitar
• Bass Guitar, Backing vocals

or

• Lead vocals, Keyboards
• Lead Vocals, Bass

or

• Lead Vocals, Keyboards, Guitar
• Drums, Keyboards

Three parts[link]

The smallest ensemble that is commonly used in rock music is the trio format. In a hard rock or blues-rock band, or heavy metal rock group, a "power trio" format is often used, which consists of an electric guitar player, an electric bass guitar player and a drummer, and typically one or more of these musicians also sing (sometimes all three members will sing, e.g. Bee Gees or Alkaline Trio). Some well-known power trios with the guitarist on lead vocals are The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, Nirvana, Green Day, Violent Femmes, Gov't Mule, The Minutemen, Triumph, Shellac, Sublime, Chevelle, Muse, Short Stack, ZZ Top, and the original lineup of Wolfmother.^[2] A handful of others with the bassist on vocals include Primus, Motörhead, The Police, The Melvins, Blue Cheer, Dinosaur Junior, Rush, The Presidents of the United States of America, Venom, and Cream. Some power trios feature two lead vocalists, both of which play their respective instruments. For example, in the band blink-182 vocals are split between bassist Mark Hoppus and guitarist Tom DeLonge.

An alternative to the power trio are organ trios formed with an electric guitarist, a drummer and a keyboardist. Although organ trios are most commonly associated with 1950s and 1960s jazz organ trio groups such as those led by organist Jimmy Smith, there are also organ trios in rock-oriented styles, such as jazz-rock fusion and Grateful Dead-influenced jam bands such as Medeski Martin & Wood. In organ trios, the keyboard player typically plays a Hammond organ or similar instrument, which permits the keyboard player to perform bass lines, chords, and lead lines. A variant of the organ trio are trios formed with an electric bassist, a drummer and an electronic keyboardist (playing synthesizers) such as the progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and Atomic Rooster. Another variation is to have a vocalist, a guitarist and a drummer, an example being Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Another variation is two guitars, a bassist, and a drum machine, examples including Magic Wands and Big Black.

A power trio with the guitarist on lead vocals is popular record company lineup, as the guitarist and singer will usually be the songwriter. Therefore you only have to present one face to the public, the backing band is easy to house, and the songs will likely stay simple and accessible as the frontman will have to sing and play guitar at the same time.

Example line-up[link]

• Lead vocals guitar
• Backing Vocals, Bass
• Drums, Percussion

or

• Lead vocals, Lead guitar
• Bass guitar, Keyboards
• Drums, Percussion

or

• Lead vocals, Keyboards
• Lead guitar
• Bass guitar

or

• Lead vocals, Bass guitar
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion, Backing vocals

or

• Bass guitar, Lead vocals, Backing vocals
• Lead guitar, Lead vocals, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion

or

• Backing vocals, Bass guitar
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion, Lead vocals

or

• Lead vocals, Lead guitar
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals, Harmonica
• Drums, Percussion

or

• Lead vocals,
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals

Four parts[link]

The new Wolfmother lineup, with a vocalist/lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bassist and drummer lineup.

Red Hot Chili Peppers is a four part band with a lead vocalist, guitarist, bassist, and drummer lineup.

The four-piece band is the most common configuration in rock and pop music. Before the development of the electronic keyboard, the configuration was typically two guitarists (one lead guitarist and one rhythm guitarist, with the latter on vocals), a bassist (typically the electric bass guitar) and a drummer (e.g. The Beatles, KISS, Foo Fighters, Weezer, Metallica, The Clash, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Kinks, The Fray, Sonic Youth, The Smashing Pumpkins, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Against Me!, CN Blue, and the new lineup of Wolfmother^[2]). This is popular with bands for its versatility. However, it has been noted^{[by whom?]} the main complaint is that it takes too much effort to keep so many instruments in tune when they are played by every member of the band.

Another common formation was a vocalist, electric guitarist, bass guitarist, and a drummer (e.g.The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M., Blur, The Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Stone Roses, Creed, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Rage Against the Machine, The Stooges, Joy Division, U2 and Coldplay). Instrumentally, these bands can be considered as trios. This format is popular with new bands, as there are only two instruments that need tuning, the line-and-counterpoint formula prevalent with their material is easy to learn, four members are commonplace to work with, the roles are clearly defined and generally are: melody line, rhythm section with counterpoint melody, and vocals on top.

Some bands, such as My Chemical Romance, had previously been a five piece, but omitted a drummer after disagreements with the band, and now have a line up featuring a lead vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, and a bassist. However, the band has a touring drummer who is not an official band member. A similar scenario is with the band Phoenix, who follow the same format.

In some early rock bands, keyboardists were used, performing on piano (e.g. The Seeds and The Doors) with a guitarist, singer, drummer and keyboardist. Some bands will have a guitarist, bassist, drummer, and keyboard player (for example, Small Faces, King Crimson, The Guess Who, Pink Floyd, Queen, Coldplay, The Killers, The Monkees and Blind Faith).

Some bands will have the bassist on lead vocals, such as Thin Lizzy, The Chameleons, Pink Floyd, NOFX, +44, Slayer, The All-American Rejects or even the lead guitarist, such as Dire Straits and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Some bands, such as The Beatles, have a lead guitarist, a rhythm guitarist and a bassist that all sing lead and backing vocals, that also play keyboards regularly, as well as a drummer. Others, such as The Four Seasons, have a lead vocalist, a lead guitarist, a keyboard player, and a bassist, with the drummer not being a member of the band.

Example line-ups[link]

• Lead vocals
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion

or

• Lead vocals
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Keyboards, Backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals

or

• Lead vocals, Rhythm guitar
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion

or

• Lead vocals, Bass guitar
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Keyboards
• Drums, Percussion

or

• Lead vocals, Piano, Rhythm guitar
• Lead guitar, backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Backing vocals

or

• Lead vocals, Lead guitar
• Rhythm guitar, Backing vocals, Keyboards, Harmonica
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion, Backing vocals

or

• Lead vocal, Bass guitar
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Rhythm guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion, Backing vocals

or

• Lead vocals, Lead guitar
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Keyboards
• Drums, Percussion

or

• Lead vocals, Keyboards/Piano
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion

or

• Lead vocals,
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Keyboards/Piano, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion

or

• Lead Guitar, Vocals
• Saxophone, Vocals
• Rhythm Guitar
• Drums

Five parts[link]

The Strokes are a five-part band with a lead vocalist, two guitarists, bassist, and drummer lineup.

Five-piece bands have existed in rock music since early times. The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, AC/DC, Oasis, Pearl Jam, Guns N' Roses, Radiohead, The Strokes, Styx, The Yardbirds, F.T. Island, 311 and The Hives are examples of the common vocalist, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, and drums lineup. An alternative to the five-member lineup replaces the rhythm guitarist with a keyboard–synthesizer player (examples being the bands Journey, Nightwish, Maroon 5, Dream Theater, Genesis, Jethro Tull, The Zombies, The Animals, Bon Jovi, Yes, Snow Patrol, Fleetwood Mac, Marilyn Manson and Deep Purple, all of which consist of a vocalist, guitarist, bassist, keyboardist, and a drummer) or with a turntablist such as Hed PE, Incubus or Limp Bizkit. Alternatives include a keyboardist, guitarist, drummer, bassist, and saxophonist, such as The Sonics and Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. Another alternative is three guitarists, a bassist and a drummer, such as Radiohead, Foo Fighters (2010-today) and The Byrds. Some five-person bands feature two guitarists, a keyboardist, a bassist and a drummer, with one or more of these musicians (typically one of the guitarists) handling lead vocals on top of their instrument (examples being Children of Bodom, Sturm und Drang, Relient K and Ensiferum). In some cases, typically in cover bands, one musician plays either rhythm guitar or keyboards, depending on the song (one notable band being Firewind, with Bob Katsionis handling this particular role).

Other times, the vocalist will provide another musical voice to the table, most commonly a harmonica; Mick Jagger, for example, played harmonica and percussion instruments like maracas and tambourine. Ozzy Osbourne was also known to play the harmonica on some occasions (i.e. "The Wizard" by Black Sabbath). Vocalist Robert Brown of lesser known steampunk band Abney Park plays harmonica, accordion, and darbuka in addition to mandolin.

Line-up[link]

• Lead vocals
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Rhythm guitar, Backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion

• Lead vocals, Keyboards, Piano
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Rhythm guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion

or

• Lead vocals, Rhythm guitar
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Keyboards, Synthesizers
• Drums, Percussion

or

• Lead vocals
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Keyboards, Backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion, Backing vocals

or

• Lead vocals, Rhythm guitar, Piano
• Lead guitar, Piano, Keyboards, Backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Keyboards, Rhythm guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion, Backing vocals

or

• Lead vocals, Rhythm guitar, Keyboards
• Rhythm guitar, Backing vocals
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion

or

• Lead vocals, Rhythm guitar, Percussion, Keyboards
• Lead guitar, Piano, Electronics, Bass, Percussion
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals, Synths, Drums, Percussion
• Bass guitar, Synths
• Drums, Percussion, Backing vocal

Larger rock ensembles[link]

Iron Maiden is a six part band with a lead vocalist, three guitarists, a bassist, and drummer lineup. (Not shown in this image are Bruce Dickinson and Nicko McBrain.)

Larger bands have long been a part of rock and pop music, in part due to the influence of the "singer accompanied with orchestra" model inherited from popular big-band jazz and swing and popularized by Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.To create larger ensembles, rock bands often add an additional guitarist, an additional keyboardist, additional percussionists or second drummer, an entire horn section, and even a flutist. An example of a six-member rock band is Linkin Park with a lead vocalist, rap vocalist/keyboardist, lead guitarist, bassist, turntablist, and drummer. The American heavy metal band Slipknot is composed of nine members, with a vocalist, two guitarists, a drummer, a bassist, two custom percussionists, a turntablist, and a sampler.

In larger groups (such as The Band), instrumentalists could play multiple instruments, which enabled the ensemble to create a wider variety of instrument combinations. More modern examples of such a band are Arcade Fire and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. More rarely, rock or pop groups will be accompanied in concerts by a full or partial symphony orchestra, where lush string-orchestra arrangements are used to flesh out the sound of slow ballads.

Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca started doing performances in the late 70s with orchestras consisting of ten to hundred (Branca) and even four hundred guitars (Chatham). Boredoms did performances with 77 drummers and 88 drummers in 2007 and 2008.^{[citation needed]}

Example line-up[link]

• Lead vocals
• Lead guitar
• Rhythm guitar, Backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Drums, Percussion
• Keyboards

or

• Lead vocals, Guitar
• Lead guitarist, Backing vocals
• Rhythm guitarist
• Bass guitar, Backing vocals
• Horns (anything from saxophone to a horn section)
• Keyboards, Piano
• Drums

or

• Lead vocals
• Lead guitar, Backing vocals
• Bass guitar, Vocals
• Drums, Percussion
• Keyboards, Piano
• Rhythm guitar, Backing vocals
• DJ, Emcee, Drum machine, Sampler, Synthesizers
• Percussion

or

• Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar
• Backing Vocals, Lead Guitar
• Backing Guitar, Backing Vocals
• Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals
• Drums, Percussion
• Keyboards, Piano, Backing Vocals
• Pedal Steel Guitar, Backing Vocals
• Violin Backing Vocals

The above line-up was used by Bon Jovi during the Lost Highway tour.^{[citation needed]}

Musical drama[link]

This section requires expansion.

Sung dramas such as operas and musicals usually have numbers where several of the principals are singing together, either on their own or with the chorus. Such numbers (duets, trios, etc.) are also referred to as 'ensembles'.

Other western musical ensembles[link]

In the 20th century, the wind symphony or wind ensemble became popular, especially in academic circles. A wind ensemble consists entirely of wind instruments and percussion instruments, but may also include a double bass. Schools from elementary level onward often have a school band program which is usually centered around its wind ensemble, often known as a concert band.

A choir is a group of voices. By analogy, sometimes a group of similar instruments in a symphony orchestra are referred to as a choir. For example, the woodwind instruments of a symphony orchestra could be called the woodwind choir.

A group that plays popular music or military music is usually called a band. A group that plays while marching on a football field, without being a marching band, is called a drum and bugle corps.^[awkward] These bands perform a wide range of music, ranging from arrangements of jazz orchestral, or popular music to military-style marches. Drum corps perform on brass and percussion instruments only. Some corps perform on bugles in the key of G, while others perform on brass instruments in multiple keys, depending on the group. Drum and Bugle Corps incorporate costumes, hats, and pageantry in their performances.

Other band types include:

• Brass bands: groups consisting of around 30 brass and percussion players;
• Jug bands;
• Mexican Mariachi groups typically consist of at least two violins, two trumpets, one Spanish guitar, one vihuela (a high-pitched, five-string guitar), and one Guitarrón (a Mexican acoustic bass that is roughly guitar-shaped), and one or more singers.

See also[link]

Music portal

• List of musical ensemble formats
• Music
• Live band karaoke
• Alexandrov ensemble

References[link]

External links[link]

• Music, Historical images. From New York Public Library Digital Gallery
• Bands and Musician Listing
• Vivre Musicale

Steve Reich in 2006

Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich ( /ˈraɪʃ/;^[1] born October 3, 1936) is an American composer who is one of the pioneering composers of minimal music along with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass.^[2][3][4]

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",^[5] and the critic Kyle Gann has said Reich "may...be considered, by general acclamation, America's greatest living composer."^[6]

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.^[7]

Career[link]

Early life[link]

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.^[8]

Reich worked with the San Francisco Tape Music Center along with Pauline Oliveros, Ramon Sender, Morton Subotnick, and Terry Riley.^[9] 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[link]

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.^[10] 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 not performed although Chris Hughes performed it 27 years later as "Slow Motion Blackbird" on his Reich-influenced 1994 album Shift. It introduced the idea of slowing down a recorded sound until many times its original length without changing pitch or timbre, which Reich 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[link]

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".^[11] 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[link]

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.

	Pat Metheny "Electric Counterpoint III Fast" (1989) noicon 25 seconds of "Electric Counterpoint III Fast" performed by Pat Metheny. Composed by Steve Reich. From "Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint" album.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

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.^[13]

1990s to present[link]

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.^[14] 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.^[15]

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.^[16]

In May 2011, Steve Reich received an honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music.^[17]

Influence[link]

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^[18][19] and instrumental ensembles Tortoise,^[20][21][22] The Mercury Program (themselves influenced by Tortoise),^[23] So Many Dynamos, Do Make Say Think and A Silver Mt. Zion.^{[citation needed]} Godspeed You! Black Emperor composed a song, unreleased, entitled "Steve Reich".^[24]

John Adams commented, "He didn't reinvent the wheel so much as he showed us a new way to ride."^[25] 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.”^[26] Further acknowledgment of Reich's influence on various electronic dance music producers came with the release in 1999 of the Reich Remixed^[27] tribute album which featured reinterpretations by artists such as DJ Spooky, Kurtis Mantronik, Ken Ishii, and Coldcut, among others.^[26]

Reich often cites Pérotin, J.S. Bach, Debussy, Bartók, and Stravinsky as composers he admires, whose tradition he wished as a young composer to become part of.^[28] 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."^[29] 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.

Recent projects[link]

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.^{[citation needed]}

Quotations[link]

[...] I drove a cab in San Francisco, and in New York I worked as a part-time social worker. Phil Glass and I had a moving company for a short period of time. I did all kinds of odd jobs [...] I started making a living as a performer in my own ensemble. I would never have thought that it was how I was going to survive financially. It was a complete wonder.
—From an interview with Richard Kessler, 1998^[30]

The point is, if you went to Paris and dug up Debussy and said, 'Excusez-moi Monsieur…are you an impressionist?' he'd probably say 'Merde!' and go back to sleep. That is a legitimate concern of musicologists, music historians, and journalists, and it's a convenient way of referring to me, Riley, Glass, La Monte Young [...] it's become the dominant style. But, anybody who's interested in French Impressionism is interested in how different Debussy and Ravel and Satie are—and ditto for what's called minimalism. [...] Basically, those kind of words are taken from painting and sculpture, and applied to musicians who composed at the same period as that painting and sculpture was made [...].
—From an Interview with Rebecca Y. Kim, 2000^[31]

All musicians in the past, starting with the middle ages were interested in popular music. (...) Béla Bartók's music is made entirely of sources from Hungarian folk music. And Igor Stravinsky, although he lied about it, used all kinds of Russian sources for his early ballets. Kurt Weill's great masterpiece Dreigroschenoper is using the cabaret-style of the Weimar Republic and that's why it is such a masterpiece. Only artificial division between popular and classical music happened unfortunately through the blindness of Arnold Schoenberg and his followers to create an artificial wall, which never existed before him. In my generation we tore the wall down and now we are back to the normal situation, for example if Brian Eno or David Bowie come to me, and if popular musicians remix my music like The Orb or DJ Spooky it is a good thing. This is a natural normal regular historical way.
—From an Interview with Jakob Buhre^[32]

Works[link]

• 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)^[33]
• 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[link]

• 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[link]

• 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[link]

• Minimalist music
• Steve Reich and Musicians

Notes[link]

References[link]

• 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.
• Reich, Steve; Hillier, Paul (Editor) (April 1, 2002). Writings on Music, 1965–2000. USA: Oxford University Press. p. 272. ISBN 0-19-511171-0. 
• Reich, Steve (1974). Writings About Music. Halifax: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. p. 78. ISBN 0-919616-02-X. 

External links[link]

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Stephany Ortega is an Uruguayan beauty pageant titleholder who won Miss Uruguay 2010.^[1] Ortega also competed in Reina Hispanoamericana 2010 and finished up as a 4th runner up.

References[link]