Steve Reich – Music for Pieces of Wood

I was entranced by this music. Once all claves were playing I stopped moving and blinking. I had to keep listening. I am a huge fan of percussion, so it’s no wonder I love not only this piece of Steve Reich genius, but his Clapping Music as well.

There are three distinct parts to this piece, which can be determined by their key signatures. Part one is in 6/4, part two in 4/4 and part three in 3/4. There isn’t much of the music either, just a mere 59 bars. What is most amazing about this piece is how the different rhythms blend in to each other. Without looking at the score, it’s hard to tell just when a new rhythm begins and another ends. I suppose this is helped by Reich’s performance notes, in which he states that “…when you hear that a particular pattern has become clear and absorbed by yourself and the audience, move on to the next bar.” This also removed the horrible pressure of knowing when to move bar, and removes the fear of losing one’s place in the music. Another element of this piece that I love, is that a lot of how it sounds is up to the performers’ interpretation: the tempo, the duration and the dynamics are all up to the particular performer.

An absolute joy to analyse.

Emma

 

Steve Reich’s “Music for Pieces of Wood”

When I first approached the score of this piece, I thought it would be relatively easy to listen to and analyse. This was not the case! Reich’s “Music for Pieces of Wood” is, I believe, deceptively versatile. The textural structure and dynamic organisation are constructed in a manner that makes any alterations presented subtle and difficult to identify. The shifts in beat probably don’t even affect the listener at the conscious level, and you can listen to the music in many different ways.

Firstly, you can listen to it as a musical example of foreground and background. I believe that for many parts of the piece that this is the easiest, as the most prominant parts at any particular time have the loudest dynamics. However, as the pieces of wood are tuned to different pitches, I found it was also possible to isolate each part and identify its relationship with the other parts. Thus, Reich separates the textural elements through both pitch and dynamics – which I think is very clever, and makes the music far more interesting to listen to.

Simultaneously, the individual parts can “blend in” to the texture by doubling another part. I really liked bars 27-29 when four parts were doubling one another, and three of them slowly faded away. This effect is really unusual to listen to – especially without seeing a performance! – because it changes so slowly and yet so suddenly that it made me wonder what had happened (even though I was following the score!). At one point near the end I felt tired and stopped listening “actively” (i.e., I stopped following the individual parts), to find myself immersed in a bed of sound. I loved this! If you haven’t tried this, I really recommend it! I think that Reich constructed this by ensuring that there were no rests present in that bar.

In the end, what I liked most about this piece was the fact that you could have many different perspectives on how it sounds. This, to me, makes a piece far more worth listening to and far more enjoyable than a piece where the composer allows you to only have one perspective – such as Rossini’s William Tell Overture, for instance.

Timothy