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In Frederic Chopin's Prelude in A-Major , the basic pattern is a rhythm:
That rhythm occurs identically eight times. Here is the first time it is played.
The stability of its rhythmic pattern gives the work consistency. At the same time, the music moves andprogresses thanks to the variety of melody and harmony. Listen to how the pattern underlies thefollowing examples:
Now, listen to the Chopin Prelude in its entirety.
Out of the eight times the rhythmic pattern is played, it only occurs the same way twice. As in the Bach , varied repetition helps to make the music both intelligible and dynamic.
The following pattern accompanies the voice in Stravinsky's Akahito from his "Three Haiku Settings" :
In the Chopin , the rhythm was repeated exactly, but the pitches changed. In the Stravinsky , both the rhythm and the pitches are repeated: thirteen times in all in this short piece!
So how is variety created? In this case, as the pattern is repeated over and over, an ever changing layer is superimposed upon it. It is as if the basic pattern is "bombarded" in different ways, disguisingits reappearance.
The first four times the pattern is played, it alone accompanies the voice.
But the fifth time, the new layer is added:
From then on, the added layer is constantly evolving. You will be able to recognize the presence of the underlyingconstant pattern, but its reappearance is camouflaged by the changing layer on top of it.
Now, listen to Akahito in its entirety:
In Bach and Chopin examples, the basic pattern is treated dynamically : Almost every reappearance is new in some way. In the Stravinsky example, the basic pattern itself is much more static. Yet the music never sounds the same because of the music superimposed on top of it is always changing. Thus, the goal of"repetition without redundancy" is accomplished in a new way.
In his work Piano Phase , Steve Reich takes Stravinsky's procedure and goes one step further: Just like Stravinsky, he holds his basicpattern completely static. Just like Stravinsky, he superimposes an added layer: But, this time, the added layeris the basic pattern itself!
The musical material of Steve Reich's Piano Phase for two pianos consists of the following pattern.
In Piano Phase , the first player remains absolutely fixed, repeating the basic pattern over and overagain. The second player plays exactly the same pattern, but gradually shifts its alignment so that it falls more andmore out-of-phase with the first player. As the second player shifts alignment, new resultant patterns are created.
As an analogy, imagine that you had two identical panels, each made of strips of colored glass. At first, you line upthe panels perfectly and shine a light through them. The sequence of colors in the panels would be projected on thewall: Let us say it is blue, yellow, red, yellow, blue. Then, you keep one panel fixed and the slide the panelslightly over: In the new alignment, the red in the first panel is aligned with the blue of the second, the blue withthe yellow, etc. When you shine a light through the panels, you get a new sequence of colors on the wall: purple, green,etc. Colors you've never seen before suddenly appear! As you can imagine, every time you shift one strip over, theresultant colors change. With startling efficiency, you can create constantly new patterns on the wall just by changinghow the panels are aligned.
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