Premiered on November 1st 2016, Steve Reich’s new work Pulse: For Winds, Strings, Piano and Electric Bass epitomizes 51 years of compositional development. Understandably, no formal or analytical discussions exist of this work, a lacuna that inspires the present research questions: Where does Pulse fall in relation to Reich’s overall style and technique? Is it a logical continuation of his compositional evolution? Does it make use of the techniques that distinguish him or does it venture into new territories? To answer these questions, the thesis combines a historical survey of Reich’s compositional output with an analysis of Pulse that considers current analytic scholarship. An overview of the literature on the composer serves to determine the separate compositional periods of his output in relation to his most employed techniques. This amalgamation allows for a historically and stylistically contextualized analysis of Pulse. The resulting synthesis not only creates a new categorization of Reich’s compositional development, but also shows that Pulse embodies a summation of the composer’s musical technique.

This thesis examines _The Desert Music_ by Steve Reich in the context of the composer's artistic perspective and advocates studying the subjective listening experience as a tool for musical analysis. Challenging conventional approaches in musicology and music theory, this work examines how a specific analytical approach in turn shapes the values assigned to that work. Systematic documentation of the author's listening experience is presented as an application of this premise and as a template to use in subsequent investigations of how other listeners respond to the work. The author concludes, mirroring the ideas implied in _The Desert Music_ itself, that instead of suppressing individual responses as opinions too myriad and divergent to be relevant, we should recognize that these reactions are products of shared cultural experience and that discussing them collectively may lead to powerful revelations about artistic meaning that may not emerge any other way.

Visual artist Frank Stella (b. 1936) said about his work, “What you see is what you see.” A member of the visual art movement known as minimalism, he is famed for his repeating black -stripe paintings. There are noticeable parallels between the concept of these visual works and Steve Reich’s (b. 1936) minimalist music, particularly Nagoya Marimbas (1994). This Honors thesis will explore the roots of minimalism in the visual arts and music, Reich’s compositional voice, the repetitive rhythmic components of minimalist music, and the challenges of arranging a percussion piece for a flute ensemble leading up to the final arrangement, Nagoya Flutes.

Det här är ett konstnärligt arbete som handlar om att producera popmusik influerad av Steve Reichs minimalistiska verk. Det inleddes med en analys av de musikaliska parametrarna harmonik, rytmik och klangfärg i tre av Reichs verk. Med resultatet från analysen som mall skapades sedan nya produktioner till tre poplåtar. Poplåtarna skrevs av författaren innan starten för detta arbete. Resultaten blev av varierande kvalitet. I vissa fall upplevde författaren att det mest lät som att man lyssnade på två låtar samtidigt. När författaren tog egna initiativ och lät ljudbilderna smälta samman mer upplevde han dock att resultatet blev bättre. I de fallen påstår han att musiken blev någonting mer än bara honom själv + Reich, den blev någonting nytt och helt unikt!

Submitted by Automa??o e Estat?stica (sst@bczm.ufrn.br) on 2017-02-22T19:41:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 FernandoBuenoMenino_DISSERT.pdf: 8006188 bytes, checksum: 5a0d410b243158db65b4b27482799ae5 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Arlan Eloi Leite Silva (eloihistoriador@yahoo.com.br) on 2017-03-07T23:11:01Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 FernandoBuenoMenino_DISSERT.pdf: 8006188 bytes, checksum: 5a0d410b243158db65b4b27482799ae5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-07T23:11:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 FernandoBuenoMenino_DISSERT.pdf: 8006188 bytes, checksum: 5a0d410b243158db65b4b27482799ae5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-03 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior (CAPES) / O presente trabalho tem por finalidade identificar, segundo a literatura e discografia, novas possibilidades de execu??o para obras minimalistas do compositor norte-americano Steve Reich, escritas entre 1972 e 1983. Mais especificamente, o artigo apresenta um estudo focado na adapta??o de algumas de suas composi??es as quais n?o foram escritas originalmente para serem executadas por um ?nico int?rprete (formato solo). A metodologia consiste na ?nalise deste repert?rio e suas respectivas t?cnicas composicionais. Posteriormente, extra?ram-se novas vers?es, com car?ter experimental, focados na intera??o entre instrumentos de percuss?o e recursos tecnol?gicos. Tais possibilidades foram implementadas atrav?s das oficinas de experimenta??o. Como resultado, gerou-se uma nova possibilidade de interpreta??o para a obra Clapping Music (1972). Deste modo, o trabalho aqui reportado visa apresentar as considera??es relacionadas ? performance, os processos utilizados para a implementa??o, assim como os resultados obtidos durante as oficinas. Concluiu-se que tais implementa??es, aliadas ? intera??o com recursos tecnol?gicos, proporcionaram ao int?rprete um maior aprofundamento do aspecto t?cnico/interpretativo, assim como das possibilidades de intera??o entre instrumentos de percuss?o e dispositivos eletr?nicos. / This study aims to identify, according to the literature and discography, new performance possibilities for minimalist works of American composer Steve Reich, written between 1972 and 1983. More specifically, the article presents a study focused on the adaptation of some of its compositions which were not originally written to be executed by a single performer (solo format). The methodology consists of analyzing this repertoire and their compositional techniques. Posteriorly, new versions were extracted with experimental character, focused on the interaction between percussion instruments and technological resources. Such possibilities were implemented through experimentation workshops. As a result, it generated a new possibility of interpretation for the work Clapping Music (1972). Thus, the work reported here is to present the considerations related to performance, the processes used to implement, and the results obtained during the workshops. It was concluded that such implementations, combined with interaction with technological resources, provided the interpreter further deepening of technical/interpretative aspect, as well as the possibilities of interaction between percussion instruments and electronic devices.

Maximal evenness was first introduced in the music theory domain by John Clough and Jack Douthett. Later, the concept was explored by others such as Dmitri Tymoczko and Richard Cohn. Although maximal evenness was first explored with respect to pitch-classes, the concept can be understood in the rhythmic domain. An explanation of voice-leading space can be found here to create a conceptual foundation before departing to the implications of maximal evenness on rhythm. This thesis will then explore the concept further by exploring music from Steve Reich and György Ligeti to demonstrate the applicability and deeper understanding of the concept.

This text explores the process of composing three compositions using harmonic processes. The purpose is to see which characteristics the music will have due to this way of composing. Central questions are how the overall structure, and the composition process itself, are affected by process-based harmony. The harmonic process in the compositions is built on the principle of changing one note to another at a time between two harmonies, a progress governed from sequences following a constructed bassline. As a point of harmonic reference, I have used Steve Reich´s Music for 18 Musicians. Concerning rhythmic elements linked to the harmonic processes, I have partly used isorhythmic techniques. The investigation shows that harmonic processes facilitate the creation of overall structure and uniformity in the compositions. The overall form, especially of larger compositions, becomes more manageable. Furthermore, the composition process itself is shortened considerably. / Denna text undersöker kompositionsarbetet i tre av mina verk som bygger på harmoniska processer. Syftet är att undersöka hur dessa processer påverkar mitt komponerande. Centrala frågeställningar är hur övergripande strukturer, samt kompositionsarbetet i sig, påverkas av processtyrd harmonik.  Den harmoniska processen i de aktuella verken går ut på att byta ut en ton i taget i övergången mellan två harmonier, ett förlopp som styrs av sekvenser utifrån en konstruerad baslinje. I arbetet använder jag mig av Steve Reichs Music for 18 Musicians som harmonisk referenspunkt. Rörande rytmiska element kopplade till harmoniska processer utgår jag delvis ifrån isorytmiska tekniker. Undersökningen visar att de harmoniska processerna underlättar skapandet av övergripande strukturer och enhetlighet i verken. Formen på framför allt längre verk blir överblickbar och mer lätthanterlig. Vidare kortas kompositionsarbetet påtagligt. / <p>Flow (2021), Andreas Nilsson, Musica Vitae</p><p>Shards of Time (2022), Andreas Nilsson, KammarensembleN</p><p>Accordeonkonsert (2023), Andreas Nilsson, KTHs Akademiska Kapell och Andreas Nilsson accordeonsolist</p>

This thesis is a response to a lacuna in musicology, namely the near absence of postcolonial and decolonial epistemologies. Employing both diachronic and synchronic perspectives, it provides a historical overview of the institutional positioning of musicology as an academic discipline founded on structures of expectation and exploitation indebted to Western imperialism. This longer historical view is accompanied throughout by an examination of ethics in its institutionalised forms, specifically in the domains of knowledge production and the university. The thesis maintains that while such ostensibly ethical underpinnings may promise redress on the basis of the violence inflicted by an imperialist past, the discourse employed in its application in fact serves to strengthen the ideological hold of Western hegemony and, in so doing, betrays the promise of reparation that ethics is ordinarily understood to encompass. The thesis examines different aesthetic and epistemological manifestations of the postcolonial, considering at length Steve Reich's string quartet, Different Trains (1988), Philip Glass's opera, Waiting for the Barbarians (2005), and Philip Miller's choral work, REwind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape and Testimony (2006). Both content and style weave these works together as they engage, by means of a post-minimalist aesthetic, stream-of-violence narratives intimately bound up with the postcolonial condition. Of particular importance in the consideration of these musical texts is the urgent necessity for epistemological transformation, marked in musicology as the lack of post- and decolonial perspectives. Finally, the thesis grapples with the (im)possibility of complicit scholarship that must, through its very expression, wound its subject.

The compositions of Steve Reich and György Ligeti both contain periodic rhythmic structures. Although periods are not usually easily perceived, the listener may perceive their combinations in a hierarchy of rhythmic structures. This document is an attempt to develop an analytical method that can account for this hierarchy in periodic music. I begin with an overview of the features of Reich's and Ligeti's music that contribute to the property of periodicity. I follow with a discussion of the music and writings of Olivier Messiaen as a precedent for the periodic structures in the music of Reich and Ligeti. I continue by consulting the writings of the Israeli musicologist Simha Arom and describing the usefulness of his ideas and terminology in the development of my method. I explain the working process and terminology of the analytical method, and then I apply it to Reich's Six Pianos and Ligeti's Désordre.

Reference to a regular pulse is one of the most common ways of measuring time in music. As the basis for tempo, meter, subdivisions, and even formal symmetry, pulse, or the sonic articulation of regular units of time, is found throughout all levels of music. In this paper, I describe how I used a structure of twelve simultaneous pulses to compose "Monolith," a recent piece for MIDI piano, Pierrot ensemble, and fixed electronics. In the first chapter, I contextualize "Monolith" by briefly examining pulse's relationship to hierarchical structure in music and the possibilities for creativity in pulse-based hierarchical structures. In the second chapter, I analyze the use of pulse in Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians," György Ligeti's "Self-portrait with Reich and Riley (with Chopin in the background), and Conlon Nancarrow's "Study No. 36 for Player Piano." In the third chapter, I describe in detail the relationship between the twelve-pulse structure and the various movements that comprise "Monolith," focusing on the relationship between compositional freedom and prescribed structure throughout the work.