Clapping Music rhythmFirst two patterns, abbreviated; also common in other works by ReichVisualization as two discs sharing an identical pattern on a common spool. This pattern may be contrasted with itself at all positions by spinning one of the discs.
Clapping Music is a minimalist piece written by American composer Steve Reich in 1972. It is written for two performers and is performed entirely by clapping.
After a concert in Brussels during their 1972 tour of Europe, Reich and his ensemble went to a club to see a performance by two flamenco musicians on the promoter's advice. By Reich's account, the flamenco musicians were "terrible" guitarists and singers, but when they started clapping very loudly, Reich and his group, who were mainly percussionists, joined in. After the concert, Reich realized that he could use clapping as the basis for a composition which "needed no instruments beyond the human body".[1]
Clapping Music uses a variation of the phasing technique that Reich had used in earlier compositions such as Piano Phase. One performer claps a basic rhythm, a variation on an African bell pattern in 12 8 time, for the entirety of the piece. The other claps the same pattern, but after every eight or twelve bars shifts ahead by one eighth note, skipping one note or rest in the pattern. The two performers continue this process until the second performer has shifted by twelve eighth notes and is hence playing the pattern in unison with the first performer again. A typical recording of the piece, as included in Reich's Works 1965–1995 box set, lasts just under five minutes.[2]
^Justin Colannino, Francisco Gomez, and Godfried T. Toussaint, "Analysis of emergent beat-class sets in Steve Reich's Clapping Music and the Yoruba bell timeline", Perspectives of New Music, April 2009.
^Reich, Steve (1974). Pendlum Music. In Writings about Music, pp. 12–13. The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Co-published by: New York University Press). ISBN0-919616-02-X
