In C

This Thursday past I got the chance to play Terry Riley's "In C" as part of the NewFound Music Festival that happened at Memorial. The piece is unlike anything I have ever played before, it has 53 cells of music that each performer plays at their own discretion. Throughout the entire time a keyboard instrument (piano/marimba/xylophone, etc.) plays octave C's in eigth notes. The performers play repete a box as much as they want, but may not go back to a box once they move on to the next one. The performers are allowed to stop and take breaks whenever they choose and what makes the piece really cool is that when you do there are two things to be heard. If you just listen to the music as a whole and not focus on anything in particular it sounds like a band warming up, just kinda noisy. But if you listen for the individual lines you can here how the cells of music are interacting and it sounds awesome!

NB