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Terry Riley

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Terry Riley is an American composer and performer, born in 1935 in California. He grew up in Redding and studied composition in San Francisco and at the University of California at Berkeley. He worked with La Monte Young, was involved in the San Francisco Tape Music Center, where he met Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros and others, and played in New York in Young's Theatre of Eternal Music. For a long time he travelled through Europe and played piano in piano bars to make a living.

Music and breakthrough

His best-known work is In C, a composition from 1964 that appeared on record in 1968. It consists of short melodic motifs that each musician repeats at their own pace, so that a continuously shifting whole arises. In 1969 came the album A Rainbow in Curved Air, with keyboard instruments and tape delay. After that he studied with the Indian singer Pandit Pran Nath and later explored just intonation, as in Shri Camel. He often collaborated with the Kronos Quartet and with his son, the guitarist Gyan Riley.

Influence

Riley is regarded as a pioneer of minimal music. His work, with repetition, tape delay and improvisation, has influenced experimental music, rock and contemporary electronic music. In C is therefore a good starting point for anyone who wants to hear how minimal patterns were translated into pop music.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to In C and notice the constantly recurring pulse in the high notes. Do you hear how the whole slowly changes colour while the musicians repeat their motifs?

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Mentioned in other articles

Categories: ArtistsMinimal music