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e or so iW i t n e s s e d a d r a m a t i c increase in scholar-ship on musical minimalism and the music of Steve Reich.Such scholarship includes Edward Strickland's pathbreaking

history of minimalism's origins, Robert Fink's dissertation on

musical teleology (which deals extensively with minimalism),

K. Robert Schwarz's popular-press introduction to minimalist

composers, and Keith Potter's monograph on the "core"

American minimalists - La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Reich,

and Philip Glass. During the last few years in particular,

scholars have begun to address the question of Reich's use

of non-Western music, usually within broader discussions of

the relationship between non-Western music and American

experimental composition. This new attention to minimalism

Steve ReichandDiscourseonNon-WesternMusicby Sumanth Gopinath

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provides a valuable opportunity to re-examineReich's composition Drumming (1971), a piecethat is often described as both "minimalism'sfirst masterpiece" and "overtly influenced bynon-Western music."3

n the summer of 1 970, Reich traveledto Accra, Ghana, to study Ewe music at theUniversity of Ghana, Legon, with the masterdrummer Gideon Alorworye. After five weeksof hard work, taking lessons and transcribingmusic, Reich contracted malaria and returnedto New York soon afterwards. In Reich's words,the musical experience was "overwhelming,""like being in front of a tidal wave,"4 and aftera hiatus of creative activity during his stay inAccra, he began to compose again. The result- a year after his return - was Drumming. Reichand his performing ensemble premiered thepiece on December 3, 1971 at the Museum ofModern Art in New York, and received a stand-ing ovation after a one and one-half-hour longperformance. Tom Johnson, a composer andcritic for the Village Voice, attempted to explainthe audience's overwhelming enthusiasm forthe piece, citing various reasons including thework's eschewal of dissonance, unusual timbralcombinations, and sensual appeal. One ofJohnson's comments, however, speaks to a dif-ferent aspect of the work's success: "...thepleasure of seeing African and European ele-ments so thoroughly fused - almost as if wereally did live in one world."6 Johnson's ap-preciation for the fusion of musical cultures isstated explicitly in the review, a perspective thathe would favor in later articles on new music.For example, in "Music for the Planet Earth,"written on January 4, 1 973, about a year afterthe review of Drumming, Johnson states that"the single most important influence on con-temporary music...[is] the infiltration of non-Western ideas.'"'

Despite the enthusiasm Johnson showedfor Drumming, the unqualified emphasis oncultural fusion in the review might have alarmedReich somewhat. The year before, just beforehis trip to Ghana, Reich wrote in his mani-festo-like "Some Optimistic Predictions aboutthe Future of Music" of May 1 970:

Non-Western music in general and Afri-

can, Indonesian and Indian music in particu-lar will serve as new structural models for West-ern musicians. Not as new models of sound.(That's the old exoticism trip.) Those of uswho love the sounds will hopefully just go andlearn how to play these musics. '

As early as 1 968, in his now famous es-say, "Music as a Gradual Process," Reich ex-pressed displeasure with new music's empha-sis on improvisation and Indian music. In May1 969, in program notes for a concert at theWhitney Museum of American Art, Reich statedexplicitly, "I am not interested in improvisationor sounding exotic."8 A musical aestheticbased on the intersection of Western and non-Western music could be easily criticized byskeptics of musical fusion and lead to chargesof contradicting his prior aesthetic stance. Butthe above-mentioned comments in May 1 970demonstrate a shift in his distaste for musicalhybrids. In anticipation of his formal study ofEwe music - perhaps after having taken twolessons with the Ewe master drummer, AlfredLadzepko in New York - Reich apparently be-gan to articulate a solution to the problem ofmusic-cultural fusion, which had apparentlyseemed either unethical or in bad taste just ayear earlier.9

What could be the reasons for such anaesthetic shift? In his 1972 essay, "The Phase-Shifting Pulse Gate, Four Organs, 1968-1970:An End to Electronics," he describes his in-creasing dissatisfaction with electronics as acompositional resource, which came about asa result of an intense period of experimenta-tion with a new device of his own invention.After composing Four Organs (1970), Reichnoted that:

the experience of composing and thenrehearsing with my ensemble was so positive,after more than a year of preoccupation withelectronics, that another piece for four organs,Phase Patterns, happened very spontaneouslya month later in February of 1970. In thispiece the four of us were literally drummingon our keyboards in what is called a'paradiddle' pattern in Western rudimentaldrumming. This piece proved to be as posi-tive an experience as Four Organs and led,together with other factors, to a trip to Africa tostudy drumming. •

Up to that point, electronics had played

The composer's

interest in West

African music,

which intensified

just prior to his

trip to Accra in the

summer of 1970,

then found a legiti-

mized outlet in his

own compositional

practice. In par-

ticular, by positing

the type of binary

opposition between

sound and struc-

ture...

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a significant role inthe composer's output. The

"phasing" process, which served as the basis

for most of his pieces of the late 1960s, had its

origins in two pieces for tape: Its Gonna Rain

(1965) and Come Out (1966), In these pieces,

two tape loops of the same recorded fragment

are played simultaneously, and gradually go

out~af-sync due to the slight difference in the

lengths of the two loops. Reich's disavowal of

electronics was a slap in the face of the musi-

cal avant-garde that had valorized electronics

cts the future of composition. This shift required

that he find a new basis for musical composi-

tion that could match the "cultural capital" of

electronic technology.11 Various historical and

biographical factors, including Reich's prior

exposure to and appreciation of non-Western

musics as an undergraduate at Cornell and

afterwards, the increased instifutio realization of

ethnomusicology as a professional discipline,

the black liberation movement's promotion of

the politics of difference, the intensification of

the anti-Vietnam War protests, greater support

for environmentalist (and anti-technological}

causes, and the Immigration Act of 1965, which

reopened the country's doors to foreigners af-

ter forty-one years, served to make the particu-

lar historical moment one in which the ideal of

genuine musical-cultural fusion might have

been valued over electronics-based composi-

tion within Reich's community of New York com-

posers, musicians, and artists.

Reich's shift to a non-Western based mu-

sical aesthetic required that he modify his harsh

opinions about the use of non-Western musics

and promote the importance of such music as

a new basis for composition. The composer's

interest in West African music, which intensi-

fied just prior to his trip to Accra in the summer

of 1 970, then found a legitimized outlet in his

own compositional practice. In particular, by

positing the type of binary opposition between

sound and structure which is implied by his

comments of May 1970, non-Western influence

is rendered acceptable on the structural Sevei,

even as it remains unacceptable on the sur-

face, sound-oriented level.13 By shifting the

focus of his critique away from musical fusion

in general and towards surface-imitation in

particular, Reich leaves himself breathing space

to justify certain uses of non-Western music.

By 1973, Reich already had begun sys-

tematically putting into practice and reaping the

benefits of his new non-Western based

compositional approach that avoided the use

of electronics. In May of the same year, an en-

semble billed as Sfeve Reich and Musicians

gave a substantial concert of acoustical works

at the John Weber Gallery in New York, includ-

ing Clapping Music [1972) and the premiere

performances of Six Pianos and Music for |Ma3-

let instruments, Women's Voices, and Organ.

In the summer of the same year, Reich would SchwarZ P o t t e r

undertake a study of BalineseGamelan at the

University of Washington, Seattle. Thefollow- a m * Others. I n

ing year was pivotal for the composer's careen par t icular , t h e s e

Reich's group would record Drumming, Six Pi-

anos, and Music for Mallet Instruments, Wom-

en's Voices and Organ for the prestigious Reich's use o f 1 2 / 8

Deutsche Grammophon label, which recorded

various "avant-garde" composers including

KarlheinzStockhausen.13

Many comparisons

between the various

rhythmic and me-

lodic techniques in

drumming and those

found in Ewe music

have been made by

scholars attribute

meter, hocket-ing,

poly-

rhythmic structures,

and constant pulse

to his exposure tor u m m / n q (i97i) beginswith

u J • J * A * non-Western (anda single beat on a bongo arum tuned to A # ,

repeated several times in unison by two, three, part icular ly t r a d i -

orfourdrummers. Then,suddenly,anothernote A ! __ • r- v _ . . - : -tionai ewe) music.

is heard, a B, slightly after the A # , and the new

pattern repeats a number of times. Then we

find another note (also a B, just before the A#) ,

and another (a G # offer all three notes) and so

on, until we hear an energetic 12/8 pattern that

uses the pitches G # , A # , B, and C # . (See

example 1 for this sequence, in mm. 1 -8.) In

this way, the rhythmic pattern that serves as the

basis for the entire composition is built up from

a single, basic pulse. Once the complete ver-

sion of the pattern is set in motion, all but two

of the drummers drop out. The remaining pair

of drummers engage in a "phase shift" - a

characteristically Reichian technique found in

most of his compositions after Its Gonna Rain

(1965). One of the drummers begins playing

slightly faster than the other and continues do-

ing so until the two drummers are playing the

same pattern one beat "out-of-sync" (see ex-

ample 2).

Once the drummers settle into this new

configuration, a new possibility emerges: musi-

cal patterns made from the new relationship

between the two out-of-sync parts called "re-

<GLENDORA REVIEWxAMcan Quarterly on the ArtsxVoi3#No3S4>

tultant patterns." I he drummers who are notplaying one of the phased parts then play vari-ous resultant patterns, either those suggestedin the score or composed independently. Theprocess then continues, as the drummers arephased again, and new resultant patternsemerge. At one point, a rhythmic process in-verts the opening "construction" process (calleda "rhythmic reduction"), reducing the musicback to a single pulse before gradually rebuild-ing the original rhythmic pattern (with differentpitches). After proceeding on tuned bongodrums for some time, this set of musical proc-esses is then transferred to three marimbas inthe second movement, and the resultant pat-terns are sung by women's voices. The thirdmovement does the same with glockenspielsand whistling, and the final movement com-bines all groups of instruments, with the voicesand a piccolo performing the resultant patterns.The complete performance time ranges betweenone hour and ninety minutes, depending onhow quickly the different changes are made.u

Many comparisons between the variousrhythmic and melodic techniques in Drummingand those found in Ewe music have been madeby Schwarz, Potter, and others. In particular,these scholars attribute Reich's use of 12/8meter, hocketing, polyrhythmic structures, andconstant pulse to his exposure to non-Western(and particularly traditional Ewe) music.15 Agood example of this type of influence can befound in the complete 1 2/8 pattern of drum-ming (see example 1, m. 8): the upwardstemmed notes form a pattern with a different"downbeat" than the downward stemmed notes,which are played with a different hand than theupward stemmed notes.6 This technique isalso found in pieces such as Piano Phase(1 966), which suggests that Reich's reading ofA.M. Jones's Studies may have been the sourceof such ideas, rather than his later trip to Accra.

Certain aspects of Drumming, however,merit closer comparison with Ewe music. Forexample, the timbral configuration of the piecebears important similarities to and differencesfrom Ewe drum ensembles. At the most basiclevel, the emphasis on percussion instrumentsin the work was most certainly influenced byEwe music, as is well documented. ' Evenspecific choices of instruments mirrored certainimportant timbres in the Ewe drumming ensem-ble. For example, as Reich has noted severaltimes in print, the use of glockenspiels in Drum-ming reflected an earlier desire to use West Af-

rican bells (the gankogui and atolce) in his com-position. 18 Indeed, for the most part, the timbralfullness of the ensemble in Drumming was in-spired by a similar richness of sound found inEwe music, even though the inclusion ofmarimbas is not paralleled by any similar keyedpercussion in the Ewe ensemble.

An important timbral difference, however,between the Ewe drumming ensemble - say ina Drum (a performance genre) such as Gahu,about which Reich has written an essay19

and Reich's ensemble in Drumming is the lackof a deep bass sonority in the latter. In fact,Reich's mature works through Drumming orenotable in their omission of bass frequencies,and thus from a certain perspective, Reich'stimbral practice is merely a continuation of hisearlier work/1'1 However, a notable "absence"in Drumming is a function or role analogousto that of the master drummer: the performer/musician who "control[s] the dramatic effect ofthe entire performance."" The master drum-mer plays the deep bass drum (boba) in theEwe drumming ensemble, which provides atimbral foundation for the rest of the ensemble.

employing a Western transplant of the Ewe en-semble, in which the timbral and dramatic func-tion of the master drummer is omitted.

The exclusion of the "master drummer"function on a musical level suggests an inquiryinto how an analogous role is carried out orexpressed in Drumming. In the Western classi-

<GLENDORA REVIEWxAfrican Quarterly on the ArtsxVol3§No3&4><137>

cal music tradition, control over the dramaticeffect of a performance is allocated in largepart to the composer, the person who writesthe musical score to be performed. However,there are important social and cultural differ-ences between the Western composer and theEwe master drummer: in Ewe culture, the mas-ter drummer is simultaneously a creator, leadperformer, and figure of significant social sta-tus, whereas these roles are, to a large extent,separated and autonomous from one anotherin contemporary Western art music culture.22

According to Locke, "master drummer" is "atitle that refers to the musician's social status, astatus earned not only through demonstratedexcellence in performance but also throughknowledge of traditional ways of living and acommitment to community."23 Despite the pro-nounced lack of cultural integration between"the arts" and society in the West, the com-poser nevertheless plays an important socialrole within an artistic community, serving as anexus of interpersonal connections and insti-tutional affiliations that provides opportunitiesfor him/her and performers of his/her music.24

With respect to a work such as Drumming,then, it seems that Reich himself is the personwho retains the most cultural and social au-thority within his community (the downtown NewYork musical avant-garde of the early1970s).25

But the issue of authority is more compli-cated. Reich is also a performer in his ensem-ble, playing a part that is non-authoritative inthe sense that it is not distinguishable from theother parts and doesn't require any particularvirtuosity above and beyond the rest of the parts.Unlike many composers in the Western tradi-tion, Reich never maintains for himself a promi-nent solo role that reinscribes the social andcultural hierarchy between composer and per-former. The tension between Reich's authorityas a composer and his lack of authority as aperformer might in some way manifest itself inthe extreme contro l Reich exercisescompositionally over his performers: relativelylittle possibility of performer choice, no real free-dom in the performance style (a mechanicalprecision always being favored), and absolutelyno improvisation.26 While many authors, in-cluding the German critic Clytus Gottwald,have interpreted this tendency as a kind ofmusical fascism, Reich prefers to see rt as "moreanalogous to yoga," a form of control "im-posed from within."77

In fact, Reich has expressed (implicitly and

explicitly) that his "mediocre" performing abili-ties have much to do with the sound of hismusic. Henahan notes that "Reich is disarm-ing in his insistence that his musical style flowslargely out of his own limitations as a performerand a composer."28 One can sense a wistfulquality in his description of the composer (read:himself) attempting to learn non-Western mu-sic in "A Composer Looks East":

Alternately, a composer can give upcomposing and devote himself to trying tobecome a performer of some non-Westernmusic. This will take many years of study andmay, even then, only lead to mediocre per-forming abilities when judged by African,Balinese, Indian, or whatever appropriateNon-Western standards. (If the performanceof non-Western music were available formusically gifted Western children and teen-agers to study, this would then undoubtedlylead to American and European-bom virtuososof non-Western music.)29

Reich's sense of lack, concerning his ownperformance abilities, perhaps has its roots inhis attempts to improvise collectively with anensemble in the early 1960s in San Francisco.The composer must have noticed the contrastin instrumental control - essential to the suc-cess of improvisation - between John Coltrane,whom he observed at the jazz workshops inSan Francisco at the time, and himself, in hisavant-garde improvisation ensemble.30

The sublimation of Reich's desire for per-formance authority into the compositionalsphere parallels another such transference -his desire for authority as a scholar of non-Western music. A self-described "amateurmusicologist,"31 Reich has undertaken anumber of scholarly projects including ananalysis of the Ewe musical genre, Gahu, andan attempt to record performances of the He-brew cantillation tradition.32 However, Reichhas prioritized composition in his life, and asa result has never been able to produce "mas-terpieces of scholarship like Colin McPhee's'Music in Bali.'"33 In an essay on Gahu of1971, Reich adopts a somewhat apologetictone for his scholarly incompleteness, whichcame about, in part, as a result of his illness,but he seems nonetheless proud that he pro-vides "the first and at present the only tran-scription of both the Hatsyiatsya patterns andthe basic drumming of Gahu."34

Interestingly enough, Reich's experienceas an ethnomusicologist is also transmutedinto the compositional structure of Drumming.

In an essay on

6ahu of 1971,

Reich adopts a

somewhat apolo-

getic tone for his

scholarly incom-

pleteness, which

came about, in

part, as a result

of his illness, but

he seems nonethe-

less proud that he

provides "the first

and at present the

only transcription

of both the

Hatsyiatsya pat-

terns and the basic

drumming of &ahu.

<6LEND0flA REVIEWxAMcan Quarterly on the ArtsxVoi3©No3S4><138>

Example 1basic rhythmic patterns of Drumming, mm. 1-

repeat each bar several times perceived downbeat « •

X I 1 -*:

-H-WJ L

_s L * JL -* HI

-IHf^

- H *

J!

±

. il -HI

^^ HI

•, J> ,

particular, the process of rhythmic construc-n and reduction that appears at transitionaljments in the work is very similar to the kindanalytic process Reich went through while

nanscribing Ewe music. Reich describes theprocess as follows:

/ foofe daily lessons with GideonAlorworye and recorded each lesson. After-wards I would return to my room, and, by play-

or one quarter speed, I was able to transcribethe bell, rattle, and drum patterns I hadlearned. The basis for learning each individualinstrument was as follows: first I would learnthe basic double bell (gong-gong) patternwhich is the unchanging time line of the wholedrumming. Then I would learn the rattle(axatse) pattern which is quite similar to the

gong-gong pattern and also continues withoutchange throughout the entire performance.We would then proceed to the drums by myplaying the gong-gong while my teacherplayed one of the drum patterns. We wouldthen exchange instruments and I would try andplay the drum pattern while he played the bell.I found that while I could pick up the drumpatterns fairly rapidly by rote, I would forgetthem almost as rapidly. I couldn't really re-member them until I could understand exactlywhat was going on rhythmically between thedrum and bell patterns. This process of un-derstanding was greatly aided and acceler-ated by re-playing the tapes of my lessons untilI could finally write down with certainty the re-lationship between any given drum and thebell pattern. One drum after the other was

<GLENDORA REVlEWxAfrican Quarterly on the ArtsxVol3@No3&4><139>

Example 2"phasing" process

Drummer 1 gradually accelerates with each repetition until...p.

Diummer

Drummer 2

J> v J> •, -

repeat several times

10...this phase position is reached.

V J> -, J>repeat several times

learned and written down in relation to thebell until an entire ensemble was notated.35

Similar to the mastery of Ewe drummingpatterns attained by the act of transcription,Reich demonstrates a compositional "mastery"over his own materials in Drumming, by con-structing and deconstructing the basic 12/8pattern of the piece in various ways. One re-sult of this process is that, at various pointswithin the construction or reduction, differentbeats sound like downbeats (or stressed pointsof rhythmic articulation). This recalls Reich'sadoption of A.M. Jones's understanding of thevarious repeated patterns played on differentinstruments in Ewe music: "each [has] its ownseparate down beat."36

A final aspect of Drumming that revealsboth important similarities to and differencesfrom Ewe music is its relationship to languageand voice. Both musics demonstrate a signifi-cant timbral relationship between vocalized syl-lables and instrumental sounds. In Ewe music,a set of "nonsense syllables" is used to provideboth a conceptual structure to the different drumpitches and a basis from which to mimic thesounds of language.37 The importance of the"talking drum" phenomenon - the fact that lin-guistic messages can be directly communicatedthrough drumming - is not to be underesti-mated; as John Chemoff argues, *[tjhe rela-tionship of drumming to language is one of themost important factors limiting the freedom ofimprovisation."38 Reich himself was clearly

.

aware of this phenomenon, noting with gravitythat "[w]hen it is remembered that there is noindigenous written language in Africa, andwhen the talking drums are considered, it maybe seen that.. .there is actually a literal recordedhistory of these people in the drum patternsthemselves."39

In Drumming, on the other hand, "non-sense syllables" are used, not to communicatelinguistically, but rather to imitate the soundsof instruments. In Schwarz's words, "[t]hevoices do not employ any text; instead, theyare used to double and underscore the vari-ous resulting patterns that arise out of the phas-ing process."40 Thus, the valued "meaning"of the work resides not in the transmission oflanguage but rather instrumental sound.41

This completely inverted use of vocality bearsa powerful resemblance to David Locke's ap-preciation of Ewe music as "an aestheticallycharged sonic phenomenon" rather than as aform of "story-telling," a "kaleidoscopic musi-cal context of shitting aural illusions."42 Sucha description almost perfectly coincides withthe descriptions of Reich's music as a kind of*op art," a music of "dazzling, constantly shitt-ing figures,*45 and suggests that a view of Ewemusic similar to Locke's may have served asan inspiration for Drumming. It is also worthkeeping in mind that Reich's practice of trans-forming language into sound is a predilectionthat begins at least as earty as the previously-mentioned tape pieces Its Gonna Rain (1965)

<GLENDORA REVEWxAfriean Quarterly on the ArtaxVof3«fto344>< 1 4 0 >

e compositions,fragments of speech are repeated and phasednumerous times, and are ultimately de-signi-fied and liquidated into impressive sonic pano-

IVSPI these various aspects ofDrumming ~ the typically Reichian techniqueof phasing, the various technical influences ofEwe music, the sublimated performer andethnomusicological impulses, and the disso-ciation from language - how does one goabout constructing an interpretation of thepiece? In my view, one can begin to makesense of the work by positing a crude narrativethat situates the various elements in a tempo-ral and hierarchical framework. For example,the fact that Drumming begins with the "tran-scription" moment suggests to me a state ofethnographic discovery, in which the music is"put together" by the ethnomusicologist-com-poser protagonist.45 However, the music thatis "discovered" is not Ewe music (or any non-Western music) but rather the music of the com-poser (Steve Reich) himself, which constitutesan already-formed musical style inextricablylinked to Ewe music. In particular, immedi-ately after the opening "transcription" momentpasses (mm. 1 -8), we hear a rhythmically com-plex 12/8 drum pattern that undergoes a typi-cally Reichian phasing process and includesthe use of "resultant patterns." Excepting thedifferent timbral effects of the drums, the musicsounds quite similar to his earlier pieces, Pi-ano Phase (1967) or Violin Phase (1967).During the course of the four movements ofDrumming, the timbres of this "discovered"(read: constructed) music are also graduallyassembled (tuned bongo drums, marimbas/women's voices, glockenspiels/whistling, andall groups together), until a conglomerate,pseudo-ethnic Reichian ensemble is found atthe end of the piece, replete with a birdsong-like resultant pattern played on the piccolo/6

In other words, one might view Drumming asan ethnographic fantasy of self-validation, inwhich the narrative subject transcribes andanalyzes the "music" in question only to "find"

(i.e., construct) himself- perhaps playing his

own music in a vaguely "exotic" context. Such

an interpretation mirrors Reich's own descrip-

tion of the effect that his trip to Ghana had on

his music:The question often arises as to what in-

fluence my visit to Africa had on Drumming?The answer is confirmation. It confirmed myintuition that acoustic instruments could beused to produce music that was genuinelyricher in sound than that produced byelectronic instruments, as well as confirmingmy natural inclination towards percussion."'7

The interpretation of Drumming as beingprofoundly ethnomusicological speaks to itsmoment in U.S. cultural history. As TomJohnson noted, "almost all of the composers[in the New York avant-garde of the 1 970s]had a keen interest in non-Western music, and... their interaction with ethnic music andethnomusicologists was crucial in the evolu-tion of this music at this time."45 Indeed, manymusicians, including jazz players and popularmusicians, negotiated the boundary betweenWest and non-West through innumerable at-tempts at musical-cultural fusion.J" The his-torical moment is also central to Reich's ca-reer, redirecting his enduring preoccupationwith (and possible self-definition through) TheOther, from an "internal other" (African Ameri-cans) in his pieces of the early to mid-1 960s toan "external other" (West Africans) in Drum-ming and beyond." And when we recall thatReich's music both directly inspired ambientand New Age musicians and generated amarket for itself, one begins to realize the im-portant links between ethnomusicology and themusic industry, which were realized in moreways than simply the creation of a nascent"world music" market."1 Indeed, ClytusGottwald's dystopic critique of Reich's com-positions as an industrialized non-Westernmusic would augur the future imitations ofpieces such as Music for Eighteen Musicians(1976), which would go on to sell 20,000 cop-ies in its first year of release."2

The previously outlined historical contextmight provide a way of assessing the culturalimpact of a work like Drumming without eitherignoring the influence of Ewe traditional musicon Reich's composition or simply characteriz-ing this influence as a "good" act ofmulticultural hybridity or a "bad" act of ap-propriation.1-' Reich himself has discussed themost negative of these interpretations, notingthat his ostensible "skimming the surface off of

While I do not be-

lieve that Reich's

sound/structure

opposition is either a

valid measure of

(un)ethical appro-

priation or an accu-

rate description of

his own music (which

does resemble cer-

tain Ewe perform-

ance genres in some

ways), Reich's act(s)

of appropriation

must be situated

within the context

of Western

(post)modernity

itself.

<GLEND0RA REVIEWxAfrican Quarterly on the ArtsxVol3@No3&4>

another art form" would make him "as guiltyas Picasso was when he looked at Africansculpture.KS4 More recently, Reich has men-tioned the term "cultural imperialism," suggest-ing a full awareness that some scholars andwriters critique the ethics of Western cultural in-teraction with the non-West.55 cc56 In JamesClifford's view, the West has long been an "in-terconnected world," and thereby, "to varyingdegrees, 'inauthentic'" - at least since the earlytwentieth century.57

Even if appropriation were simply an una-voidable fact of such a world, two particularaspects of Reich's intersection with the music ofthe non-Western Other, especially Ewe music,are worthy of mention. The first is that the"ethnomusicological moment* of the late 60sand early 70s in the U.S. was one in whichcomposers and enthusiasts gained greater ac-cess to the music of non-Western cultures,thereby democratizing a sphere of cultural in-teraction previously controlled by academic andinstitutional figures.58 The second aspect ofReich's interaction with Ewe music is that hisinteraction was predicated on a search for ori-gins - particularly those of African Americans.In particular, Reich has noted that in 1970 Iwas still thinking about [African musical influ-ences on his own work] and about non-West-ern civilization generally, and beginning toappreciate its importance. Undoubtedly itgrew out of an interest in jazz and an interestin American black people. ... The interest inAfrican music was very much a feeling (par-ticularly with Coltrane in his late music) thatAmerican black culture was simply a Europeanoverlay on an African culture.59

Such a fact might suggest that Reich'sthinking at the time worked within what EdwardSaid has called "the symmetry of redemption"- which I would (misinterpret as the possibilityof self-discovery or validation through the re-covery of origins.60 Clifford points out that[q]uestionable acts of purification are involvedin any attainment of a promised land, returnto "original" sources, or gathering up of a truetradition. Such claims to purity are in any eventalways subverted by the need to stage airthen-ticity in opposition to external, often dominat-ing alternatives.61

Of course, the authenticity "staged" byReich's use of Ewe music, which was realizedthrough the sound/structure dichotomy, sug-gested the immediate paradox that the musical"origins" being sought were not related to thecomposer's personal heritage - pointing to-

ward the possibility of Reich's rediscovery of his ,|Jewish ancestry. For these and other reasons, *Drumming seems to stand on the brink of abroad set of cultural and personal changes thatthe world and composer would undergo throughthe turbulent decade of the 1970s.GR

Notes

I would like to thank Michael Veal, Patrick McCreless,James Hepokoski, Michael Klein, Matthew McDonald, EricDrott, and Gabrielle Gopinath for helpful suggestions andcomments.

1 See Edward Strickland, Minimalism:Origins(Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1993); RobertFink, "Arrows of Desire': Long-Range Linear Structure andthe Transformation of Musical Energy" (Ph.D. diss.,University of California at Berkeley, 1994); K. RobertSchwarz, Minimalists (London: Phaidon, 1996); and KeithPotter, Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, TenyRiley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000).

2 Some of the cultural-theoretical treatments of non-Westemmusic in American experimentalism that discuss Reich'swork include David Nicholls, Transethnicism and theAmerican Experimental Tradition," The Musical Quarterly80/4 (Winter 1996), 569-94; Alex Lubet, "IndeterminateOrigins: A Cultural Theory of American ExperimentalMusic," in Perspectives on American Music Since 1950,ed. James R. Heintze (New York and London: GarlandPublishing, 1999), 95-140; and John Corbett, "ExperimentalOriental: New Music and Other Others," in Western Musicand Its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropria-tion in Music, ed. Georgina Born and David Hesmondhalgh(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 163-186.Considering non-English scholarship, one might includeSylvie Lannes, "Com de Berio et Drumming de Reich:Deux compositions integrant les polyrythmies africaines,comme experience de renouveau musical," CanadianUniversity Music Review/Revue de musique desuniverses canadiennes 11/1 (1991), 101-127, which doesattempt to map out some of the relationships betweenReich's music and Ewe drumming.

5 Schwarz, Minimalists, 73, 75.

4 Steve Reich, "An Interview with Composer SteveReich," interview by Emily Wasserman, Artforum 10/9(May 1972), 48.

s The description of the premiere of Dnimming comes froma number of accounts, including K. Robert Schwarz,'Steve Reich: Music as a Gradual Process, Part II*Perspectives of New Music 20 (1981-82), 233; EdwardStrickland, Minimalism:Origins (Bloomington, IndianaUniversity Press, 1993), 224-5; and Tom Johnson, "SteveReich's 'Drumming,'" Village Voice, 9 December 1971,reprinted in The Voice of New Music: New York City 1972-1982: A Collection of Articles Originally Published in theVillage Voice (Eindhoven, The Netherlands: Het Apollohuis,1989), 26-7: citation in The Voice of New Music, 26.

9 The Voice of New Music. 56.

7 Steve Reich, Writings about Music (New York: NewYork University Press. 1974), 28. Many of Reich'swritings in this volume read like manifestos.

' Writings about Music. 11, 44,

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.... tfcSphmDahfhaus argues that

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7 {discussion of "resulting [

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patterns are typical ol Ewe music in general

Tenzer. "Western Music in the Context ol We

Modem Times: From World War I to the Present, ed.

RoBerl P. Morgan (Basingstoke: Macmillan. 1993). 102.

and Writings about Music, 34,

' David Locke's suggestion that there isn't necessarily

more than one downbeat in Ewe music is relevant here

See HIS comments in Drum Gahu An Introduction to

African Rhyrhrn iTempe. A2 ami Gilsum, NH: White Clitt

Media, 1998), 19, 34-6.

" Reich mentions the trip as the source of his use of

drums in Talking Music, 305.

» Wasserman. 47 [T]he giocke

my bells as opposed to those Afri

" "Gahu: A Dance of the Ewe Tribe In (

Source Magazine 10 (Fa8 1972), reprinted in

Musk, 29-37.

» Reich discusses the tack of bass tines and bass

frequencies in his earlier music with Duckwoitts in S f t n g

Music, 310-311.

" Locke, Drum Gahu, 68.

factions acts m tension with his more

wises (manifested in precision and

r example. Banes discusses the a\

ixus. which appeared in New York

on "amateurization" (61). i

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1975), 5;

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unpublished interview with £v Grimes, December 15-16, 1986. New York.NY, Major Figures in American Music Series, Oat History of American Music.Yale University, no. 186 a-t, 134,88 Henahan, 0 1 3 .29 Steve Reich, "A Composer Looks East," New York Turns, 2 September1873,0 9.30 Strickland, 183 (seeing Coltrane perform in San Francisco). Reich speaks

disparagingly of his early improvisation ensemble, noting: "Jupmateiy, I felt itwas kind of vapid and didn't realty have enough musical content.' In TalkingMusk, 295. The sense of performance inferiority seems to to a common traitin many American experimental composers and is possibly symptomatic oft ie encounter between white Western enthusiast-composers and nonwhHe ornon-Western virtuoso improviser-performers. For example, the composerCatherine Christer Henrtix recently commented on Pandit Prat Nath - theIndian virtuoso singer who taught La Monte Young and Terry Riley - noting, "Iremember La Monte playing {for Plan Nath} John Coltrane and he was verytaken with Mm, he could lee) the enormous soul behind Cottrane's music. ButI don't think he feri we were up to Cottrane's level. He thought probably weshould have practised tuning the tambura and singing our scales instead ofdoing our own adventures.* Quoted in Marcus Boon, Infinity's Pathfinder,*The Wire, September 2001,43.

31 "Steve Reich in Conversation with Philip Dadson," interview by PhilipDadson, Music in New Zealand 9 (Winter 1990), 30.32 See Writings, 29-37. and Schwarz. Minimalists, 34.

''"A Composer Looks East,' D 9.

« Writings about Music, 34.

36 Ibid., 32. For example, in Vie opening rhythmic construction of Drumming{in example t ) , the downbeat first appears on beat 9 (with the A#) in m. 1.then, the downbeat shifts to the B on beat 11 in m. 2, and is reinforced in m.3. in m. 4, however, the downbeat shifts to beat 1 (with the G#), ami, for me,

37 John Milter Chernoff, African Rhythm and African Sensibility: Aestheticsand Social Action in African Musical Idioms (Chicago and London: Universityof Chicago Press, 1978), 75-79.

* lbkt, 7S, 81.

» Writings about Music, 37.

* Schwarz, "Steve Reich, Part IP 237.41 As Michael Klein has noted to me, the separation of sound from language ispart of a larger modernist musical tradition that seems intent upon strippingsounds of their coded meanings.42 Locke, Orm Gahu, 7.43 Schwarz, "Steve Reich, Part r 385.

" David Schwarz notes that "It s Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966)use repetition obsessively to strip meaning just as it is about to take shape,*in l istening Subjects: Semiotics, Psychoanalysis, and the Music of JohnAdams and Steve Reich,* Perspectives of New Music 31/2 {Summer 1993),43. Ateo, the racial aspect of W s treatment of language should not gounnoticed. In the two tape pieces, the recorded fragments are of African-American voices, and Reich's denaturing of African musical language revestsa strange tendency to represent the removal of "black* voices, which areinstead transformed into 'pure* sound. This tendency, whether a subcon-scious reification or conscious critique of Western civilization, might beunderstood within the context of Reich's implicit musical interest in theproblems of "race." Lloyd VMteseii interprets these compositional proceduresin the tape pieces as implicitly representing racial "whiteness;* see "WhiteNoise: Race and Erasure in the Cultural Avant-Garde," American Musks 19/2(Summer 2001), 176-77.

49 Eric Drott suggested to me that this moment might ateo be one that evokesmusic's historical and conceptual "origins," a kind of cmatio ex nihito thatposits Reich's own musk: as the teleotogical endpoint of an evolutionaryprogression from •primWveness."

" This resultant pattern played by the piccolo is quite prominent on the

Reich's most recent recording of Drumming. See DammiBg, Steve Reich andMusicians, S e t t * Nonesuch 7559-79170,1987, track 4 from 7:00 ur*l theend.47 Writings about Music 58 . The relat ionship of « w narrat ive of e thnographicdiscovery to the "discovered* (constructed) musk; that is In part based on Ewemusic suggests at least two possible interpretations of Drumming. Onepossibility is that the ethnographic narrative and "exotic" timbres of theensemble reveal Reich's utJfization of traditional Ewe music in his style sincePiano Phase, particularly 0% 1 2 $ meter and ambiguous rhythmic patterns(heard in groups Of both 3 and 4). Another possibility is that the narrative ofself-discover/ serves to mask Reich's prior use of Ewe music. Particularly,Reich's use of l i e rhythmic construction p a t e n creates the semblance of thenarrative subject's discovery of the composer's own signature style, a notion |that possibly could deflect attention away from that style's Ewe-basedinfluences.

48 The Voice of New Musk:, 357.

• I n addition to rock bands such as the Beatles, who explored t i e use of Indianmusic 'm several albums, jazz musicians such as Herbie Hancockdemonstrated ways to integrate West African musics into an experimental jazzaesthetic. See, tar example, the track "Sleeping Giant" on the albumCrossings {1972}, which starkly juxtaposes pseudo-West African percussionmusic with electronic effects and a drum solo. In this instance, we find thedrummer substituting for the "master drummer* but also providing a conceptualbridge to the (Western) experimental jazz-fusion and electronic musk; alsofound on the track. On the CD compilation Herbie Hancock, Mwandishi: TheComplete Warner Bros. Recordings, Warner Bros. 2 -45732,1994.

K This distinction was suggested to me by Michael Veal. Veal also noted thatMs source might be the language of the "internal colony" - i.e., comparing thetreatment of African Americans in the U.S. with the colonial treatment ofAfricans abroad - which was common in African American circles during andafter the late 1960s. Wilfrid Meliers implicitly suggests that Reich negotiatesthis process of seif-definition through the 'external otter* by importing the ritualaspect of Ewe music M o t i e concert hat. For Meters, the popularity of thepiece is predicated on the existing lack of and human need for such rituals in{Western) urban centers. See Wilfrid Meliers, Singing in fte Wilderness: Musicmid Ecology m the Twentieth Century (Urbana and Chicago: University ofl i n o i s Press, 2001), 104. Others have rioted the "ritual* aspect of the ReichEnsemble's performances of Drumming. See K. Robert Schwarz, Minimalists,75.

51 John Schaeffer notes that the New Age pianist George Winston playsworks inspired by Steve Reich; see his New Sounds: A Listener's Guide toNew MUSK (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 199. Reich himself noted withdismay mat the New Age group Tangerine Dream's soundtrack to the filmRisky Business was an imitation of Music for Eighteen Musicians (Strickland.248). Also, Reich has recently discussed the influence of his own music onthat of Brian Eno. the founder of ambient music (which is sonically related toNew Age music). See Andrew Clements, loop ing the looper: AndrewCtements meets composer Steve Reich, an inspiration to everyone fromBowie to The Orb," The Guardian (London), April 2 , 1999 , The GuarcfianFriday Review Page, 14.Two well-known articles both impScHty point to the late '60s and early 7 0 s asa critical moment in the development of the "world music* market. VertErtmarm, T h e Aesthetics of the Global Imagination: Reflections of World Musicin the 1990s," Public Culture 8 (1996), 474; Steven Feld, "Notes on WorldBeat," Public Outturn Bulletin 1/1 (Fall 1988), 3 1 .

52. See endnote 50; K. Robert Schwarz, Minimalists, 82. This notion ofmWmaBsm as industrialized, processed music suggested by Clytus GottwakJami others was later picked up by Fink in "Arrows of Desire," 217-52.

53. Examples of all three perspectives can be found in the scholarly literatureon Reich. In an extreme example of ignoring Ewe (and non-Western musicgenerally), Jonathan Bernard argues that "minimal music is not non-Western toany meaningful sense," ami that there is no particularly compelling reason toexpect the various analytical methodotogies developed for non-Western musicto have relevance to (thoroughly Western) minimal music." See Theory,Analysis, and the 'Problem1 of Minimal Music," in Concert Music, Rock, andJazz since 1945: Essays and Analytical Studies, ed. Elizabeth West Marvinand Richard Hermann (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1995),263. K. Robert Schwarz celebrates Raich's rejection of "the exclusiveprimacy of the Classical Western heritage" parallels "a general turn against an

•cQLENDORA REVIEWxAfr ican Quarterly on the Ar tsxVc43@No3«4>< 1 4 4 >

John Corbett, on the other hand, appears to accuse Reich of" ' "« ' orientalism" in reference to his use of non-Western musics

I Oriental," 173-74). Also, Wim MerteriS argues that theuse of non-V¥estem music appears as "a symptom of the ability of

rn culture industry to annex a foreign culture, strip it of its specificideological context and incorporate it into its own culture products." See:an Minimal Music: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philiptrans. J. Hautekiet (London: Kahn & Averilt, 1983 [1980)), 88.

tilking Music. 305

ft a recent public discussion, Reich noted that cultural studies scholarsaccuse one of 'cultural imperialism" if they imitated 9m sound of non-•n music (instead of simply the structure). Composers Seminar, 18I 2001, Yale University, School of Music, New Haven, CT, cassette

-,ng included In American Music Series, Oral History of American Music,Yale University, no. 186 p-q. For a good discussion of the term, see JohnTomlinson Cultural Imperialism A Critical Introduction (Baltimore. JohnsHopkins University Press, 1991).

56. Although devising a more adequate ethics of appropriation is not Jiepurpose of this paper, t would suggest that any such claims would have to begrounded in the material consequences of such acts. As such, some avenuesof investigation might focus on personal financial gain and career advance-ment, possible destruction of the appropriated culture, willful misrepresentation

or ignorance in knowledge-production, and the creation of institutions,companies, and markets.

57. James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-CenturyEthnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,1988), 11.

58. One might argue that this "democratization* still only held for educatedpeople of middle-class and higher socioeconomic backgrounds and wasprobably accessed primarily by those with liberal political beliefs. Such liberalvalues - with their roots in free-market ideologies - in turn, might have servedto channel this new accessibility through a market-based system, setting thestage for the world music market of today.

59. Talking Music, 304-5.

60. See Edward Said, After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives (New York:Pantheon, 1986), 150. Quoted in Clifford, 11.

61. Clifford, 11-12.

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