Electric Counterpoint 3rd movement Flashcards
Who composed “Electric Counterpoint 3rd movement”?
Steve Reich
What is the instrumentation of “Electric Counterpoint 3rd movement”?
7 electric guitars, 2 electric bass guitars, 1 solo guitar.
How should “Electric Counterpoint 3rd movement” be performed?
By a single guitarist ; they play along with a multitrack recording of the other parts (ensemble parts) made before the performance.
The movements of Electric Counterpoint, which are untitled, marked simply by their speeds, are often called ‘fast’, ‘slow’ and ‘fast’. The fast movements are 192 bpm, and the slow one is 96 bpm. What does the fact that the middle movement is half the speed of the others mean?
There’s a constant pulse.
What’s the time signature for “Electric Counterpoint 3rd movement”?
3/2, but at some points, a few guitars (including the live part) go into 12/8 while the others stay in 3/2. This still fits because both time signatures can be divided into 12 quavers per bar.
“Electric Counterpoint 3rd movement” is made up of short patterns (or ‘riffs’) that are repeated many times. What is a repeated pattern like this called?
An ostinato
Why doesn’t the timbre (tone colour) of “Electric Counterpoint 3rd movement” change much?
Because it only uses guitars and bass guitars, which all have a similar sound. The parts all blend together.
What does it mean if a part is overdubbed?
The parts are recorded on top of each other
“Electric Counterpoint 3rd movement” is repetitive; the same loops are repeated in the ensemble parts. What effect does this have?
It makes the music sound more hypnotic.
Four ensemble parts in “Electric Counterpoint 3rd movement” play the same riff throughout the piece. How do they come in with this?
One guitar starts off playing it alone, then the others come in one by one. They play it at different times; they’re in canon.
When it first comes in, how is guitar three’s part built up?
By a technique called note addition (or additive melody). It starts off playing just a few of the riff, then two or three notes are added each time it’s played until the whole riff is heard. It starts in bar 10, but the full riff isn’t heard until bar 15.
As well as the canonic one-bar riff, which instruments does Riech build up another canon between (starting bar 36)?
Between the solo part and the other three ensemble guitars.
What is the texture of “Electric Counterpoint 3rd movement”?
It’s polyphonic, made up of two or more independent parts being played at the same time.
In “Electric Counterpoint 3rd movement”, what is the effect of the two canons going on at the same time?
It makes the polyphony seem more complex and interesting.
In “Electric Counterpoint 3rd movement”, where is the counterpoint really obvious?
In the sections where some parts are playing in 3/2 and the others in 12/8
