Music archive entry

The score consists of a series of short phrases which each player repeats as often as they choose, taking breaks from playing when they choose, but with a steady pulse throughout the piece, perhaps provided by a rhythmn instrument or conductor.

"I think I was noticing that things didn't sound the same when you heard them more than once. And the more you heard them, the more different they did sound. Even though something was staying the same, it was changing.... In those days the first psychedelic experiences were starting to happen in America and that was changing our concept of how time passes, and what you actually hear in the music."

Terry Riley, quoted in K. Robert Schwarz, Minimalists (1996)