Writings on music 1965-2000

Like many acclaimed artists, composer Reich is a virtual unknown outside of devotees of avant-garde or experimental music (… la John Cage minimalism). This book is a collection of his writings about this specialized area of music, made by and for music academics and "serious" artists. Reading about sounds is always a dry experience, but these 64 short pieces (some only a paragraph) may be essentially indecipherable for those without an academic musical background, owing to the heavy use of music terminology despite Reich´s generally conversational tone. The pieces, including Reich´s best-known "Music as a Gradual Process," are primarily concerned with Reich´s own compositions and reflect his changing preoccupations through time: tape loops and phasing in the Sixties, African drumming in the early Seventies, and so on. In fact, this book might have been better titled Thoughts on Music, as most of the writing comes across as extemporaneous rather than studied and includes a number of interviews, which one is hardpressed to describe as "writings.