Nadia Boulanger
French musician, conductor, and teacher
Terrence Mitchell “Terry” Rileyis an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his work became notable for its innovative use of repetition, tape music techniques, improvisation, and delay systems.
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About the Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell “Terry” Rileyis an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his work became notable for its innovative use of repetition, tape music techniques, improvisation, and delay systems. His best known works are the 1964 composition In C and the 1969 album A Rainbow in Curved Air, both considered landmarks of minimalism and important influences on experimental music, rock, and contemporary electronic music. Subsequent works such as Shri Camelexplored just intonation.
Raised in Redding, California, Riley began studying composition and performing solo piano in the 1950s. He befriended and collaborated with composer La Monte Young, and later became involved with both the San Francisco Tape Music Center and Young’s New York collective, the Theatre of Eternal Music. A three-record deal with CBS in the late 1960s brought his work to wider audiences. In 1970, he began intensive studies under Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath, whom he often accompanied in performance. He has collaborated frequently throughout his career, most extensively with chamber ensemble the Kronos Quartet and his son, guitarist Gyan Riley.
16 Quotes by Terry Riley
- 1.
Well I guess my music came to prominence around one piece called ‘In C’ which I wrote in 1964 at that time it was called ‘The Global Villages for Symphonic Pieces’, because it was a piece built out of 53 simple patterns and the structure was new to music at that time.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 2.
Everyone seems to be in a kind of accelerated time mode that is beyond their own control.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 3.
So, essentially my contribution was to introduce repetition into Western music as the main ingredient without any melody over it, without anything just repeated patterns, musical patterns.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 4.
Talking about the all night concerts, I did some of the first all night concerts back in the 60’s with this little harmonium, and I also had saxophone taped delays.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 5.
Music can also be a sensual pleasure, like eating food or sex. But its highest vibration for me is that point of taking us to a real understanding of something in our nature which we can very rarely get at. It is a spiritual state of oneness.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 6.
Out of doing all that experimentation with sound I decided I wanted to do it with live musicians. To take repetition, take music fragments and make it live. Musicians would be able to play it and create this kind of abstract fabric of sound.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 7.
We are either going to dissolve as a human race or we are going to break through into a new understanding of what it is to be a human being.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 8.
It seems like we are moving towards something, some kind of point and it is probably going to be an important point in our development or dissolution. That is what everybody seems to be thinking.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 9.
I had been interested in Indian music and I actually started studying Tableaus before I met him.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 10.
Essentially my contribution was to introduce repetition into Western music as the main ingredient without any melody over it, without anything just repeated patterns, musical patterns.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 11.
Acceleration is finite, I think according to some laws of physics.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 12.
I was using tape loops for dancers and dance production. I had very funky primitive equipment, in fact technology wasn’t very good no matter how much money you had.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 13.
It is important that we are coming up on the millennium because what I am experiencing, just being one person out of billions, is the feeling of acceleration. I experience this through my contact with other people.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 14.
Throughout the evening I would be recording these long saxophone delays and about four hours into the concert, if I wanted to take a break I would just play back the saxophone.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 15.
I really didn’t have a plan, I just went in and started playing. one of my specialties was to be able to play for a really long time without stopping and I would play these repeated patterns for hours and hours and I wouldn’t seem to get tired.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician
- 16.
I had already done Rainbow in Curved Air and had a big record on CBS. I was launched to have a long career and then I just dropped out and went to India.
Terry RileyAmerican composer and musician