One of my current music projects is a Steve Reich inspired phase music piece.

Several years ago I heard a Steve Reich piece performed by Black Earth Percussion Group. Two mallet players (marimba and xylophone, if I remember) repeat the same melody, yet each player was at a slightly different tempo.  I had no idea what was going on at first.  I was mesmerized how the piece shifted each moment and how complex it was, given how simple the repeated melody was.

I created a piano track, recorded a simple melody, and then duplicated the track, panning them each slightly off center.

I came up with the idea of simply adding a 5/64th note rest to the end of the clip in the second track, making one of the clips 4 bars + 5/64th beats long, while the other clip remained 4 bars long. Every 4 bars the two clips go out of phase by another 5/64th note.  The 5/64th note difference is arbitrary. I just tried a few rests and settled on this.  The size of the rest determines how long the piece last before it lines up again back in phase.

If I followed the idea completely, I’d record this whole sequence until they came back into phase.  During this sequence there are passages that are very interesting and passages that are more dissonant or arhythmic.  I’ve currently cut the piece up saving the more interesting parts.

I started this using a piano alone.  I’ve currently added a marimba and am working out what sequences each should play against each other in the composition.  I’ve also added one of Simon Stockhausen‘s violin patches for Alchemy to play sustained tones.