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Drumming
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Drumming
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MP3 Music, September 13, 2005
"Please retry" | $9.49 | — |
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Vinyl, August 18, 2017
"Please retry" | $49.50 | — |
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Track Listings
| 1 | Drumming: Part I |
| 2 | Drumming: Part II |
| 3 | Part III |
| 4 | Drumming: Part IV |
Editorial Reviews
Product description
Used CD
Amazon.com
This was Reich's breakthrough masterpiece, inspired by his studies of African drumming. The patterns throughout this music are so powerful and hypnotic that, once you get involved, it's a shock when it ends an hour later. I have enjoyed this piece most in concert when Reich's ensemble used the maximum number of repetitions allowed (optional in the score). I regret somewhat the decision used in making this recording, which held the timing to under an hour. The first recording of Drumming ran to nearly 90 minutes. But it also ran onto a second CD, and it's no longer available. Meanwhile, for anyone open to the power of this music, this is a disc not to be missed. --Leslie Gerber
Product details
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- Product Dimensions : 5.55 x 4.88 x 0.39 inches; 3.17 Ounces
- Manufacturer : Nonesuch
- Item model number : DRUMMING
- Original Release Date : 1992
- Date First Available : December 8, 2006
- Label : Nonesuch
- ASIN : B000005IYP
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #140,471 in CDs & Vinyl (See Top 100 in CDs & Vinyl)
- #416 in Techno (CDs & Vinyl)
- #14,607 in Classical (CDs & Vinyl)
- #14,929 in Jazz (CDs & Vinyl)
- Customer Reviews:
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So the interest of this 1987 recording on Elektra/Nonesuch, whose duration is 56:40 minutes, is to enable you to hear the piece continuous. There is a certain degree of freedom afforded to the performers in playing "Drumming", based on how many repeats are made. Funny that, in the liner notes to this Elektra/Nonesuch release, Reich should comment that "Drumming lasts from 55 to 75 minutes". Hey man, haven't you counted how long your own 1974 recording lasted???? At 75-minutes, it would have fitted on a single CD no problem, and there would have been no need for this remake.
Another nice feature of the re-recording is that it involves many of the original performers. But after all, it was hardly more than a decade later. Stupidly, the booklet's credits list them in alphabetical order, so you don't know who's playing what. In Drumming, Reich (to quote his own presentation in the booklet of the DG release) brought to the "final refinement [his] phrasing technique in which two or three identical instruments playing the same repeating melodic pattern gradually move out of synchronization with each other, but the work also introduce[d] several new techniques: (1) gradual changes of timbre while pitch and rhythm remain constant, (2) the use of the human voice in an instrumental ensemble imitating the exact sound of the instruments, (3) the process of gradually substituting beats for rests (or rests for beats) within a constantly repeating rhythmic cycle". So Drumming is made of four parts, the first scored for four pairs of tuned bongo drums, the second for three marimbas and two soprano voices, the third for three glockenspiels, whistling and piccolo flute, the fourth combining all these instrumental groups. Each part develops the same melodic patterns, and at the beginning of each next section the new instruments enter doubling exactly the pattern of the instruments already playing, and these then taper off. So, here, all you are told is that Reich whistles, Mort Silver plays the piccolo and Pamela Wood Ambush and Jay Clayton (the latter was already part of the 1974 recording) sing. But from the members of the 1974 recording, you can make the educated inference that Russ Hartenberger and Bob Becker play the bongos and that Glen Velez, Bob Becker, Russ Hartenberger and James Preiss play the glockenspiels (they all did so in 1974). Among the nine performers who played the marimbas in 1974, five are still there in 1987: Reich, Hartenberger, Becker, Ben Harms and Glen Velez, and three new names appear whom I'll suppose play the marimbas as well: Gary Kvistad, Gary Schall and Thad Wheeler. Who's the 9th performer and whether there is a 9th performer, maybe we'll never know.
So, it all seems nice and well, but there is also a drawback to doing a "short" version: it doesn't always have time to unfold. Just one telling illustration. The piece starts with one bongo playing a single pitch in a regular beat, soon joined by a second playing the same pitch, and then followed by a second pitch. In 1974 second bongo entered after 13 seconds and second pitch at 0:23. In 1987 the second bongo enters, if my ears don't betrray me (it is almost indetectable) at 0:05, and the second pitch at 0:08. No wonder then that the new recording should be about as short as, according to Reich himself, the piece can be. Just compare section by section (the side breaks aren't exactly the same; add 30 seconds to tracks 1 & 2 of the 1987 recording (and substract as much from track 3) to make things comparable).
Part (1974) 24:35 (1987) 17:31
Part II (1974) 25:19 (1987) 18:11
Part III (1974) 15:40 (1987) 11:11
Part IV (1974) 18:57 (1987) 9:50
This may be not so much a drawback as an advantage for some people, likely to find the 85 minutes of repetition of the 1974 recording a little too much to swallow. I do find the 24+ minutes of Part I somewhat too long and repetitive, because it involves the relatively bland colors of the skin-struck bongos. But I am not sure that the shorter version will sound less bland and boring to those inclined to find it bland and boring, because what is lost even in that movement is the slow building of the patterns, the ritualistic aspect of the music (Reich acknowledge the influence on the composition of his voyage to Africa in 1970). What's left, in the two outer parts, is only the energetic and tension-filled sense of rhythm, and, in Part IV, of an inexorable crescendo and rise in tension. Part IV is more hypnotic in 1974. Despite the significant timing discrepancy I didn't find that the difference was as perceptible in Parts II and III. What is immediately perceptible though is that it is more dynamically and propulsively played in 1987, which accounts at least for some of the timing difference. No judgment here: the sweeter and more dreamy approach of 1974 also as its value. I like both in fact. Still, Part III, with its tinkling bells, is so exquisitely fairy-tale like, I am happy with the 4 additional minutes I get in 1974.
Is there at least a significant sonic improvement that would make the 1987 preferable, if only on that ground? Not really. If anything, there is slightly more vividness in the earlier recording of the bongos. The 1987 sonic perspective is slightly more distant and airy. Strangely, it is the opposite in the other tracks, but there differences are marginal.
Still, despite my few reservations and the negative comments on the 1987 recording posted by a number of reviewers of the 1974 recording, I think the Elektra/Nonesuch version remains a valid option for those who'd want Drumming on a single disc - especially at the price now asked for it. But confonted with a choice between 55 minutes and 85 minutes, Reich should have chosen 75, really.
Minimalism is not for everyone. For those people who have found this piece tedious, I would suggest listening while doing some repetitive activity. I got through it for the first time while knitting, but the piece really shines if you listen while running. The rhythm is perfect for pacing oneself and lends a primordial, meditative quality to the experience.
This one in particular has been gathering dust almost since I brought it home. Perhaps I "just don't get it," but it seems just plainly repetitous, with no real evolution taking place.
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