3 voices, piccolo and 9 percussions

The first part of Reich’s tour-de-force is for four pairs of tuned bongos played by four drummers (2 pairs of mirrored players). It is the epitome of Reich’s phasing technique where two players play the same pattern and one player gradually speeds up to off-set the pattern by one beat. Part one also features resulting patterns, when two players reproduce the melodies that can be heard discretely in the composite patterns of the other two. When asked the influence his visit to Africa in 1970 had on Drumming, the composer answers “it confirmed my intuition that acoustic instruments could be used to produce music that was genuinely richer in sound than that produced with electronic instruments, as well as confirming my natural inclination towards percussion.” (Boosey)

Mark Morton [v-13]