It's Gonna Rain

Okay time for a new thread discussion :D

Some people have said that It's Gonna Rain has a deeper meaning, and, like with 4'33" I don't get it. I have actually tried to figure out what the meaning behind it was, but... all I hear is the annoyance th at goes on for 20 minutes.. or more.. i don't remember.

So. Can anyone explain THIS to me?

There isn't a deeper meaning.

Drop this mysticism with 20th century music.

It is meant to be in a different aesthetic than what you're used to (which is obviously band-o band music). I've never had the problem of accepting anything as music. Get with it, or pretty soon you'll be writing 4 hour long symphonies with badly written string divisi parts.

There isn't a deeper meaning.

Drop this mysticism with 20th century music.

It is meant to be in a different aesthetic than what you're used to (which is obviously band-o band music). I've never had the problem of accepting anything as music. Get with it, or pretty soon you'll be writing 4 hour long symphonies with badly written string divisi parts.

well, seeing how YOU were the one that said "there is a deeper meaning to it, you obviously just don't understand it"......

Matthieu - It's Gonna Rain was important to Steve Reich as it gave him the idea of phase music. In other words you start one tape of speech and then start another slightly ahead. Note though he looped a small portion of the speech - just "It's Gonna Rain" - many times. What happens is a counterpoint arises. In the simplest sense it is a round but the transformation of the material is at a far slower rate than tradition rounds because of the concentration on a smaller more repetitive amount of material and the small amount delay with tape.

Tiny sidenote - in one of Mozart's final sonatas - the D major one, first movement - Mozart plays briefly with a canon starting an eighth note ahead and the material just spells for a bar a D major triad and then a descending scale. Of course it moves on harmonically and Mozart uses it as a development device later. but fascinating that there must have been other composers who played with close canons of initially static material without considering this could be a basis of a whole work. This is where Reich diverges greatly!

Yet I have read of musicians hearing affinities in Reich's music to early medieval music - the organum of Perotin more.

Interesting thing about It's Gonna Rain, in an interview on our public television station Steve said he didn't want to rely on a tape machine - he wanted to do this phasing with live players. So he practiced his technique by recording a piano motiv or riff and then playing the motive on the piano a 16th or 8th note after the tape started. From there you see where we go.

Also, the speech he chose to loop was from a street preacher at the height of Cold War in the early 60's when the prospect of nuclear war loomed. Reich thought this material was more a part of his soundworld and culture rather than the second Viennese School and later Darmstadt which arose from a Western Europe ruined by WW II and slowly rebuilding itself.

Sidenote - Darmstadt, I believe, was partly made possible by the US military as one of their propaganda through arts tools immediately after WWII. Specifically, I think the US military helped to set up Darmstadt for the lectures and symposium among European and American composers.

PS Pardon the digressive nature of this response.

It's an example of phase music, which may be easier to understand if you think of it as a canon where the subject repeats at very small time intervals. This creates new rhythms as this interval lenghtens.

To say you don't "get it" implies that there is something objective to get. As with any work, there are a number of different possible "interpretations" of its "meaning". You CAN think of it in these terms. Or you could just enjoy it.

You have to get that it is something. It is that easier.

There is no deeper meaning to "It's Gonna Rain," the beauty lies in the concept. Try "Piano Phase" for a more obvious demonstration.

The "annoyance" you speak of in minimalist (or ambient) music must be experienced by having it wash over you...not necessarily actively listening (though this is quite rewarding if you've developed the ear for it).

If it weren't for people like Steve Reich and Stockhausen we wouldn't have all the great pop music we do today.

THANK YOOOOUUUUU

P.S. 19th century Europe sucks

Most music is more like that... thinking about it in concept. I mean, labeling it or trying to mainstream an idea into something absolute is silly.

Music is abstract.

Hmm, I'd have to side with Nico there. There may be abstractions in the process of creating music (as well as in the listening process), but ultimately it is a quite specific physical thing, which actually often may be a concretion of more general, abstract ideas. If it was abstract, what exactly would it be abstracted from?

Hmm, I'd have to side with Nico there. There may be abstractions in the process of creating music (as well as in the listening process), but ultimately it is a quite specific physical thing, which actually often may be a concretion of more general, abstract ideas. If it was abstract, what exactly would it be abstracted from?

Agreed. But I kind of interpret Corbin's post as the idea and drive behind music being abstract, which I agree with. I think it's more accurate to say that "It's Gonna Rain" and other phase/minimalist pieces as being easily abstracted, even though its execution is COMPLETELY physical (taking advantage of the properties of tape players). You can get the artistic goal and grasp it without listening through it all, even just by having it explained. I think it's the ability to get someone thinking about sound, crossing that verbal boundary, that makes it effective rather than having the visceral impact of listening for form, etc.

But CERTAINLY not all music is abstract.