November 25, 2007

listen
*N C is today's listener suggested piece, courtesy of my father, Paul. He said:

It's not for a composition, but for a performance. Terry Riley's In C is someone keeping time by playing the two highest C's on a piano, and any number of other musicians moving thru the score coming in, leaving, repeating their current snippet, etc.

My idea is sample something other than a piano playing a couple of very high C's (or two things or a bunch of things), and loop it into a 60-second background track. Then, you perform your interpretation of the score using whatever instrument you can play or simulate.

You probably can't get through all 53 of the snippets once in 60 seconds. So you might have to take liberties in skipping a few in order to repeat others.

While thinking about this idea, I had one of those strange brain moments I occasionally have. I realized the similarity in sound of the words "In C" and the name of the erstwhile boy-band *N Sync. So I sampled their voices and transformed them into a one-minute rendition of the Terry Riley piece. (To do this, I only worked my way through the first five segments of the piece. One for each member of the band...)