Tag: Clapping Music

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Steve Reich is being phased onto the Game Boy

Steve Reich composes music for humans, and good music at that. You could, however, be forgiven for thinking that there is something mechanical to his work. Phasing, the technique most commonly associated with Reich, involves the same sequence being played at gradually—and slightly—divergent speeds. You can best imagine it as two tape machines that have fallen out of sync and, by the end of a composition, have found each other once again.  In that vein, here is Reich’s Piano Phase as performed on two Game Boy Micros by chiptunes artist Pselodux: the underlying pursuit is human.  This is, on the…
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Think you’re good at rhythm games? Try mastering Steve Reich’s Clapping Music then

Welcome to life after Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, where every music game feels incomplete without J.K. Simmons’ Fletcher yelling, “are you rushing or are you dragging?” While Whiplash does not yet exist in game form, at least there’s Clapping Music, which may induce similar levels of angst in players.  The game, which was made by Touchpress, London Sinfonietta, and Queen Mary University of London, challenges players to learn Steve Reich’s 1972 composition, “Clapping Music.” This is easier said than done. “Clapping Music,” like much of Reich’s work, uses a technique called phasing in which multiple players play the same sequence at…