Nexus and Sō Percussion celebrate the 50th anniversary of Steve Reich’s Drumming with an exploration of this seminal work, featuring contributions from across the global music community.

VIDEOS

SELECTED PAPERS

Oliver Xu

Drumming: an Algorithmic Approach

Oliver XuThis project uses an algorithmic approach to explore the concept of resultant patterns as used by Steve Reich in Drumming. It seeks to analyze what it means for a resultant pattern to be interesting and to encode these intuitive musical characteristics into a computer algorithm.

Devenish photo by Olivia Davies

Digital Phasing: Using Latency as an Agent for Metric Change

Dr Louise DevenishCommissioned as part of the Digital Phasing project by Louise Devenish, Jet Kye Chong’s Still Drumming 2020 exploits latency and geographical distance, offering a pandemic perspective on Reich’s signature techniques.

ARTICLES

Steve Reich Featured

Thoughts on Percussion and Rhythm

Steve ReichThe composer of Drumming discusses musical intuition, time feel, speech rhythms, electronics, the music of India, and how he uses rhythm in his compositions. He describes his early percussion training and his experience with the music of West Africa and Bali.

Bob Becker and Russell Hartenberger Trellis - Photo by Michelle Hwu

What Really Happens in Steve Reich’s Drumming?

Michael Schutz and NEXUS describe their study to find out what really happens during a phase in Drumming. Members of Nexus demonstrate phasing and discuss their thoughts on the process.

Mallet Phase Featured

Marimba Phase/Mallet Phase

Russell HartenbergerA look at the origins of Piano Phase played on two marimbas, the end of phasing as a compositional tool, some of the techniques required to play Marimba Phase, and Garry Kvistad’s adaptation of the piece for just intonation-tuned instruments.

NEXUS logo
Sō Logo
Boosey & Hawkes
NYO Canada
Canada Council for the Arts Conseil des arts du Canada
Pearl Drum Logo
Adams Logo
Ray Dillard
Four/Ten Media
Artsy.ca
Woodstock Chimes
OtherARTS