Steve Reich's Vermont Counterpoint: A musical and technological guide

Osinski, Zachary John

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/117484 Copy

Description

Title

Steve Reich's Vermont Counterpoint: A musical and technological guide

Author(s)

Osinski, Zachary John

Issue Date

2023

Keyword(s)

• Steve Reich
• Vermont Counterpoint
• minimalism
• flute
• electroacoustic
• performance guide
• Ransom Wilson

Language

en

Abstract

Vermont Counterpoint for flute and multi-track was written by American composer Steve Reich in 1982. The piece was commissioned by flutist Ransom Wilson, and premiered in the fall of 1982 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Vermont Counterpoint is unique among flute repertoire in that it requires the flutist to record and compile an electronic multi-track. At the time of the piece’s premiere, performers needed a tape-recording studio, as well as an audio engineer, to produce the multi-track. This presented logistical and financial barriers to performing the piece, and hampered the spread of the piece in the flute community. The instructions in the score of Vermont Counterpoint for creating the multi-track have not been updated since its original publication. Recording technology is now more accessible to musicians than in 1982, making Vermont Counterpoint a more viable piece to program than at any moment in its life. However, though written by a significant composer and recorded by several notable flutists, the piece remains less frequently preformed than many of Reich’s works, as well as other late 20th century electroacoustic flute works. In the hopes of reintroducing the flute community to Vermont Counterpoint, this paper presents flutists with the musical and technological means necessary to program and perform the piece. First, the paper synthesizes the existing scholarship on Vermont Counterpoint, detailing the origins of the piece, and places Vermont Counterpoint within the development of Reich’s compositional voice up to this moment in his life, analyzing Reich’s adoption of conventional musical forms such as counterpoint and canon into his trademark techniques such as tape music and phase shifting. The next section presents a framework for preparing the score, including a method for practicing the piece informed both by Reich’s musical philosophy, and the technical demands of the piece, with the goal of efficient and effective practice and recording sessions. Finally, and most significantly, this paper provides a method for creating the multi-track using personal recording technology. Based in the free recording software Audacity, this method utilizes recording technology which is financially and logistically accessible (compared to that found in professional recording studios). I detail my personal equipment and set-up, and provide set-by-step instructions to programming the multi-track on Audacity. Vermont Counterpoint is a historically and musically significant piece of flute writing. Through introducing the reader to the history of the piece, and providing practice and recording methods that prioritize efficiency and accessibility, it is my hope that this paper will equip flutists to enjoy Vermont Counterpoint for years to come.

Graduation Semester

2023-04-26T14:19:27-05:00

Type of Resource

• text
• still image

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2023 Zachary Osinski

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