Phase Patterns

Almost immediately after the completion of Four Organs, I composed another piece for four electric organs, Phase Patterns. In this piece, the performers are drumming on their keyboards. Each hand plays certain notes throughout the piece, only alternating left, right, left, left, right, left, right, right, which, in Western rudimental drumming, is called a paradiddle. The idea of drumming on the keyboard came out of my studies of rudimental drumming as a teenager. The result is a new approach to the keyboard. One can look at keyboard instruments as extraordinary sets of tuned drums.


—Steve Reich