Terry Riley is an American composer born in 1935, a pioneering figure of minimalist music. His work In C (1964) is considered one of the founding acts of this movement that transformed twentieth-century music.
Terry Riley
Terry Mitchell Riley
5 min read
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born in 1935 in Colfax, California (United States)
- Composed In C in 1964, a founding work of musical minimalism
- Pioneer of repetitive music alongside Steve Reich and Philip Glass
- Studied classical Indian music under Pandit Pran Nath beginning in the 1970s
- Had a lasting influence on contemporary music and popular music (progressive rock, ambient)
Works & Achievements
Founding work of minimalism: 53 motifs played freely by an indeterminate number of musicians.
Album of keyboards and organ layered through multitrack recording, now a classic of repetitive music.
Piece for saxophone and looped tapes illustrating the Time-Lag Accumulator.
Work for organ in just intonation, marked by the influence of Indian music.
Vast string quartet cycle written for the Kronos Quartet.
Work for string quartet and pipa, the fruit of the enduring collaboration with the Kronos Quartet.
Anecdotes
In 1964, Terry Riley composed In C, a score fitting on a single page: 53 short musical motifs that each musician plays in order, repeating each one as many times as they wish before moving on to the next. No two ensembles therefore play the work in exactly the same way, and its duration varies from one performance to another.
To stabilize the tempo of In C, it was reportedly the composer Steve Reich, present at the premiere, who suggested adding a steady pulse of high, repeated notes on the piano: this beat, nicknamed “the pulse,” has remained in most interpretations.
In the 1960s, Riley gave nighttime concerts called “All-Night Flights,” where he played the organ and saxophone in loops until daybreak, inviting the audience to doze off on the spot in sleeping bags.
Riley long used a system of looped magnetic tapes, the “Time-Lag Accumulator,” which fed back the sound played a few seconds earlier to create endless layerings, a technique he notably exploited in A Rainbow in Curved Air (1969).
Fascinated by Indian music, Riley became in the 1970s the disciple of the singing master Pandit Pran Nath and made many trips to India to study the raga, which lastingly transformed his approach to improvisation.
Primary Sources
All performers play from the same page of 53 melodic patterns played in sequence. Any number of any kind of instruments can play.
Each player has the freedom to determine how many times he or she will repeat each pattern before moving on to the next.
And then all wars ended... The new music will be played all day by tireless musicians on the free instruments of the future.
Key Places
Small California town where Terry Riley was born in 1935.
Riley pursued his musical studies here and became part of the San Francisco Bay Area experimental scene.
Site of the premiere of In C in 1964, a hub of Californian electronic and experimental music.
Riley stayed here in the early 1960s and developed his experiments with magnetic tape loops.
California institution where Riley taught composition and Indian music from the 1970s onward.
Typical Objects
A single sheet containing 53 numbered melodic patterns that musicians string together freely. It embodies the idea of an open work, never played twice the same way.
Keyboard that Riley used for his long modal improvisations during nighttime concerts. Its sustained tone allowed him to weave continuous layers of sound.
A device recording sound onto magnetic tape, which Riley loops back to layer in real time what he has just played. The heart of his Time-Lag Accumulator technique.
A wind instrument that Riley played during his improvised performances, sometimes for hours on end. Its high-pitched tone lent itself to long, repetitive lines.
An Indian plucked-string instrument producing a continuous drone, adopted by Riley after he studied raga singing. It symbolizes the influence of Indian music on his work.
School Curriculum
Vocabulary & Tags
Key Vocabulary
Daily Life
Morning
Riley liked to begin the day with long improvisation sessions at the keyboard or Indian singing exercises inherited from his master Pran Nath. Musical work took center stage from the moment he woke up.
Afternoon
The afternoon could be devoted to composing, recording on magnetic tape, or teaching his students. He gladly experimented with new tunings and sonorities.
Evening
Evenings were sometimes extended by nighttime concerts where he played until dawn. Music became a collective, meditative experience shared with the audience.
Food
Drawn to Indian spirituality, Riley adopted a rather modest lifestyle leaning toward vegetarianism. His diet reflected his interest in Eastern philosophies.
Clothing
He wore the casual clothing typical of 1960s–70s Californian counterculture, far removed from the classic concert attire. His long beard became part of his image.
Housing
Riley lived mostly in California, splitting his time between musical creation and frequent study trips to India. He later settled in the Sierra Nevada, close to nature.
