It's Gonna Rain
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It's gonna rain is a musical composition written by Steve Reich in 1965; the work is approximately 17 minutes and 50 seconds in length. It was Reich's first major work and a landmark in musical minimalism and process music.
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[edit] Breakdown of the composition
The source material of "It's gonna rain" consists entirely of a tape recording made in January 1965 at San Francisco's Union Square. In the recording, an African American Pentecostal preacher, Brother Walter, rails about the end of the world (Grimshaw [1]) while accompanying background noises, including a pigeon taking off in flight are heard. The piece opens with the story of Noah, and the phrase "it's gonna rain" is repeated and eventually looped throughout the song.
For the recording, Reich used two normal Wollensak tape recorders with the same recording, originally attempting to align the phrase with itself at the halfway point (180 degrees). However, due to the imprecise technology in 1965, the two recordings fell out of synch, with one tape gradually falling ahead or behind the other due to minute differences in the machines and playback speed. Reich decided to exploit what is known as phase shifting, where all possible recursive harmonies are explored before the two loops eventually get back in synch before the end of the piece.
[edit] Trivia
Reich created another composition the next year called Come Out, done via the same process. The phrase, "come out to show them", is looped over and over again.
