I modified this YC-45D in late 1974 or early 1975 for Just Intonation. ( I still marvel at how, having known me for only a couple of months, Terry trusted me to drill holes and solder wires in his organ.) At around 3:43 in this video you can see some little posts just above the keys. These are the 12 potentiometers I installed to adjust the tuning of each note. One of the two boxes on top of the organ is likely the Marantz 3300 preamp that Terry later gave me and is still doing service playing Spotify in my spare room. This was probably recorded between 1975 and 1978. It seems to me this is a rehearsal or private performance for the video. ( The tape recorder is not running-in a performance he would have been using it to generate the echo for his characteristic canon sound) In some of the shots you can see part of the auditorium and it reminds me of what I remember of the concert hall at Mills College ( RIP Mills ;-( ). In the summer of 1978 I built a digital delay to replace the tape recorder and travelled with him to several concerts in Europe including a two-week stint in Berlin where he was composer in residence at a festival. (Pro Musica Nova?). While there I finished writing the code for the control panel for the digital delay, which he christened the “Ethereal Time Shadow”. After returning to the states he recorded the Shri Camel album at the Columbia Studios in San Francisco. Of course he used their professional digital delay for that. Those cost thousands of dollars back then.
I’ve been curious about this modification for ages. @defytrustedconcepts can you confirm whether the version of the YC45 was the one with transistors (earlier years of the series) or the one with the integrated circuits? I have one of the latter and I’ve been told by one of the organ experts here in San Diego that you can only tweak the tuning on the transistor version. The sound of this organ on Shri Camel is still unparalleled on any recording since. It’s completely magical. Thanks for your work on it.
Amazing work! I would love to interview you for my upcoming ethnomusicology podcast 😊my contact info is in the "about" section of my youtube account profile if you're interested! Thanks again for sharing about your process and experiences! 💮🐝🌞 Hope you are well 🎹
I believe Yamaha custom made these organs for Terry. I know they custom made two for him. These may predate the custom organs they made for him. I saw him around this time at a free festival of new music. I can tell you his system was pretty incredible. Terry is super cool.
@trojanlol Very true! I think limiting the idea of a certain art to what YOU prefer it to be (for all sorts of random reasons), is only reveiling the limitations of your worldview. So, curiousity towards what sounds foreign (and maybe ugly) first, is the most enlightening motor for one's own esthetic evelopment. That's why I listened to that video (not being a Riley fan, obviously). I may have been wiser not to post a sarcastic comment on the tape recorder not being switched on, though... ;-)
A lot of ignorant comments around this video. Terry along with LeMonte Young were the progenitors of several genres, trance, rave, world, new age. WAY back in the late 50s and early 60s they were influencing people like David Bowie and Brian Eno. Both ended up experimenting with just intonation tuning systems. If you don't understand the difference between Just and tempered music you might want to look into it. It IS the future IMHO. There are many types of both. The west decided to standardize on 12 tempered for various reasons, but digital synthesis has enabled modern musicians to change tunings at will in real time. There is no "best" tuning, they all sound different. Balanesian tuning addresses problems with Just tuning just as tempered addresses problems but in an entirely different way. Indian music sometimes divides octaves into many more than 12. Serial music base on 12 tempered is just one theory among thousands. Saying this is boring is to NOT HEAR what is going on. Which is perfectly fine, who cares? The bit rate of this is so low you aren't going to hear much of what makes it special. Lots of people don't hear Mozart either. In fact most people don't of course. It takes effort, you have to come to Mozart he's not going to lower himself to your level.
Well yeah...A good musician pulls you up to their level instead of condescending to you, but there's nothing wrong with someone hearing this and calling it a boring piece. Saying that this is boring is to say that it's boring, which minimalist music really can be. A lot of the time it's intended to be in the background while other things, like a scene in a movie or some type of a religious ceremony (or some sort of a trip) is going on. Maybe the people calling this boring were just in the mood for something a little spicier at the moment... FYI, Western musicains have been able to make use of different types of temperament for a while. What sort of a temperament to use and when has definitely been a relevant discussion for long than Terry Riley has been active. I've always assumed they taught the way they did because it's easier for a beginner and the notation is pretty versatile. Also, you've never heard the pieces that Mozart did for Mozart. Most of those were improv pieces. I'd be relucant to say all, but most of the compositions that people have access to were probably commissioned by rich Bavarians.
knupder I had a quick look and found mainly positive, helpful comments. Nothing really ignorant at all, at most rather naively enthusiastic, but absolutely nothign to take exception to and nothing like a lot of videos get. Curious .
doren garcia: Re: "If you don't understand the difference between Just and tempered music you might want to look into it." You sound a bit confused about this. Twelve-tone equal-temperament is NOT a tempering of just tuning; it's a tempering of PYTHAGOREAN tuning, and in respect to tempered Pythagorean tuning is for most intervals the OPPOSITE of just tuning, that is, most Pythagorean intervals deviate from tempered in the opposite direction that most just intervals do. Re: "There are many types of both." For someone who cares about clarity and logical consistency there is really only one kind of just tuning: historical diatonic just tuning (although the just intervals can be distributed within a diatonic scale in exactly two different ways). There is one type of tempered scale only, but there are as many tempered scales as notes you want to have in it. Have to go now but there's still more to say.
@Fresienduft Isn't that the function of most music, though? And what most good musicians aim to do? To take you on a journey, or to lift and expand your consciousness. What's the point of 'musical interest', complex chord progressions and extended harmony, if it ends up saying nothing? We have gone through serial and 12-tone music and nothing really came out of it. Have you wondered why Indian Classical musicians practice their whole lives, focusing only on a few scales?
@Raiyne123 I have to disagree on your conclusions about music that tries to depart from simplistic ideas on the social function of music. I think as any art it offers the potential of being something original, something that doesn't need a functional excuse to exist, etc. Btw, I think a lot of breathtaking music came out of what you summarize with serial and 12tone, but contains so many more colours, technics, ideas etc. So I agree with trojanlol here... :-)
@oliverecords I admit: I am very serious about music! ;-) And, btw, I do love to listen to the music of nature very much - in nature. And I am not against esthetics who try to kind of emulate the way sound develops in nature ("naturally"). Still, I think the musical complexity of an "evening in the woods-soundscape" is so much more exciting than this kind of reduction of nature's (or mankind's) capabilities in production as well as perception. But that's my view. I fully accept others.
@Fresienduft I find you're a bit severe with this music. I hate labels, but I would put this along A. Coltrane or even B.Eno and other people whose music you may not like either. Lately I read someone's comment on a jazz video, saying he was through with it and got to more "musical" stuff, namely classical. But a sound is not intrinsically boring or non-musical. Sometimes, as many people do, I love to listen to nature sounds for example. I don't feel that elevated but I find it beautiful.
It's just intonation, like "Beauty in the Beast." www.keyboardmag.com/artists/1236/terry-riley-on-just-intonation-melodic-inflection-and-the-spiritual-source-of-music/58626
Fascinating, but out of sync in many places. "Shall we bother syncing the audio with the film?" "Nah, who's gonna notice?". "Keyboard players might." "Yeah, but who cares about them?" Aarrrgh!
Too bad no one found the play button of the tape recorder. I am quite sure it would have contained the part of the performance that had made the whole thing musically interesting. That is, for those people who prefer to see a little bit more in music than just some handy tool to get "spiritually elevated", drunk or high or however you like to call it.
Not impressed. It reminds me of Sri Cinmoy, some guru or other I followed for a few months until a girl dumped me. Nothing impressing about either "artist."
I modified this YC-45D in late 1974 or early 1975 for Just Intonation. ( I still marvel at how, having known me for only a couple of months, Terry trusted me to drill holes and solder wires in his organ.) At around 3:43 in this video you can see some little posts just above the keys. These are the 12 potentiometers I installed to adjust the tuning of each note. One of the two boxes on top of the organ is likely the Marantz 3300 preamp that Terry later gave me and is still doing service playing Spotify in my spare room. This was probably recorded between 1975 and 1978. It seems to me this is a rehearsal or private performance for the video. ( The tape recorder is not running-in a performance he would have been using it to generate the echo for his characteristic canon sound) In some of the shots you can see part of the auditorium and it reminds me of what I remember of the concert hall at Mills College ( RIP Mills ;-( ). In the summer of 1978 I built a digital delay to replace the tape recorder and travelled with him to several concerts in Europe including a two-week stint in Berlin where he was composer in residence at a festival. (Pro Musica Nova?). While there I finished writing the code for the control panel for the digital delay, which he christened the “Ethereal Time Shadow”. After returning to the states he recorded the Shri Camel album at the Columbia Studios in San Francisco. Of course he used their professional digital delay for that. Those cost thousands of dollars back then.
Thanks for fleshing out some of these details Dad!
Pretty sure that's a Dynaco PAT-4 preamp on the left. Guessing it's a Stereo 400 power amplifier on the right. The basic model without the meters.
I would really love to know the details of this modification and reproduce it!
I’ve been curious about this modification for ages. @defytrustedconcepts can you confirm whether the version of the YC45 was the one with transistors (earlier years of the series) or the one with the integrated circuits? I have one of the latter and I’ve been told by one of the organ experts here in San Diego that you can only tweak the tuning on the transistor version. The sound of this organ on Shri Camel is still unparalleled on any recording since. It’s completely magical. Thanks for your work on it.
Amazing work! I would love to interview you for my upcoming ethnomusicology podcast 😊my contact info is in the "about" section of my youtube account profile if you're interested! Thanks again for sharing about your process and experiences! 💮🐝🌞 Hope you are well 🎹
I bloody love Terry Riley!!
This is a variation on 'Anthem of the Trinity', featured on the album Shri Camel.
“Shri Camel” is such a fantastic album! Peace.
❤
What an absolute pleasure to it is to listen to this!
Never heard of this guy before today, but shit, this is interesting. Really relaxing, an almost indescribable feeling.
Listen to his masterpiece called "In C" . Follow that up by Steve Reich's "Music For 18 Musicians"
@@TheRealTeebz I couldn't have said better. I would add the album made by Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar though, "Passages".
You are Blessed
fuck yea
The organ is modified, tuned to Just Intonation. In the studio version of this piece it is also put through a lot of delay.
still love your music!
So wonderful, and rare footage to expose me, I thank you.
Thank you for sharing
I believe Yamaha custom made these organs for Terry. I know they custom made two for him. These may predate the custom organs they made for him. I saw him around this time at a free festival of new music. I can tell you his system was pretty incredible. Terry is super cool.
Yamaha YC-45D by the looks of it.
I knew they were Yamaha Yc-45d that he or somebody (could have been yamaha) modded to have individual outputs and built in delays.
In just intonation?
Wow it has a lot of musical ideas.
Ah the Yamaha YC-45D... One thee greatest organs ever made!
I always wanted one.
Really cool to see him doing his thing-- Actually did in New York Town Hall in '82... This sounds like Shri Camel...
Thank you for making the footage available.
Thank you very much!
minimalism spiritual !
YES! nice find.
Thank you!
Inspirational.
Incredible footage!!!
the right hand of Mike Ratledge :)
Out-bloody-rageous!
Mike was a tad more aggressive in his playing, doncha think? Sure, on Soft Machine 3 there's the loop, but apart from that..
Thank you.
Boards of Canada tiene un sonido muy similar a sus creaciones
good footage
beatiful
perfect
been diggin'
Gift!
-- ☮ --
@trojanlol Very true!
I think limiting the idea of a certain art to what YOU prefer it to be (for all sorts of random reasons), is only reveiling the limitations of your worldview.
So, curiousity towards what sounds foreign (and maybe ugly) first, is the most enlightening motor for one's own esthetic evelopment. That's why I listened to that video (not being a Riley fan, obviously).
I may have been wiser not to post a sarcastic comment on the tape recorder not being switched on, though... ;-)
A lot of ignorant comments around this video. Terry along with LeMonte Young were the progenitors of several genres, trance, rave, world, new age. WAY back in the late 50s and early 60s they were influencing people like David Bowie and Brian Eno. Both ended up experimenting with just intonation tuning systems. If you don't understand the difference between Just and tempered music you might want to look into it. It IS the future IMHO. There are many types of both. The west decided to standardize on 12 tempered for various reasons, but digital synthesis has enabled modern musicians to change tunings at will in real time. There is no "best" tuning, they all sound different. Balanesian tuning addresses problems with Just tuning just as tempered addresses problems but in an entirely different way. Indian music sometimes divides octaves into many more than 12. Serial music base on 12 tempered is just one theory among thousands. Saying this is boring is to NOT HEAR what is going on. Which is perfectly fine, who cares? The bit rate of this is so low you aren't going to hear much of what makes it special. Lots of people don't hear Mozart either. In fact most people don't of course. It takes effort, you have to come to Mozart he's not going to lower himself to your level.
Well yeah...A good musician pulls you up to their level instead of condescending to you, but there's nothing wrong with someone hearing this and calling it a boring piece. Saying that this is boring is to say that it's boring, which minimalist music really can be. A lot of the time it's intended to be in the background while other things, like a scene in a movie or some type of a religious ceremony (or some sort of a trip) is going on. Maybe the people calling this boring were just in the mood for something a little spicier at the moment...
FYI, Western musicains have been able to make use of different types of temperament for a while. What sort of a temperament to use and when has definitely been a relevant discussion for long than Terry Riley has been active. I've always assumed they taught the way they did because it's easier for a beginner and the notation is pretty versatile.
Also, you've never heard the pieces that Mozart did for Mozart. Most of those were improv pieces. I'd be relucant to say all, but most of the compositions that people have access to were probably commissioned by rich Bavarians.
knupder I had a quick look and found mainly positive, helpful comments. Nothing really ignorant at all, at most rather naively enthusiastic, but absolutely nothign to take exception to and nothing like a lot of videos get. Curious .
doren garcia: Re: "If you don't understand the difference between Just and tempered music you might want to look into it."
You sound a bit confused about this. Twelve-tone equal-temperament is NOT a tempering of just tuning; it's a tempering of PYTHAGOREAN tuning, and in respect to tempered Pythagorean tuning is for most intervals the OPPOSITE of just tuning, that is, most Pythagorean intervals deviate from tempered in the opposite direction that most just intervals do.
Re: "There are many types of both."
For someone who cares about clarity and logical consistency there is really only one kind of just tuning: historical diatonic just tuning (although the just intervals can be distributed within a diatonic scale in exactly two different ways). There is one type of tempered scale only, but there are as many tempered scales as notes you want to have in it.
Have to go now but there's still more to say.
yes
If The Residents turned into a peaceful band...
Fretless_ness terry riley is the furthest thing from the residents and the residents style of "music"
You must not have heard a lot of Residents then.
Fretless_ness Yeah despite the fact that ive been listening to the residents for 15 years, what do I know? go fuck yourself.
Yikes. This sounds like it could be somewhere in the Not Available album.
Fretless_ness indeed this is nothing like the residents
A Yamaha YC-45D combo organ that may or may not be modified.
@variations3 yes, this is celestial valley
My computer skipped to 5:50 when I opened this video for some reason, and I was momentarily very confused by the title
mooooooooooooooooooooooore!
It sounds like a really long intro to Eminence Front.
I'd say more like Baba O'Riley, which of course was influenced partly by Riley.
@Fresienduft Isn't that the function of most music, though? And what most good musicians aim to do? To take you on a journey, or to lift and expand your consciousness.
What's the point of 'musical interest', complex chord progressions and extended harmony, if it ends up saying nothing? We have gone through serial and 12-tone music and nothing really came out of it.
Have you wondered why Indian Classical musicians practice their whole lives, focusing only on a few scales?
@Fresienduft google "India" and check out their classical music tradition
Probably, this is a performance in pro musica nova festival 1977 or 1978.
let the tape roll baby!!!
@Raiyne123 I have to disagree on your conclusions about music that tries to depart from simplistic ideas on the social function of music.
I think as any art it offers the potential of being something original, something that doesn't need a functional excuse to exist, etc.
Btw, I think a lot of breathtaking music came out of what you summarize with serial and 12tone, but contains so many more colours, technics, ideas etc.
So I agree with trojanlol here... :-)
@oliverecords I admit: I am very serious about music! ;-) And, btw, I do love to listen to the music of nature very much - in nature. And I am not against esthetics who try to kind of emulate the way sound develops in nature ("naturally"). Still, I think the musical complexity of an "evening in the woods-soundscape" is so much more exciting than this kind of reduction of nature's (or mankind's) capabilities in production as well as perception. But that's my view. I fully accept others.
i love terry riley. is this natural tuning? i can hear the difference from equal temperament.
"direct connection"
@saSkylark I don't need to google it, my wise friend... ;-)
I know that organ is called the yamaha yc-45d. And what are called two devices that are on the cover of organ?
anyone know what kind of synth/organ/EP is that?
Beautiful! Too bad about the ducks, though.
Ohhh it's a cover of "Riders on the storm" j/k : p
Does anyone know the source of this footage?
@Fresienduft I find you're a bit severe with this music. I hate labels, but I would put this along A. Coltrane or even B.Eno and other people whose music you may not like either. Lately I read someone's comment on a jazz video, saying he was through with it and got to more "musical" stuff, namely classical. But a sound is not intrinsically boring or non-musical. Sometimes, as many people do, I love to listen to nature sounds for example. I don't feel that elevated but I find it beautiful.
From Shri Camel: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shri_Camel
does any one know the date, or even just the year for this?
Andrea Belestri: yes it is--
Introspective🤨
not sure if terry riley in the 70s,
or just arvo pärt in the 90s!
Does anybody know if this is from his album Shri Camel?
Thanks
I'm pretty sure this is Persian Surgery Dervishes
I'm pretty sure its as much improvisation based to a small degree on Persian Surgery Dervishes
@saSkylark I know quite about it. And I admire some of it. Rarely it's as boring as its epigones...
needs more "droning", are at least 1 cowbell
haha where did that duck come from??
It sounded like some weird Indian song.
Is this microtonal or just out of tune? Kind of reminds me of some of the microtonal music from W. Carlos's "Beauty In The Beast."
It's just intonation, like "Beauty in the Beast." www.keyboardmag.com/artists/1236/terry-riley-on-just-intonation-melodic-inflection-and-the-spiritual-source-of-music/58626
Супер!!!Восторг!ambiente kraut electro !!!!!С ЛЮБОВЬЮ ИЗ РОССИИ ❤❤❤
dont make a car of it!
Fascinating, but out of sync in many places. "Shall we bother syncing the audio with the film?" "Nah, who's gonna notice?". "Keyboard players might." "Yeah, but who cares about them?" Aarrrgh!
Yes, keyboard players are known to experience great oppression in our society. But who are the oppressors? The ducks.
terrible sound in general, you are probably better off learning from his albums
Well, maybe it is rare footage - but there is no connection between the images and the sound.
Picture is 1-2 seconds ahead of sound.
Too bad no one found the play button of the tape recorder.
I am quite sure it would have contained the part of the performance that had made the whole thing musically interesting. That is, for those people who prefer to see a little bit more in music than just some handy tool to get "spiritually elevated", drunk or high or however you like to call it.
What a horrible noise.
Not impressed. It reminds me of Sri Cinmoy, some guru or other I followed for a few months until a girl dumped me. Nothing impressing about either "artist."