Describe the features of music in Electric Counterpoint

The melody of Electric Counterpoint is based on the ostinati.  Reich builds the ostinato at the beginning of the movement by using note addition. This is where you build it up by adding notes in stages. This builds up a repeating idea. The resultant melody – a new melody that emerges when two or more different melodies are played at the same time- gives a new life to the ostinato. At bar 82 the bass guitars play a new ostinato. There are two basses, one which pans to the left and one that pans to the right. This is unusual but the sound, sounds balanced. At bar 114 we return to a ‘four part guitar canon’ with the resultant melody. The movement then ends with a crescendo and a chord of E5 in all parts.

At the beginning of the movement the tonality of the music is hinting at E minor. It is only when the bass guitars come in, at bar 33, that E minor is confirmed. At bar 74 the key suddenly shifts to C minor. There is no preparation for the shift. It just changes. The key then changes back to E minor at bar 82. The key then changes regularly until bar 129 when it becomes clear that we will end in E minor.

The texture of the movement begins as monophonic. This means a texture consisting of a single unaccompanied melody. This builds up to a four part guitar canon in guitars 1-4. When the bass guitars come in they immediately add depth to the texture. At bar 106 guitars 5-7 and the bass guitars begin to fade out gradually at first, then more quickly at bar 113.

Reich wrote this movement in ternary form (ABA). The movement is constructed in layers. Lots of the layers combine to form ‘elaborate canonic ostinatos’. When the bass guitars come in at bar 24 we can hear the structure of the piece clearer. The coda begins at bar 114. At the end of the piece the bass guitars and chordal parts drop out, leaving only the high guitar parts to finish the movement.