Aporia

N0wak posted a performance of Steve Reich’s “Piano Phase” by just one pianist; reblogged by Filthyphil, it came to the attention of one of my heroes, Superdoofus-Stratodrive, who added some  illuminating commentary:

reich is one of the “big four” (young, glass, riley, reich), and this composition helps illustrate why. now, this may not seem all too special (“hay! you play piano with both hands anyway!”), but that’s only because you’ve allowed a mere cursory listen. what is actually going on here will sound somewhat familiar to those who understand how to modulate sinusoidal waveforms binaurally or have at least learned “beat-matching”. this instance, however, involves the pianist attempting to play one piano at a very precise tempo, while simultaneously (and very minutely) increasing the tempo (based upon a sinusoidal timeline) played on the other piano. thusly bringing the two pianos into, and then out of, phase — thereby never achieving actual synchronicity until the 1st note on each piano being played is matched up again, then the performance drops to 8 notes and the cycle starts all over, then again to 4 notes.

it is also worthy to note that this composition is twenty minutes long in its entirety and is meant to be played by two pianists. the fact that one person can mentally and physically process this is truly astounding.