Reed Phase

Reed Phase, also called Three Reeds, is an early work by the American minimalist composer Steve Reich. It was written originally in 1966 for soprano saxophone and two soprano saxophones recorded on magnetic tape, titled at that time Saxophone Phase, and was later published in two versions: one for any reed instrument and tape (titled Reed Phase), the other for three reed instruments of exactly the same kind (in which case the title is Three Reeds). It was Reich's first attempt at applying his "phasing" technique, which he had previously used in the tape pieces It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966), to live performance.

Reed Phase was composed in 1966 for Jon Gibson, the score having been finished in December 1966. The world premiere was given by Gibson in the art gallery of Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey on January 5, 1967, under the title Saxophone Phase, and was repeated in New York at the Park Place Gallery on March 17, 1967 (Potter 2000, 181). The score was published the next year in a version "for any reed instrument and two channel tape or three reeds", now retitled Reed Phase or Three Reeds (Reich 1968).

Reed Phase is the first work in which Reich attempted to apply the discoveries of phasing made with the tape works It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966) to live performance. It represents a transitional stage in that it combined, in its original version, live instrumental performance and tape accompaniment. A technical difference between the tape and live mediums is that in the former, phasing was accomplished by slowing down one tape loop against the other, using the technique of flanging, whereas in the instrumental compositions it proved easier for one player to speed up against the other’s fixed tempo. From the listener’s point of view, however, the difference in effect is indistinguishable (Potter 2000, 180–81).

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