34 Quotes by Terry Riley

I had been interested in Indian music and I actually started studying Tableaus before I met him.

I really didn't have a plan, I just went in and started playing. one of my specialties was to be able to play for a really long time without stopping and I would play these repeated patterns for hours and hours and I wouldn't seem to get tired.

I was using tape loops for dancers and dance production. I had very funky primitive equipment, in fact technology wasn't very good no matter how much money you had.

It seems like we are moving towards something, some kind of point and it is probably going to be an important point in our development or dissolution. That is what everybody seems to be thinking.

So, essentially my contribution was to introduce repetition into Western music as the main ingredient without any melody over it, without anything just repeated patterns, musical patterns.

Talking about the all night concerts, I did some of the first all night concerts back in the 60's with this little harmonium, and I also had saxophone taped delays.

Throughout the evening I would be recording these long saxophone delays and about four hours into the concert, if I wanted to take a break I would just play back the saxophone.

La monte's idea was just to have this one big form that were just long tones, I think that was the real essential heart of minimalist music.

Especially on trans-Atlantic flights, flights that take a long time, flights that happen at night when the cabin is dark,