Terry Riley's "In C"

This week's Summer Music was a little different, but by no means any less enjoyable!

Wil got together with something like 17 of his friends to perform Terry Riley's "In C". The Wikipedia articles cited describes the piece:

In C consists of 53 short, numbered musical phrases, lasting from half a beat to 32 beats; each phrase may be repeated an arbitrary number of times. Each musician has control over which phrase he or she plays: players are encouraged to play the phrases starting at different times, even if they are playing the same phrase. The phrases must be played in order, although some may be skipped.

The effect was quite pleasing. I wish I had a better video recorder (or ever remembered to bring my digital camera on a Thursday), but I think you'll get a sense of the sound from the video files, below - or at least for the period when I didn't have my thumb over the microphone...

Video clips:

"In C" (1 of 2) 3:50

"In C" (2 of 2) 1:06