A piece composed by
minimalist composer Terry Riley. The interesting aspect of this piece is that the "
composition" itself consists of about two pages of music. On those two pages, there are about 50 motifs, most about 8
notes or so in length. The piece begins with a pianist playing
octave Cs (this is the pedal tone throughout which acts has a centering effect). The rest of the group (which could consist of any number of people playing any number of
instruments) begin on the first motif whenever they feel like coming in. Each person can begin that first bar
whenever they see fit to do so and continue to the next
motif at any time. Eventually, each player will reach the final
motif, and the piece
ends.
Those are the rules behind In C. As you might guess, each performance/recording sounds unqiue depending on the size of the group, the instruments, the time of day, whether or not some guy playing the zither had a fight with his dog, ETC. It's an excellent example of minimalism in music; slightly absurd, but not grating as some might find its predecessors, atonal music. It can often be rather hypnotic and relaxing. Those was some of the ideas behind minimalist composing; the composer (in this case Riley, provides a framework and leaves the rest up to chance.