Science & Tech Quote by Terry Riley

Riley is smuggling a whole aesthetic manifesto into a shrug about “funky primitive equipment.” The point isn’t nostalgia for hiss and wobble; it’s a reminder that minimalism and early electronic music weren’t born from sleek futurism but from necessity, bodily collaboration, and a kind of pragmatic mischief. Tape loops “for dancers” plants the work in a social, kinetic world: music as something built to move bodies in real time, not just to impress a conservatory jury or sit politely in a concert hall. That context matters because Riley’s breakthrough language - repetition, phase, duration as a felt experience - makes more sense as choreography’s partner than as abstract theory.

The subtext is also a quiet jab at the myth of gear-as-destiny. “Technology wasn’t very good no matter how much money you had” punctures the fantasy that innovation is simply purchased. In the 1960s, studio power was still scarce, boutique, temperamental; even well-funded composers were wrestling with physical tape, splices, and machines that drifted out of sync. Riley frames limitation as the baseline condition, which reframes his process as resourceful rather than quaint.

There’s an ethic hiding here: if the tools are crude for everyone, the advantage shifts from hardware to imagination and community. The loop becomes less a gadget than a method - a way to create trance, groove, and extended time using whatever’s on hand. It’s not anti-technology; it’s anti-techno-romance.