Philip Glass - Music in twelve Parts - many repetitions

Philip Glass, being a composer and a reresetative of minimal music, uses repetitional units for some of his songs. The same goes for his song "Music in twelve parts" in which the first 3 minutes are completly a repetition of the same sounds again and again. Then suddenly there is a slight change, with an added instrument. The basic flute sounds stay the same for some time and then slowly also begin to change. The change seems to happen consistently but is very tiny which is why it is barely noticeable that there even is change happening within the first few minutes. However, with the addition of the deep instrument, the change becomes very noticeable. 

The whole song is a process of changing rhythm, although there is not a lot of change happening. To me the very first string sounds, which build the basis for the song, are very annoying simply because they are so hectic. The tones appear very fast and the intervalls are very short. At the same time the pitch of these sounds is very high and thus not calming. Instead the song acquires the listener to stay active because the mind cannot rest through the repetitional sounds because of this hectic feeling. 

After some time, somewhere in the middle of the song there are different rhythms and I started to understand how that song can be perceived as calming because of these repetitions. It is similiar to a loop in which I find myself drifting off. The song uses different instruments and the adapting rhythm does make it a song which can serve as a background song a movie or a TV show.

The song itself is 17 minutes long and, like the title says, there are twelve such pieces. This song is part 10 and of the composing and I think that part eleven takes the ending elements of this song, hence its instruments and its rhytmus, and proceeds with more adaptions and changings. This all serves the idea that music is an everlasting process and through adaptions and changes of repetitional pieces actual songs can come into existence.

I can recognize flute sounds, which serve as the core of this piece, and electric sounds. While I do like the sounds of flutes normally, this song is not to my liking because of its repetitions and its hectic playing. If the song was calmer and the durations of sounds produces by the flutes longer, the song would be more to my liking. 

When performing the song live, especially all of the twelve pieces in a big composition, it would be a very long and exhausting experience for both the performers and for the audience because they all have to stay focused. The perfromers have to make sure not to make mistakes, which can be very hard if you have to play fast and repeat your notes, until you have to simultaneously adjust your notes at a specific point. The audience will also probably start to lose their attention as the repetition can cause their minds to drift away. Hence, it would be best to have some breaks. But these breaks would then constrict the idea of music being an "ever-"lasting process.