Sonic reducer

>> New York City minimalist Rhys Chatham on how the Ramones redirected his minimalist impulses and the mixed blessings of hearing damage

Mirror: You’ve mentioned that in 1976, when you saw the Ramones, it provided your main inspiration for mixing minimalist composition with rock.
 

Rhys Chatham: Prior to 1975, I was strictly a minimalist composer. In early 1976, the composer Peter Gordon took me to my first rock concert, the Ramones at CBGBs. What I heard at that Ramones concert changed my life. Those guys were playing on three chords, which was two more chords than I was playing on, but I felt a resonance with what they were doing. They struck a deep chord in my minimalist heart. After the concert, I decided to pick up an electric guitar. I got my hands on a Telecaster and started playing. After a year of experimenting, the result was “Guitar Trio.”
 

M: Do you look for specific traits in a musician who will be playing your pieces, without your having the luxury of rehearsing with them beforehand?

RC: Primarily that they be good rock musicians and already know the piece from the recording. I give everyone a score, which is basically a cue sheet plus an explanation of the theoretical side of the piece, the overtones as its primary musical vocabulary. Then we will have one rehearsal of an hour directly before the performance, followed by a soundcheck. Because we recruit 100 to 400 musicians for my larger guitar pieces, I am used to working with new musicians I haven’t met before, and it is always a great pleasure to do so. It’s really fun, in fact!
 

M: When you started to experience hearing loss in the ’80s, was it a result of the volume that most of your guitar-oriented pieces demanded?
 

RC: Yes, I developed tinnitus because of playing loud music. I was doing a 100-guitar performance in Strasbourg , and all of a sudden I heard a loud, clear tone at around 400 hertz. I thought it was a test signal, so I asked the sound engineer to turn it off. It turned out that there was no test signal. I was hearing the sound internally. This low frequency of 400hz went away and was replaced with a high tone of around 15.70 cylces per second. By the year 2002, I had become used to my tinnitus. Actually, I find it quite beautiful—which I would, of course, being a minimalist. Imagine, I hear this beautiful, constantly evolving frequency of around 15kilohertz all the time. It’s fantastic. I don’t even need an iPod to hear great music!

With Thames at la Sala Rossa

on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 8:30 p.m., $20