Shaker Loops

Encyclopedia : S : SH : SHA : Shaker Loops

Written in 1978 by the American composer John Adams, Shaker Loops was originally written for string septet. The version for string orchestra was written in 1983.

The work is in four movements.

I. Shaking and Trembling
II. Hymning Slews
III. Loops and Verses
IV. A Final Shaking

Shaker Loops began as a piece called 'Wavemaker' in which Adams tried to emulate the ripple effect of bodies of water in his music. The piece was a failure, but Adams kept the idea of repeating loops of oscillations on string instruments. He retitled the piece 'Shaker Loops,' due to both the 'shaking' of the strings as they oscillate between notes and the idea Adams had of Shakers dancing to repetitive, energetic music.

The first movement of Shaker Loops was featured in the 1987 film Barfly.

The first and third movements are part of the sound track to the video game Civilization IV.

External links

[link] Article on Shaker Loops

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.