I cannot imagine Terry Riley to be an aggressive man, I cannot imagine him to have strong and absolute principles of what music should be, what good music should sound like and what separates music as art from music as entertainment. I cannot imagine Terry Riley having an argument with Beyoncé after watching one of her shows. He is simply not that kind of man, not in my mind at least. If you have the talent, skill and vision to compose ‘in C’ (1964) and only give your performing musicians a few guidelines as to how to play it, then you cannot be dictatorial about essence and quality; such a man would just experience the show, think carefully, call it interesting and use elements of it in his next composition. This next composition would be based on cut-up fragments of Beyoncé’s music and feature exactly 51 dancers. On stage it would be interpreted by a chamber orchestra or a jazz quartet. The dancers would follow their own inner logic. Every performance would be different, but feel the same.

Beyond C there is a reality where Terry Riley is a global superstar, where his brand of music appeals to millions of people, is not considered difficult, but easy to the senses, easy to understand. In this alternative reality Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame is not condensed ad infinitum. In this reality Keith Jarrett’s improvisations go viral on social media. I know this reality exsist because every possible reality exists and it only takes a tiny timeline tweak to completely alter the course of history. Would that a better reality than the one we actually live in? I don’t think so. A massive audience for Terry Riley would by default imply a society that is more conscious, introspective and spiritual, but his music would still be monetised and vulgarised, plagiarised and simplified…

I still love a world where Terry Riley is niche and not for everyone. Not for snobbish reasons, but just because I believe Terry Riley’s music deserves more than casual lstening, it needs effort and attention to open up and blossom. In that sense his music is by default niche. Terry Riley’s world ended long before, around the turn of the 20th century, in Stefan Zweig’s Vienna if you like. It ended with the death of the intellectual and the gradual (industrialised) killing of time. Terry Riley’s world is a world of attention, of small but important details and above all of intenstity that only reveals itself with effort. He is the antithesis of immediate and absolute gratification.

I can imagine an alternative timeline where Beyoncé watches (and listens to) a Terry Riley composition, goes back to her small studio, eats a $2 pizza and starts working on a song, an album that almost comes close. I can almost see her satisfaction and sense of accomplishment.