What is Unison Synchronization?
I am reading the following article
Schwarz, K. Robert. "Steve Reich: Music as a Gradual Process: Part
I." Perspectives of New Music (1980): 373-392.
Here is a paywalled link. On page 385, there is a passage about Steve Reich's It's Gonna Rain . I don't understand the first sentence of that passage:
It's Gonna Rain is two parts, the first taking the title phrase from a
unison synchronization of two channels through a complete shift of
phase, and then back to the original unison again.
What is a "unison synchronization of two channels"?
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Unison usually means that two instruments are playing the same notes together. In this case, we have two tracks playing back the same recording - of the phrase "It's gonna rain".
Synchronisation means that things are aligned in time.
And the two channels are just the Left and Right channels in a stereo mix
Listening to the piece on headphones might make things clearer - I think the section being written about starts around 2:30 and ends about 7:30. You can hear the Left and Right stereo channels go out of phase, and then come back into synchronisation again:
Having said that, the particular phrasing "unison synchronization of two channels" is odd. Talking about unison and synchronisation is a bit tautological as the concept of unison includes the concept of being in sync; and arguably it's not so much that the channels themselves that are in sync so much as the snippets of audio that are being repeated.
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