Tonality in Steve Reich's Nagoya Marimbas

This article explores the remarkable tonal qualities of Steve Reich's Nagoya Marimbas . While most of Reich's output might be considered diatonic, rarely do those collections move in tonal paradigms. But in Nagoya Marimbas the two melodic voices combine in various canonic patterns to create a background tonal progression in E minor. The two marimba parts are always heard in phase with one another, playing the same music but at constantly varying intervals of displacement. The result is a long introduction that establishes E minor as tonic, followed by music that features more rapid changes yet continues to reinforce E minor as a tonal center. The piece, though an outlier in Reich's harmonic language, represents an important example of late twentieth-century tonality