Unexplainable

Composing chaos

October 8, 2025

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Segments

Sponsor Messages and Personal Obsession
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(00:00:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The episode introduces the concept of personal ‘unexplainables’ before focusing on the host’s obsession with Terry Riley’s “In C.”
  • Summary: The opening features advertisements for Anthropic’s Claude AI and Amazon employment opportunities. The host then frames the episode as an exploration of personal obsessions that defy easy explanation, leading into the main musical topic.
Introduction to Terry Riley’s “In C”
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(00:03:06)
  • Key Takeaway: “In C” was written by Terry Riley in 1964 and is named for its key signature, C major.
  • Summary: The piece is described as a ‘weird blob of sound’ that feels like chaos but is intentionally composed. The host plays an excerpt from the Bang on a Can recording to illustrate its unique sound.
Defining Aleatoric Music Structure
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(00:04:54)
  • Key Takeaway: “In C” is defined as Aleatoric music, consisting of 53 short, sequential melodic patterns that instrumentalists play in order, choosing when to advance to the next pattern.
  • Summary: The structure allows for infinite variation because performers make independent decisions regarding timing, speed, and instrumentation. The piece is compared to a ‘slime mold’ or ‘amoeba’ mapping out a system, ensuring every recording is distinct.
Diverse Interpretations of “In C”
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(00:05:40)
  • Key Takeaway: The core idea of “In C” is so flexible it has been successfully adapted across numerous mediums, including solo performance, vocal arrangements, rock bands, and dance.
  • Summary: Examples of diverse recordings include a solo cellist using a loop pedal, a version by Arsnova Copenhagen, a psychedelic rock take by Acid Mother’s Temple, and a performance choreographed by Sasha Waltz. The introduction to The Who’s “Baba O’Reilly” is also revealed to be heavily influenced by the piece.
Live Performance Dynamics and Empathy
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(00:09:23)
  • Key Takeaway: Live performances of “In C” resemble musicians having real-time conversations through music, relying on non-verbal cues like pointing to coordinate shifts.
  • Summary: The music feels alive because musicians are constantly making micro-decisions influenced by their surroundings, creating emergent phenomena like spontaneous crescendos or diminuendos. This requires musicians to be sensorially present rather than strictly following notation.
Philosophical Resonance of “In C”
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(00:11:09)
  • Key Takeaway: The piece embodies the tenuous relationship between chaos and order, feeling like a musical representation of life, the universe coalescing, or the slow awakening of a city.
  • Summary: The structure is likened to a Buddhist sand mandala, building complexity only to dissipate without a traditional resolution, highlighting that events overlap and do not always follow clean narrative beginnings and ends.
Composer’s Intent and Player Empowerment
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(00:20:33)
  • Key Takeaway: Terry Riley designed “In C” to empower players, explicitly encouraging them to embrace unexpected interactions between notes (like dissonant intervals) that arise during performance.
  • Summary: The composer’s intent was to create a platform where players make choices, contrasting with the restrictive nature of traditional Western classical notation. The piece’s ending is also indeterminate, relying on the collective feeling of the ensemble that ’now we’re done.'
Lasting Vitality and Community Faith
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(00:24:37)
  • Key Takeaway: Decades after its creation, the vital discovery within “In C” is the power of rhythmic empathy and faith in community, demonstrated when musicians spontaneously crescendo or soften together without instruction.
  • Summary: Evan Ziporyn, who produced the featured Bang on a Can recording, notes that the piece reveals more depth the more it is played. The shared, uninstructed synchronization among performers is described as glorious.
Episode Wrap-up and Credits
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(00:26:21)
  • Key Takeaway: The host reveals that his high school cover of “In C” was used for the Unexplainable theme music, demonstrating his long-standing engagement with the composition.
  • Summary: The segment lists the various versions of “In C” heard in the episode, including the dance choreography by Sasha Waltz. Production credits are given, and listeners are encouraged to email the show or support Vox membership for ad-free content.