Minimal music

Minimal music
Stylistic origins
Cultural originsEarly 1960s, United States
Derivative forms
Subgenres
Drone[1]

Minimal music (also called minimalism)[2][3] is a form of art music or other compositional practice that employs limited or minimal musical materials. Prominent features of minimalist music include repetitive patterns or pulses, steady drones, consonant harmony, and reiteration of musical phrases or smaller units. It may include features such as phase shifting, resulting in what is termed phase music, or process techniques that follow strict rules, usually described as process music. The approach is marked by a non-narrative, non-teleological, and non-representational approach, and calls attention to the activity of listening by focusing on the internal processes of the music.[4]

The approach originated on the West Coast of the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly around the Bay Area, where La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Steve Reich were studying and living at the time. After the three composers moved to the East Coast, their music became associated with the New York Downtown scene of the mid-1960s, where it was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School.[5] In the Western art music tradition, the American composers Moondog, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass are credited with being among the first to develop compositional techniques that exploit a minimal approach.[6][2][7][8][9] The movement originally involved dozens of composers, although only five (Young, Riley, Reich, Glass, and later John Adams) emerged to become publicly associated with American minimal music; other lesser known pioneers included Dennis Johnson, Terry Jennings, Richard Maxfield, Pauline Oliveros, Phill Niblock, and James Tenney. In Europe, the music of Louis Andriessen, Karel Goeyvaerts, Michael Nyman, Howard Skempton, Éliane Radigue, Gavin Bryars, Steve Martland, Henryk Górecki, Arvo Pärt and John Tavener exhibits minimalist traits.

It is unclear where the term minimal music originates. Steve Reich has suggested that it is attributable to Michael Nyman, an assertion that two scholars, Jonathan Bernard, and Dan Warburton, have also made in writing. Philip Glass believes Tom Johnson coined the phrase.[10][11][12]

  1. ^ Cox & Warner 2004, p. 301 (in "Thankless Attempts at a Definition of Minimalism" by Kyle Gann): "Certainly many of the most famous minimalist pieces relied on a motorick 8th-note beat, although there were also several composers like Young and Niblock interested in drones with no beat at all. ... Perhaps “steady-beat-minimalism” is a criterion that could divide the minimalist repertoire into two mutually exclusive bodies of music, pulse-based music versus drone-based music.Steve Reich is thought of as the godfather of minimalism"
  2. ^ a b "Minimalism in music has been defined as an aesthetic, a style, and a technique, each of which has been a suitable description of the term at certain points in the development of minimal music. However, two of these definitions of minimalism—aesthetic and style—no longer accurately represent the music that is often given that label." Johnson 1994, 742.
  3. ^ "A minimal guide to minimalism". BBC Music. September 2016. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  4. ^ Johnson 1994, 744.
  5. ^ Kostelanetz and Flemming 1997, 114–16.
  6. ^ Mertens 1983, 11.
  7. ^ Michael Nyman, writing in the preface of Mertens' book refers to the style as "so-called minimal music" (Mertens 1983, 8).
  8. ^ "The term 'minimal music' is generally used to describe a style of music that developed in America in the late 1960s and 1970s; and that was initially connected with the composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass" (Sitsky 2002, 361).
  9. ^ Young, La Monte, "Notes on The Theatre of Eternal Music and The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys" (original PDF file Archived 2014-03-31 at the Wayback Machine), 2000, Mela Foundation, www.melafoundation.org—Historical account and musical essay where Young explains why he considers himself the originator of the style vs. Tony Conrad and John Cale.
  10. ^ Kostelanetz and Flemming 1997, 114.
  11. ^ Bernard 1993, 87 and 126.
  12. ^ Warburton 1988, 141.