About Minimalist Music
I feel like I should be on 'shrooms to really get the full experience. At least, that's what my brother and parents have told me. These composers were doing lots of drugs at this time, weren't they? I mean, who wasn't? It's not that I don't think the work these innovators have done isn't important. It's just that for the most part I don't like it. They kind of make me anxious. I also tend to think of the movie "Brazil" while listening.
Phillip Glass's work "Music With Changing Parts" expresses the beauty in the monotony of everyday life, it holds a few variants, but is basically constant. Intellectually I get that. Terry Riley's "In C" is along the same lines. It reminds me of when I was forced to read "Heart of Darkness" for my English class. This book was exploring impressionism in literature, and while I intellectually understood the significance, I did not enjoy reading it.
I enjoy La Monte Young's work. It reminds me of jazz camp, and conjures up images of people meditating while incense is burning. I bring up jazz camp because when I was there a group played with the minimalist idea, but with a different take on it. They took a Carl Sandburg poem, called Bubbles, and worked it into a piece that was quite frankly extraordinary. They used only the words of the poem, with different band members reciting it in different ways, while playing a steady tune and other instruments would make their brief appearance and fade out.
The poem is:
Two bubbles found they had rainbows on their curves
they flickered out saying
it was worth it to be a bubble
just to have held that rainbow for thirty seconds.
That really speaks to me. The fact that these musicians took a poem that is about being in this world to hold or create something beautiful, and turned it into a song that expressed this sentiment tonally was magnificent.
I think Michael Nyman expresses the definition of minimalistic music perfectly:
"The idea of minimalism is much larger than most people realize. It includes, by definition, any music that works with limited or minimal materials: pieces that use only a few notes, pieces that use only a few words of text, or pieces written for very limited instruments, such as antique cymbals, bicycle wheels, or whiskey glasses. It includes pieces that sustain one basic electronic rumble for a long time. It includes pieces made exclusively from recordings of rivers and streams. It includes pieces that move in endless circles. It includes pieces that set up an unmoving wall of saxophone sound. It includes pieces that take a very long time to move gradually from one kind of music to another kind. It includes pieces that permit all possible pitches, as long as they fall between C and D. It includes pieces that slow the tempo down to two or three notes per minute."
Steve Reich's Phase music is fun, though. It's got nice symmetry in that the tune starts out kind of together and then we go on this journey that takes us right back to the beginning. I am a little confused as to how I myself can phase with something.
I find that I am more attracted to the works of La Monte Young than any of the others. Maybe it is because I like the way woodwind instruments lend themselves to holing out a note for an extended period of time, but I think it is mostly because it is calming. Lord knows I need some time to just sit back and relax.
Phillip Glass's work "Music With Changing Parts" expresses the beauty in the monotony of everyday life, it holds a few variants, but is basically constant. Intellectually I get that. Terry Riley's "In C" is along the same lines. It reminds me of when I was forced to read "Heart of Darkness" for my English class. This book was exploring impressionism in literature, and while I intellectually understood the significance, I did not enjoy reading it.
I enjoy La Monte Young's work. It reminds me of jazz camp, and conjures up images of people meditating while incense is burning. I bring up jazz camp because when I was there a group played with the minimalist idea, but with a different take on it. They took a Carl Sandburg poem, called Bubbles, and worked it into a piece that was quite frankly extraordinary. They used only the words of the poem, with different band members reciting it in different ways, while playing a steady tune and other instruments would make their brief appearance and fade out.
The poem is:
Two bubbles found they had rainbows on their curves
they flickered out saying
it was worth it to be a bubble
just to have held that rainbow for thirty seconds.
That really speaks to me. The fact that these musicians took a poem that is about being in this world to hold or create something beautiful, and turned it into a song that expressed this sentiment tonally was magnificent.
I think Michael Nyman expresses the definition of minimalistic music perfectly:
"The idea of minimalism is much larger than most people realize. It includes, by definition, any music that works with limited or minimal materials: pieces that use only a few notes, pieces that use only a few words of text, or pieces written for very limited instruments, such as antique cymbals, bicycle wheels, or whiskey glasses. It includes pieces that sustain one basic electronic rumble for a long time. It includes pieces made exclusively from recordings of rivers and streams. It includes pieces that move in endless circles. It includes pieces that set up an unmoving wall of saxophone sound. It includes pieces that take a very long time to move gradually from one kind of music to another kind. It includes pieces that permit all possible pitches, as long as they fall between C and D. It includes pieces that slow the tempo down to two or three notes per minute."
Steve Reich's Phase music is fun, though. It's got nice symmetry in that the tune starts out kind of together and then we go on this journey that takes us right back to the beginning. I am a little confused as to how I myself can phase with something.
I find that I am more attracted to the works of La Monte Young than any of the others. Maybe it is because I like the way woodwind instruments lend themselves to holing out a note for an extended period of time, but I think it is mostly because it is calming. Lord knows I need some time to just sit back and relax.
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