Minimalism - Steve Reich & Terry Riley

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I've recently got round to listening a bunch of stuff by these two. It's interesting to me that their work is considered minimalist, because to me it sounds like there's much more going on in their music than in most mainstream pop & rock music. I presume I must have always been misunderstanding the sort of qualities 'minimalism' is commonly taken to be referring to.

It makes sense to me to call something like +/- by Ryoji Ikeda or The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath by La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela minimalist. It's not a term I would associate with this sort of thing, though:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjR4QYsa9nE[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su1OvwR3wB4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDkD7593OiQ[/youtube]

So, yeah. I don't really have a question here. Just post cool minimalist stuff.

Minimalism is perhaps a daft term for whatever this kind of music is.

I have a lot of time for Reich, and I love Electric Counterpoint. Really beautiful. The studio recording with Pat Metheney is great, there's nothing on you tube that has the right clean, dry, tone. Do love the moon mask though.

I love this piece by Dave Behrman
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcjHQQxAJlk&playnext_from=TL&videos=44O_dycuhgQ[/youtube]

Yeah, I adore the studio version. It's on youtube, though, so I couldn't post it.

I started listening to Reich two days ago. So far I've got through seven albums; four get a 10/10, the other three a 9/10 (initially I gave the '87 release of Drumming a 10, but then I heard the '74 version, and when I relistened to the '87 version the next day, it didn't do as much for me). That's not particularly unusual for me, because I rate most music high, but so far Reich is standing out - already, I feel like two of his albums could become favourites (Music for 18 Musicians and Drumming / Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ / Six Pianos), and it usually takes time for an album to have that kind of impact on me.

Thanks for posting that Behrman piece. I haven't heard of him before, and that was quite lovely. Yet another name to add to my 'music I need to check out' list.

I had it figured that the idea behind it was to introduce as few themes as possible. Since entire pieces are written out of variations of just a couple of ideas, it makes sense to say it's minimal. It's really complex, but it's the same idea just slightly re-touched. I might be wrong though, it's been a while since I studied Steve Reich in college.

That was my point, really. No matter how these pieces were conceived, most of them are ultimately quite complex (to me, at least). Certainly, I find much greater depth and complexity in what I've heard from Reich & Riley than from most mainstream rap & pop (that's not a criticism of rap or pop, by the way - I like many artists from both). I guess it's just that I had certain expectations associated with the word 'minimalism' which may have been incorrect.

To be honest, I just wanted to start a thread about some great music I'd bene listening to recently, and I figured this might have been a bit more interesting than just listing good albums.

Music for 18 Musicians is great.

From the more accessible side.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV0JFg0xlF0[/youtube]

I find Steve Reich a bit repetative myself. My Dad really loves minimalism and post rock stuff. He's quite into Steve Reich and tells me that it is complex and interesting and the music is not repetative, it is always changing, just slowly.

Have you heard 12 violins played as 12 electric guitars? I kind of like 12 violins, but it depends what mood I'm in.

It definitely seems repetitive to me, but I don't have a problem with music being repetitive. Repetition is a major feature of most music (although Reich does go a bit more extreme with it).



No, I don't think I have heard that.

I'm talking nonsense, I've just realised that I'm talking of violin phase and electric guitar phase. I don't have speakers on this pc, so couldn't listen to the youtube video you posted. I'm sure I've seen a cd sitting in my Dad's house called 12 violins. Maybe it was by someone else.

Happiness by Fridge is an awesome album. I think that possibly fits into the minimalist genre.

I don't think that "minimalist" is really the BEST word to describe it, it's just a term of art that we've come to accept. I think a better way to describe it is "process" music because the idea behind it is to reach a musical goal through a process, rather than reliance on traditional tonal forms. I enjoy minimalism because the focus is so much on rhythm and harmony. In the case of Terry Riley, there are so many improvised elements (In C is basically improvisation based on written-out frames that the musicians play "at will").

Minimalist music, I think, is still relevant. I wrote an electroacoustic piece for clarinet trio called "Triforce." The piece is built on a repetition of a short musical idea three times before adding a few more notes and repeating it three more times and adding a few more notes and repeating it three more times and... Once a groove gets established, one clarinetist in the group adds a melody line--slight deviation from typical minimalist procedure, but it's my piece and I can write how I want! Also, if you listen to opera "Nixon in China" by John Adams, you'll hear a lot of good melodic writing over the usual motor-rhythm background in the orchestral score.

I'm more of an atonalist myself, but I have to give these guys MUCH respect. I may yet write another minimalist work, who knows?