Updated 2/10

To get context for your own composition, I highly recommend reading the first two web articles below, taking time to listen to the examples. Then go through the 065 Sp24 Minimalism playlist, which corresponds to the scores below, where I've also added some brief descriptions.

The other readings and listenings are also extremely valuable. The other articles should also be very helpful: Reich and Oliveros are direct source material, giving you a sense of the aesthetic philosophies of two very different composers; the Glass blog-post a very good description of the cultural milieu of the period.

From the point of view of compositional pedagogy, minimalism can be thought of not so much as a specific style but rather as a collection of compositional techniques, strategies or maneuvers that can be deployed to generate or play with ideas - of form, melody, harmony, and counterpoint. This Minimalist Toolkit (a work-in-progress) will lists some of these, based on the readings and listening below.

READINGS

Bandcamp Guide to Minimalism

Clayton Funk, 'Art and Music in the 1970s,' Part One: MInimalism

Steve Reich, Music as a Gradual Process

1960s: Day of Rage - 'Philip Glass: 1969-1971'

Pauline Oliveros, On Sonic Meditation

All at In C - great blog post about In C, including link to a downloadable Ableton patch of the piece

SCORES

from class 2/8:

Terry Riley, In C

- this is our primary model for this project. In class we looked at the first line of patterns, but even there a close examination reveals Riley's basic methods, using simple variations and close canons to make the music evolve organically, then switching things up as the piece moves on, adding multiple layers of meter and contrasting gestures. If you look further you'll see how he eventually changes the melodic mode by adding sharps or flats, and changes the feel in continually inventive ways. The piece is long - most recordings are at least 45 minutes - and as we discussed, can be taken in a million different ways. But please listen attentively to at least one full length version from the In C Playlist.

Steve Reich, Clapping Music

- at this point you already know this piece backwards and forwards, and I mean that literally! This is a good example of 'fixed form' minimalism, i.e., still based on pattern, repetition, and close canon, but being much more precise about what performers 'must' do to play the piece properly.

for Tuesday 2/13 & Th 2/15 (all of these can be found on the 065 Sp24 Minimalism playlist):

Steve Reich, Music for Pieces of Wood - basically the 'deluxe' version of clapping music, using the same basic pattern (itself a variation on the Anlo Ewe gonkogui bell 'time-line' that Reich studied in Ghana, and that can be found throughout sub-Saharan Africa). Here the pattern is played on several sets of clavés, so there are multiple players and a much richer canon. I've posted two videos here, one is of a live performance, the other of a visualization, if that's useful.) Questions to ask during and after you listen: how is each new 'voice' added? And what's going on when the time signature changes to 4/4 and then 3/4?

Philip Glass, Opening (solo piano) - While many Glass pieces are also extremely long, and much more complex, this short piano prelude distills his ideas into a more quickly digestible form. Here Glass works within the most 'standard' of models, 4/4 time, 4-bar phrases, simple but elegant tonal harmony, propelled by the 3/2 cross-rhythms in the inner voices. If you have piano skills, this is a great one to try out on your own, to see how it feels to inhabit this music.

Philip Glass, Music in Fifths

- this is more classic Philip Glass, the music that made him famous before he did movie soundtracks, played himself on The Truman Show, or was lovingly parodied in numerous South Park episodes. This was music for his own downtown New York ensemble of electronic keyboards, saxophones, flutes, etc. (they are still active today, though Glass no longer performs with them). The music is open-formed like Riley - players move on cue, so the amount each pattern repeats is variable - but closed-form like Reich, in that, um, players move on cue together. As with In C & the Reich examples, patterns are repeated and then varied in simple, organic ways. Questions to ask: is this music equally transparent? Or is there something 'hiding in plain sight' in terms of how the listener perceives what's going on? And why write music in parallel 5ths anyway?

Evan Ziporyn, Be-in - speaking of transparency, I thought it only fair to let you see & hear how minimalism influenced my own work. This piece is quite old - I was only a few years older than you guys when I wrote it - but I'm happy to report that it's still being played - the most recent performance I know of was just a few weeks ago. It's not strictly 'minimalist,' but it starts with a variant on Riley's C-pulse (and we'll see another example of that later on) and builds patterns on top of that. The other reason this might be helpful is that it's fully scored, so gives some examples of how you can follow Riley's practice of polymeter - i.e., juxtaposing patterns that each imply different meters - while working within (mostly) steady time-signatures.

Anthony Braxton, New York Fall 1974, Side One, Cut 2 - Braxton's milieu was the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) , a still-active community-based Chicago music collective. (as the title implies, Braxton then moved to New York; he currently teachers at Wesleyan in Connecticut.) His pieces in general cover a LOT of territory, including free improvisation, elements of jazz and other American traditions, and the European avant-garde. This particular piece - for which I can't find a score - is a different kind of 'process' piece, phrase-based and modular. See if you can intuit what the rules of this particular game are...

Brian Eno, Music for Airports (Side 1, Track 2 aka 2/1) - you already know Eno's music even if you don't know him by name: besides his own music, he's a legendary producer (Bowie's Berlin trilogy, U2's most seminal albums, Talking Heads, Devo, among many others); he's also a world-renowned installation artist; on top of all that he 'composed' the Windows 'start-up' sound (i.e, the chord). Music for Airports is a pure analog tape piece that he released as vinyl on his own label in 1975, with the subtitle Ambient Music 1. The 'score' here was the back of the record, and is a possibly abstracted visualization of the music. This is the second movement, all tape loops of individual voices. That in itself describes almost completely what's happening here. Given that - that it's literally nothing more than that, how does the music stay interesting? And why do think it's called Music for Airports?

Laurie Anderson, O Superman [lead sheet] - we'll be discussing this piece in more detail later in the week. But I think you'll hear the connection to Riley, Eno, and other works on this list. What makes it different?

Arvo Pǎrt, Fratres - Octet & Violin/Pno versions - 'holy minimalism,' Batman! Some of the Estonian Arvo Pärt's music is overtly religious, but this piece is not. Nonetheless, all his works feel like a form of prayer or meditation, partially due to his use of drones, medieval Church modes, and slow, inexorable processes. The music feels raw and emotional, yet its form is absolutely rigorous and logical - or maybe it's like a Gothic church: the architectural structure is what allows the emotion to feel so present.

also on playlist (but without separate score)

Richard Wagner, Das Rheingold - Vorspiel und Erste Scene [Prelude & 1st Scene] (first 4:12 only - the whole video is several hours long) - this shows the roots of minimalism in the most maximalist of all possible art, i.e., 19th-century heroic romanticism. This is the way Richard Wagner - whose legacy is somewhat mixed, to say the least - chose to begin his 4-opera Ring Cycle - with 4 minutes on a SINGLE chord. The methods he uses can be found in Vivaldi and Bach, as well as in the 'passage work' of Mozart and Beethoven. But harmony and melody are removed, leaving only texture. How would you articulate what these methods are, why they are (or aren't) effective, and why Wagner might have chosen this way of starting his magnum opus?

Robert Hood, Museum (recording only) from "Minimal Nation" - Detroit techno from 1994, a precursor of EDM, showing the shared concerns and influences between these genres and minimalism. (Other good examples, Orb's "Pink Fluffy Clouds," which sampled Steve Reich; the album "Reich Remixed" (for obvious reasons), and pretty much anything by Kraftwerk!

other recordings and/or scores (for reference)

Julius Eastman, Gay Guerilla (recording only)

Philip Glass, Music in Contrary Motion - manuscript excerpt

Pauline Oliveros, Sonic Meditation XVI

Meredith Monk, Key (whole album)

Meredith Monk, On Behalf of Nature (whole album)

PLAYLISTS & RECORDINGS

Project 1 Playlist (corresponds to scores listed above)

Terry Riley Sampler (Spotify Playlist)

In C Spotify Playlist