Yesterday, as you may have read elsewhere, I was in Central London with noodle and DaisyChain, and we, amongst other things, had a bit of a browse around some of the music shops around the Tottenham Court Road area.

I found, whilst browsing, a piece of music called '1+1' , by Phillip Glass. For one player, playing, and I quote, 'an amplified table top'.

As well as a clapping piece by Steve Reich.

Now, I have tried to understand why people would compose things like this, and indeed many other minimalist compositions, and I just don't, on the whole, get it. I can't think I'd get any enjoyment listening to them, and I can't see that I'd get much enjoyment playing them...

So my question is : why compose something that is likely, in my humble opinion, to have limited appeal to both performers and listeners?

Let's have a debate!

Mrs. Pushpull just phoned me up to suggest I might want to take a look at this post Barry.

I have to admit to being a sucker for minimalism, particularly Steve Reich and John Adams. I'm not familiar with 1+1 but Clapping Music is utterly brilliant. Now did you just read the title or did you have a listen? If you like I can bring a recording (or indeed the score) to Eccles.

I've heard Clapping Music pushpull, heard it first many moons ago when I did my GCSE. It leaves me looking like this !

This thread is mainly here to debate the pros and cons of minimalism. You can do the pros, I'll do the cons!

[quote name='barry-clari' date='Oct 27 2008, 11:51 AM' post='754189']

I've heard Clapping Music pushpull, heard it first many moons ago when I did my GCSE. It leaves me looking like this !
[/quote]
Haha. It leaves me - unless I try to clap it, when it leaves me
[/quote]

This thread is mainly here to debate the pros and cons of minimalism. You can do the pros, I'll do the cons!
[/quote]
Minimalism is just a type of composition in the same way baroque, classical, romantic, tone-row, atonal, stocastic, et-al are. I'm not sure I could actually DEBATE the pros and cons of any of those. Isn't it down to taste? I'm inclined to think music considered from a solely intellectual standpoint, loses much of its value.

The judges of the Turner Prize might be able to answer your original question.

I don't get minimalism at all. Arvo Part is as minimalist as I can go. Give me Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (Elvis, Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, Radiohead ... Take That ... Britney Spears ... anything but John Cage!!!)

Agree with the sentence above pushpull. I think music is there primarily to be enjoyed, or affect you in some other way.

Which brings me back to minimalism. There, for me, just isn't anything there to be liked, disliked, or anything else. It's the musical equivalent of water. I'm sure there are people here who could defend minimalist music, and say it has emotion/feeling/meaning, but I just don't see it...

4'33" can be quite enjoyable, especially if you put on some decent music while you listen to it...

that reminds me of 'a short peice for a long peice of garden hose' for Hosepipe in F. That seemed interesting, it was a fairly long score and it was only 50p. Why i didnt buy it ill never nknow.

1+1 for fingers and tabletop has been on my musicroom.com wishlist for ages I think it's the only Philip Glass I'm likely to be able to play.

I can't really debate the pros and cons of this (or any) type of music; all I can say is that I like most Philip Glass stuff, and selectively Steve Reich (I do like Clapping Music)...

Viohazard is very keen on minimalism. As to why, or what it all means, you'd have to ask him...

Well as I said, Clapping Music leaves me - that's an emotion. Or try "Different Trains" or "Harmoniliere" or "El Dorado". There is definitely emotion in those. Then of course just how minimal are many of these so-called minimalist works?

I suppose the top and bottom of it for me is that for something to be enjoyable and/or emotional, it doesn't have to contain the "normal" melodic, harmonic or rhythmic components associated with music. I love Ligeti for micro tonality, Lutoslawski for his "sound world", Berio for his bizarre sounding Sequenzas, Webern for, well just Webern really.



But surely it doesn't all have to MEAN something?



I thought that would be along shortly.

I didn't have a clue what '1+1' by Phillip Glass was so have just checked on youtube and found this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYAyPre0vD8

I guess it must be quite fun learning the different parts with friends and putting everything together.
But would I spend hours learning a part? NO!!!! Would I listen to it several times? NO!!!
I've enjoyed listening to it once but couldn't listen to this style of music for very long!

Let's wheel out the smiley again...

Don't get it, cannot work out why it is in any way interesting or entertaining. Sorry...

It's OK b-c - I feel pretty much the same way about opera

The music of Phillip Glass has grown on me considerably since hearing his work 'Koyaanisqatsi' - which is a Hopi Indian word meaning Life Out of Balance.

The tracks were written to accompany a movie of the same name. Quote from the Koyaanisqatsi website: "Created between 1975 and 1982, the film is an apocalyptic vision of the collision of two different worlds -- urban life and technology versus the environment. The musical score was composed by Philip Glass"

I highly recommend watching the movie, before passing judgement on the mimimalism of the music. The repetitive motifs and their slight variations suit the images of the film admirably and it serves to emphasise just how much 'out of balance' the modern human world is with nature!

I've now got the CD of the music and several other Glass works. In fact, there was a time when I thought the second movement of his violin concerto was wrist-slittingly depressing, but when I sat down, closed my eyes and listened to it properly, I realised just how complex the sounds were. I've since started working on playing the concerto in its entirity - the outer movements are very Bach-like. The notes are not difficult per se, but it's a real challenge to make it sound right. Much like Arvo Part's Spiegel im Spiegel.

Minimalism has to be listened to without other distractions though. It is not driving to work music, or something that can be listened to superficially while occupied in other things.

Hmmmm, well, (having been corrupted by Viohazard) I really enjoyed 1+1, thank you! Looks like dinner time in our house...Mr. Ears came home one day to find his family busy "performing" - one of us on a chair beating the ceiling, the other one opening and shutting cupboard doors, and one rattling and tapping on the table.

Also reminds me of Japanese drama, where the stage is equipped with special big ceramic jars under the floor, to add resonance to footstamping (which in some plays are carefully coordinated with the accompanying music).

I think what I like about this, and what drives me nuts about certain other types of "movement" music, is that minimal music tends to have rhythm. I rather like the advancing and receding feel of it, too.

Don't know if he's strictly speaking a minimalist, but I like quite a lot of (=what I've heard, but the 2001 soundtrack not so much) of Ligeti's music.

Ever since being dragged along to see a Philip Glass opera (the Egyptian one...Akanatun?) I feel cold whenever I hear his music.

You know that feeling you get at the start of an enormous scary fairground ride where you realise that it was a really BIG mistake to come, you're contemplating having a massive panic attack, your stomach is getting ready to churn and you're seriously wondering how to get out and climb down the scaffold without looking very stupid and/or killing yourself?

If you like the same arpeggios repeated ad nauseum for 3 hours, then it may be great. In fact, all his music sounds the same to me.

Steve

Koyaanisqatsi was my intro to Philip Glass.

Actually, that's not entirely true - when I saw 'The Truman Show', I had to buy the soundtrack immediately, due to one particular piece of music.
Then, when I saw Powaqqatsi (the second in the 'qatsi' trilogy), I thought I recognised a bit of the music - and indeed, it was used on The Truman Show, it was Anthem-Part 2 from Powaqqatsi, that was the piece that had made me buy the Truman Show soundtrack CD! And it was the piece of music I walked down the aisle to at my wedding

Interestingly we lent the video of Koyaanisqatsi to a friend, who loved the film 'in spite of that dreadful music'.

I know Philip Glass does opera - but I've not gone there, see my earlier comment on opera I can imagine, however, that it's not going to be the sort of thing to convert someone in to being a fan of the genre (whatever genre that may be...)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5antXqfUQrQ

awesome.

Awesome...when it' over!!!!

There are some excellent Steve Reich pieces... Different Trains is one, The Four Sections is another. They are hypnotic, subtle, thought-provoking and extremely well done. Do listen to both of these before dismissing the genre completely!

Agreed - and don't miss out on John Adams.

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!



Confutatis : The Four Sections leaves me utterly cold, I'm afraid. Don't know Different Trains.

I don't "get" rhythm per se anyway - drums all of the same pitch on their own do nothing for me; there has to be melody as well. I think a lot of minimalist music is very rhythm based, or has a lot of repetition of a very short melody, which has a similar stultifying effect on me.

Modern music and modern art seem to hang on producing something new and different - no-one's tried passing off an unmade bed as art before? Fine, an opening for Tracy Emin. Or, how about "Everyone I have ever slept with" embroidered on a tent? Similarly for music - everyone's drummed their fingers on a table top, but Glass's drumming is somehow better than anyone else's. Anyone tried silence? Oh, an opening for John Cage.

Sorry, I just don't buy it. One day I'm going to compose something for three men standing at the urinals - it will require a lot of muscle control, but boy, will it make me famous!

I never understood that - I mean Tracey is interesting, but she is not that attractive.

I wouldn't need a tent - a (very) small handkerchief would suffice.

Wouldn't surprise me if it has been done already

You should have hear my Dalcroze class playing plastic bottles in canon.

I agree with a lot of AmandaL's comment. I do like minimilist music but only when I have chance to really listen to it. It is listen on headphones in the dark and really imerse myself type music. Philip Glass' Facades is one of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces of music ever written for soprano sax. 'Different Trains' is really quite a shocking piece of music. I 1st heard it accompanied by images of the trains taking Jews to the concentration camps and can see those images whenever I hear the music now.

Again for soprano sax lovers Michael Nyman's 'Where the Bee Dances' is well worth a listen.

I believe she didn't include only lovers; it was literally anyone she'd shared a bed with, as a child, etc. According to Wikipedia she also included two foetuses she'd had aborted.

I do wish we didn't set so much store as a society by people who lead horrible lives. Many current idols don't work very hard, they take drugs, they ignore their children and break up with their partners, they swear. It's very depressing! At least the Beatles preached peace and looked for enlightenment.

I know there are still many, many lovely people out there, but the amount of money raised by Damien Hirst's latest fiasco is obscene. There are probably far better artists in garrets waiting for recognition after death!

No, not much substance abuse there

I actually really liked it

If you try to make me play a version of this on handbells next summer, I shall sit in the corner and sulk

But they were all cursed in their own way.

Shot dead.
Throat cancer.
Mediocre drummer sunk so low as to do Thomas the Tank Engine voices.

The last fell under an ancient curse and was forced to become vegetarian and believe his wife was talented.

Finally forced to take his second wife to court. Poor woman didn't have a leg to stand on!


Steve

It wouldn't be nearly as good on handbells.

The two pages one is a different story though...

I couldn't find the complete piece on line, but I think Steve Reich's
"How Small a Thought it Takes to Fill a Whole Life" is beautiful.
http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/composer/sa...?sampleid=11898

nearly every famous composer did something "new and different". especially the big names - they were the revolutionaries. New music is often dismissed because it doesn't fit into the listening idiom of the previous generation, try to take a step back, consider how the work is constructed and what the composer has done, perhaps how it relates to the development of western music and it may become more transparent.

Lots of minimalism is "process music", a reaction against the dense, impenetrable structures of the atonal avant-garde, the composers sought to create music where everything about the piece is apparent to the listener.
With minimalism, if you are having trouble discerning any structure or development, try to listen intently to the sounds themselves, especially if it seems repetitive, you will find a wealth of detail and intricacy that it is impossible to notice in a smaller timeframe. In Steve Reich's Four Organs being exposed to the same chord for 15 minutes totally chages the way you percieve the sound - you start to notice the many difference tones on the edge of hearing and the richness of the timbre itself opens up into a landscape of overtones.

At least try it

Really well put, des!

By the way, where should young musicians keen on postclassical music go to study in the UK? (Not, sadly, that the information is likely to be very relevant to us!).

Des puts it very well. Far better than I could and it led me to recall an article written some years ago regarding folk dance and music. I tracked it down and here it is (I think it has a similar spirit to Des's comments on minimalism):

"But I do believe that there is an opportunity for passing beyond the level of conscious thought into a more relaxed state than is otherwise available to us in our complicated twentieth century lives. You get there through a gradual dulling of the senses by means of prolonged, repeated physical activity and its appropriate accompaniment. Every change of tune, giving a "lift" to the dance, is in fact an interruption of this process and a source of denial and deprivation. It switches on the brain at a time when we were just beginning to manage without it".
John Kirkpatrick 1981.

I am not going to live forever, and having listened to minimalist and avant-garde works I have decided that I prefer to spend my limited time on this planet listening to mostly Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Scriabin and their ilk.

I find my relative lack of interest in keyboard works leaves me plenty of time to pursue other genres.

I like the way Des describes minimalism. I usually consider myself a melody person, but I do enjoy the subtle shifts that occur in minimalism.

I would say the best few for new music are (in no order):

York (not that i'm biased )
Huddersfield
Birmingham

Manchester isn't bad either.
There are probably a couple in london too but I'm not as familiar with southern unis.

Of course the colleges are excellent for composition in terms of tuition but you have to consider performance oppurtunites and how useful your qualification will be at the end of the three years - Unless you are REALLY good and you know it, for composition I would recommend a university over a college.

I've been mulling this over a bit more and come up with some parallels to minimalist music (well I think think so, but it all be rubbish).

Art is the obvious one and yesterday I was looking at the Tate Modern website of the current Rothko exhibition
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/...ko/default.shtm

I probably wouldn't have considered this sort of art at all if I hadn't visited the Tate in St. Ives a couple of years ago and seen an exhibition of John Hoyland
http://www.tate.org.uk/stives/exhibitions/...nd/default.shtm

I walked in and out of the room containing the Hoylands a couple of times, not really understanding what I was looking at. But I was drawn back again and again and eventually spent some time sitting looking at these paintings but not really trying to fathom what was going on. I found it a rather hypnotic experience - perhaps the "gradual dulling of the senses" I quoted earlier in the article by John Kirkpatrick. Very Zen

On the same trip I visited Barbara Hepworth's studio and sculpture garden and then later the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to look at some more Hepworths and the Henry Moores there. Once again, there is form here but what is it? What does it represent? I don't feel anything profound when I look at these things but there is something pleasing about being amongst them, better still touching them.

Then this morning on the "Free Thinking" spot on Radio 3 (the thinking man's "Thought for Today" surely) I was interested to hear an Italian artist (forget the name) talking about "sound installations" as art. This led me to consider all those sounds around us that we enjoy so much when we take time to stop and listen. Skylarks and Curlews up in the hills, the murmur of a gentle wind blowing around the tent when you're snug in your sleeping bag, church bells on a Sunday ringing the changes - certainly "subtle shifts" there I think. There isn't much going on in any of these, but the effect is pleasing somehow.

Ah and then I remembered those "soundscapes" I used to relax in as a teenager - Astronome Domine, Set the controls for the heart of the Sun, Careful with that axe Eugene. Mmmmmmmm.

I think the main thing is not to tar all 20th/21st century music or even all minimalist music with the same brush. Each different piece has its own sound to offer and I suppose it's very much in the ear of the beholder.
For Glasses operas try "knee play 3" from "Einstein on the beach" absolutely fascinating (and competely tonal), or perhaps try his string quartets or maybe piano etude no 2. Beautiful interesting work to me.


"QUOTE(all ears @ Oct 28 2008, 10:15 PM)

Really well put, des!

By the way, where should young musicians keen on postclassical music go to study in the UK? (Not, sadly, that the information is likely to be very relevant to us!)."

Huddersfield
Birmingham
Nottingham

Huddersfield & Nottingham have excellent professors all with a personal interest in postclassical music, especially Nottingham, which incidentally offered me a place this week! YAY!

Talking of concepts and installations...since I'm interested in both drama and visual art, I saw quite a lot of installations in my salad days. Some "worked", some didn't...for me, the ones that "worked" were the ones where actually executing the work made a difference.

That is, if somebody tells me that they are going to show an installation featuring creaky chairs and I form expectations which turn out to exactly match the actual experience, then I don't feel that art has been achieved. I want the experience to be richer than (or more stimulating than, or at least different from) the concept or the expectation.

So from that point of view, Cage's 4'33" fails to interest me, because what happens is just what I expect to happen, whereas the table-tapping interested me very much!

4'33'' is not really "minimalism" per se - it is certainly minimal! but arrives at it through a very different route. have a look at cage's writings on zen and "eastern" thinking and it makes a lot more sense, though I've always seen a lot of Cage's work as more applied philosophy than music.

Minimalism does come in many different 'forms' however. Many people immediately dismiss minimalism after hearing some works by Steve Reich by example, but it can be so much more accessible than that, for example some pieces by Michael Nyman are considered 'Minimalist' but are not so much of an 'acquired taste'.
Regarding the 'clapping music', I found it very entertaining from beginning to end, however not much more than that, can't say I enjoy it as a piece of music, maybe more of a circus act.

Wow! I was going to post almost the same thing but you did it first and made a better job of it.

I also heard Koyanisquatsi first then started noticing other works (usually film soundtracks) by Philip Glass (whose work I now love)
I totally agree with you about having to listen to it attentively rather than as you say in the car, but if you don't like it, don't listen to it.

THERE IS NOTHING TO "GET" You either like minimalist music or you don't.

Who cares anyway, life's to short for such bickerings.




Yay! I agree. Thank you for your post, it made my day.

Many years ago, at school, a music teacher made our class listen to a piece of music that basically consisted of one tone, which changed ever so gradually in pitch/timbre for what seemed like ages (must have been at least 10-15 minutes)...

To me, it sounded like that tone that used to accompany the BBC test card with Carol Hersee playing noughts and crosses with the clown...

Any idea of any composer who could have written something like that?

No idea, but when I did my music O level, our teacher made me listen to Schutz.

I'm not sure of the piece you mean, but some composers have done similar things - Le Mont Young wrote a piece that was a perfect 5th held for "as long as possible", it usually lasts four or five hours I think. Also there are quite a few electronic composers who deal with vastly extended durations, William Basinski's Disintegration Loops last about 45 minutes each and comprise of a few seconds of music slowly degrading in quality as an old record is worn down. Richard Chartier's work is very long and seemingly static, his Archival1991 is again about 45 minutes and comprises a few blips of archive sound extended and amplified - actually a very good piece once you get into the sound world. Also Francesco Vezzoli's Trilogy della Morte is cool, its about 3 hours of slowly changing drones.