Parallels can be drawn between minimalism in music and minimalism in art - the use of minimal (very few) resources makes us experience the work in a different way. Minimalism builds music out of loops loops are constantly repeating patterns which are short and simple. There's no real tune - you can't sing along to minimalist music! Harmonies are made by layering patterns on top of each other.
Parallels can be drawn between minimalism in music and minimalism in art - the use of minimal (very few) resources makes us experience the work in a different way. Minimalism builds music out of loops loops are constantly repeating patterns which are short and simple. There's no real tune - you can't sing along to minimalist music! Harmonies are made by layering patterns on top of each other.
Parallels can be drawn between minimalism in music and minimalism in art - the use of minimal (very few) resources makes us experience the work in a different way. Minimalism builds music out of loops loops are constantly repeating patterns which are short and simple. There's no real tune - you can't sing along to minimalist music! Harmonies are made by layering patterns on top of each other.
Counterpoint Parallels can be drawn between minimalism in music and minimalism in art - the use of minimal (very few) resources makes us experience the work in a different way, getting drawn into a world of the composer's/artist's creation.
People tend to react to this quite strongly, either positively or negatively.
Minimalist art Minimalist art Minimalist Music Minimalism builds music out of loops Loops are constantly repeating patterns which are short and simple However, the final music can end up rather complicated! Theres no real tune you cant sing along to minimalist music! Harmonies are made by layering patterns on top of each other The most famous Minimalist composers are Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Terry Riley
Minimalist Techniques
Music technology plays a big part in minimalism The repeated loops were played using old fashioned tape recorders The tapes were literally cut and then pasted together again and then played round and round Sometimes loops were made out of words and other noises a bit like the modern day sampling The different tracks were put together using multi track recording Even live recordings often used these recordings
Minimalist Techniques The different ways that these loops can be changed are: Notes gradually added or taken away (this is called additive melody)
Sometimes a note is replaced by a rest
Minimalist Techniques
phasing - two almost identical parts -which go out of sync with each other and gradually, after a number of repetitions, come back into sync again
metamorphosis - gradually changing from one musical idea to another, often by changing one note at a time
layering - adding new musical parts, commonly one at a time. The parts will often interact with each other forming a complex texture key - the texture is equally as important as the key in defining the structure of a piece
Steve Reich Reich was born in New York in 1936 He gained a degree in philosophy and then studied composition with the modernist composer Berio His music is influenced by jazz and non-Western ideas such as African drumming and Balinese Gamelan After meeting the minimalist composer Terry Riley in the 1960s, Reich began writing minimalist music Steve Reich His best known work is Different Trains It was written in 1988 and is a reaction the Holocaust. It has samples of talking, then imitates their voices with instruments New York Counterpoint for clarinet and pre- recorded tape Another of his works is Clapping Music. This is a great example of phase shifting (where a pattern moves by one quaver every few bars)
Electric Counterpoint Electric Counterpoint was written for the jazz guitarist Pat Methany in 1987 It has three movements you only need to know about the third movement The whole piece should be performed by a single guitarist they play along with a multi- track recording of the other parts made before the performance
How is it produced? Pre-recorded onto a Tape loop which is then Overdubbed (recorded on top of one another) using Multi-tracking in a studio to build up the Layers. Then a Live performer plays over the top of the recording
Electric Counterpoint points to encounter! The music is repetitive The same loops are repeated in the ensemble parts this makes the music sound hypnotic Four of the ensemble parts play the same riff throughout the piece They come in at different times in a canon (like a round) It is called counterpoint because the parts are independent of each other but all work together harmonically
How is it built up? The piece begins with guitar one playing a one bar ostinato:
How is it built up? Guitar 2 enters in bar 7, playing ostinato 1, but one crotchet later. Guitar 3 enters in bar 10, building up ostinato 1 using note addition Guitar 4 enters in bar 16, playing ostinato 1 displaced by two and a half crotchets. Reich calls this a 'four-part guitar canon' - guitar 4 doubles the live guitar part. When all the parts have entered, the live guitar starts to play the resultant melody.
How is it built up? The bass guitar parts are introduced at bar 24,reinforcing the feeling of a triple metre.
Note how the two bass guitars are panned to the left and right speakers - it would normally be considered bad practice to pan a bass guitar to one side, but one instrument on each side balances the sound.
Instrumentation The timbre (tone colour) doesnt change much because its all guitars which all blend together.
There are 7 electric guitars and 2 electric bass guitars as well as a solo guitar part
Melody Theres no real melody you cant sing along to minimalist music!
Rhythm and Metre The third movement is 140 bars long and lasts about 4 and a half minutes It is in 3/2 time (3 minim beats per bar), but at some points a few guitars play in 12/8 whilst the others stay in 3/2 (this is called polyrhythmic) It is made up of short patterns or riffs that are repeated lots of times A repeated pattern like this is called an ostinato
Tonality and Harmony The piece changes between E minor and C minor The first modulation happens about halfway through the piece, but there are another 13 before the end of the piece!! These key changes happen more frequently as the piece builds There is tonal ambiguity (its not certain what the key is) The harmony is quite static the chords dont change very often
Tonality and Harmony Like much minimalist music, although we can say the piece is in E minor, it is actually modal - in the key of E minor we would expect to hear D#, allowing for the chord of B major (the dominant triad), but because Steve Reich's music does not depend on perfect cadences, he does not need the major chord V (B major).
As such, the music is in the aeolian mode transposed to E (E-aeolian).
Aeolian Mode the Aeolian mode is the sixth mode of the major scale and has the formula 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
From the point of view of its relative major key, the aeolian tonic chord is the submediant minor triad (vi). Texture As well as the canonic one-bar riff, Reich builds up another canon between the solo part and the ensemble guitars. They play a repeated strummed chord sequence
The texture is polyphonic two or more independent parts playing at the same time
Dynamics There are lots of changes in dynamics too mainly in the solo part which fades in and out during the piece The four ensemble parts playing the first riff stay at a constant mf throughout but the other parts have some diminuendos It finishes with a fortissimo (ff) climax from the solo part