Collapsing Rock, Pop & Noise

10	Minimalism 2	Listening examples include: Michael Nyman, David Behrman, Erik Satie, Terry Riley, John Adams, Robert Ashley, Terry Fox, Swswthrght
	Further Applications	Chromatism; phasing/beating; genre quotation; process; ambience

EXAMPLES
 
Erik Satie - GYMNOPEDES I & II (1888) (orchestrated by Debussy)
Historical precursor to many concerns of Minimalist explorations, namely an avoidance of drama and suprise in the score's development; an experiment with flatness (as opposed to depth); and an overall mundanity and inobtrusiveness in the music's tonality. Note how slow the tempo is (prompting the listener to perceive the flow as an altenating series of blocks of tone and blocks of silence) and the effect of the long sustained note in the second Gymnopede (causing a certain immobilization in the harmonic progression).

Terry Riley - IN C (1964)
Complex exploration of the harmonic definition of the C major scale. The piece (quite tightly scored in its narrative progression, moving from section to section in a sequence of harmonic metamorphoses) experiments with ways in which harmony is alternatively defined by its 'key' (its stabilizing factor) and set loose from its harmonic grounding, giving the illusion that the notes and harmonies are no longer in the key of C.

Michael Nyman - THE MASTERWORK AWARD WINNING FISH-KNIFE (1979)
In as much as most minimal music from 1965 to 1975 is generally concerned with discovering and experiencing the sonic, tonal and harmonic complexity of so-called simplistic melodic constructions, Minimalism over the last decade has worked on that premise to develop different dynamic forms and developmental structures. This piece by Nyman, for example, still maintains a minimalist effect on the surface, but it is also divided up into distinct sections. It also constructs its harmonic progression out of certain cyclical models of tonality which have the pre-determined effect of moving in a certain way (susended 5ths; modulations from the major 7th to the minor 7th, etc.) and thus still employs 'harmony itself' to motivate the piece of music.

David Behrman - FIGURE IN A CLEARING (1977)
An experiment in the phasing, pulsing and vibrating of frequencies which - due to their volume increasing on different occasions - determine and define our experience of 'timbre' and 'pitch'. Note how all these kind of complex rhythms work throughout the piece despite the overall effect of a harmonic drone.

Michael Nyman - DECAY MUSIC (1975)
A severely simplistic process-piece, where a harmonic progression has been worked out which 'forces' the performer to work his way from the extreme right of the piano (high) down to the extreme left (low). Note how importarlt the long silences are in the ensuing decays of the held chords, as they work to both tie in each chord to the precedirlg and proceding chord (thus constructing harmonic progression which also to separate the chords so that one almost 'forgets' what the tonality was of the preceding chord.

John Adams - AMERICAN STANDARD (1973)
A reduction of musical styles to a minimalist recreation of those style's harmonic essence : brass band marching music ; sombre church music ; jazz & swing music. Note how the musical arrangement of each section clearly communicates the effect of each musical style even though the actual construction of the chords, melodies, beats, etc. are quite alien to the original musical forms.

tsk-tsk-tsk - ONLY QUANTITY COUNTS (1977)
A process-piece executed by the technological situation/event of mixing. A simplistic melodic motif is repeated with severe accuracy, but each time it is mixed differently, following a sequential chart/score which works through all the different options and consequent permutations of volume level, equalization, reverb and pan-position.

Robert Ashley - IN SARA, MENCKEN, CHRIST & BEETHOVEN THERE WERE MEN & WOMEN (1973)
A drone which wavers between a sonumbulistic state and acute recognition. This is triggered by our registration of the voice - (a) as a tonal blurr, a continuous timbral rhythm, and (b) as an impossible feat where the speaker is not taking any inhale breaths. (The text is a poem which is read by Ashley, recorded onto tape, and then has all the breathing gaps edited out.) Note how the backgound synthesizer doodling serves as an electrtonic background, occasional]y breaking its surface with a loud 'burp', thereby repicating the voice's effect of vascillating from the unconscious to the conscious.

Terry Fox - THE LABYRINTH SCORED FOR THE PURRS OF 11 DIFFERENT CATS (1976)
A rigorously determined process-piece where the sound-recordings of cats' purring are used as source material to reconstruct the mathematical dimensions (in sequence, duration and position) of an architectural place (in length, direction and size). Arbitrarily, 10 seconds of one cat purring is made to represent one step of one of the labyrinth's paths ; 11 cats thus represents the 11 paths of the unicursal labyrinth ; and the stereo spacing represents the direction of the path. The end result is a wall of cat purring which strangely creates an impression (a structural one rather than a realistic or poetic one) of making such a journey.

Swswthrght - ESSSENCE OR RESIDUE (1984)
This piece takes a wide range of industrial sounds and mixes them together to produce a slow, sensuous drone, made up of a continually transforming mix of sound textures. The handling of these sounds - as opposed to their intrinsic qualities - thus imbues the piece with a lush and seductive ambience.