Chapter 9. Minimalism

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Chapter 9. Minimalism

Minimalism, as a musical art movement began in the early 1960s and was brought to prominence by Terry Riley with his enormously influential piece titled 'In C.' It has been growing steadily ever since and composers such as Philip Glass, Steve Reich, John Adams and Michael Nieman, are all very successful in this genre , writing music for film and theatre as well as concert works. Indeed the music of Glass and Reich is now so frequently imitated that the style can be heard on all manner of television commercials and incidental music.

NOTE

To examine the Logic files for this chapter, copy the folder named 'minimal' from the CD to your computer.

The cyclic and repetitive techniques used in minimalism often produce music of a static nature ideally suited for use with the moving image in the form of atmospheric soundtracks . These same techniques also make it ideal music for composing within sequencers such as Logic. However because the music is essentially repetitive, many people mistakenly believe that all they have to do is compose a few measures and apply the Create Repeat function. This inevitably leads to very boring music indeed. To make it interesting, just as in all other forms of music, repetition must be combined with variation.

There are many techniques used in minimalism, and the repetitive nature of the music often belies its complexity. I have chosen two techniques used by minimalist composers for us to examine.

• Load minimal1.

A gradual cumulative process of adding notes is used here (Figures 9.1, 9.2 and 9.3). It's a simple technique that quickly leads to very complex structures. Bar 1 contains a group of seven notes of equal length (1/8 notes) that are repeated three times in succession. In bar 5 an extra note is

Figure Figures 9.1 and 9.2. minimal1, Arrange view and Matrix view

added to the group and another at bar 9. If these 12 bars are cycled round, we hear first an expanding effect and then as the cycle begins again a contracting one. The general melodic structure remains the same while quite different rhythmic structures emerge.

Figure 9.3. minimal1, Score view

• Load minimal2.

Repeating two or more rhythmic patterns of different lengths simultaneously is another technique. In minimal2 (Figures 9.4, 9.5 and 9.6) the first right hand piano part is two bars long and is repeated twice making a total of six bars. The left hand part, however, is only one and a half bars long and has to be repeated three times to finish along with the right hand part. When both parts are viewed together in the Score editor, we see seven bars of music in 4/4. The result is rather hypnotic and although the music is repetitive no two measures are the same.

Figure Figures 9.4 and 9.5. minimal2, Arrange view and Matrix view

Figure 9.6. minimal2, Score view

In the next chapter we will use similar techniques to those above and combine them with prerecorded audio parts to produce a minimalist piece of music.

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