minimal music
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On The Ergonomics Of Music: Reflections On Flow In Steve Reich’s “Drumming”
“But how the paths sounded to me was deeply linked to how I was making them. There wasn’t one me listening, and another one playing along paths. I listened-in-order-to-make-my-way.” -David Sudnow, Ways of the Hand (MIT Press 2001, p. 40) Every once in a while warming up before a show I noodle around by playing Continue reading
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On Modular Grid Structures: Thinking Through Sol LeWitt’s Cubes
I recently saw a striking cube-based structure by Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) at the MoMa. When you stand in front of it and take it in, the work works on multiple perceptual levels. Here are few things that I noticed: one large (about 5 by 5 foot) and shallow three-dimensional square; twenty-five smaller (1 by 1 Continue reading
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Still Centers: On Harold Budd’s Piano Music
“I realized I had minimalized myself out of a career. It had taken ten years to reduce my language to zero but I loved the process of seeing it occur and not knowing when the end would come. By then I had opted out of avant-garde music generally; it seemed self-congratulatory and risk-free and my Continue reading
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On The Musicality Of M.C. Escher
“Order is repetition of units. Chaos is multiplicity without rhythm.” “My work is a game, a very serious game.” “Are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling?” – M.C. Escher I’ve long been curious about M.C. Escher’s (1898-1972) drawings and woodcuts because of their precision, their order and symmetry, their use Continue reading
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On Minimalism and Aural Illusions
One of the enduring contributions of the so-called American “minimalist” composers–particularly Steve Reich and Philip Glass–to global music culture was to re-introduce shape-shifting, metamorphosing aural illusions to our listening experience through intense repetition, polyrhythm and additive rhythms. These rhythmic devices are not new in music–you can certainly hear them in some African and Indonesian musics–but they Continue reading
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On Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Musical Duets
In one of the more austere corners of contemporary experimental electronic music resides a series of luminous collaborations between the musicians Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto) and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Over a series of five recordings, Vrioon (2002), Insen (2005), Revep (2006), utp_ (2008), and summvs (2011) the duo have explored mixing electronic and acoustic sounds into a meditative whole that is Continue reading
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Apple Commercials and Musical Minimalism
Apple computer makes magnificent TV ads for its products: the commercials are visual case studies in sleek minimalism, computer or iPhone set again a pure black or white background, a disembodied hand showing the viewer just how simple it is to work with this technology. Carefully chosen music is part of what makes Apple’s commercials Continue reading
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Making Musical Systems Public
Over the years, a lot of electronic musicians have shrouded their work in a veil of mystery: they tell us very little about how they make their music–the tools the use, their working methods, and so forth. We are reminded of vinyl DJs back in the day who would cover up the labels on their Continue reading
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The Music of Arvo Pärt
Arvo Part‘s music moves me. It could be the scales he uses, his sense of silence and space, the dissonances and unresolved tensions–all that musical stuff–but I suspect that it’s also something more. Born in Estonia in 1935, Part is considered one of the most important living composers of sacred concert music. His music has Continue reading
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