Thread: Minimalism
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Old Apr 16 2008, 10:52 AM
rwgriffith rwgriffith is offline

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Quote:
Originally Posted by pliorius View Post
i'll give you my reasoning behind that. feldman's music is quiet and slow, and often very long. he said that no pattern is better than the other one. he ascribed same musical value to any sound/pattern. plus he used a lot of aleatoric in his music, which to my mind is not so far from atonalism. so, essentially his slowness and aleatoric thinking/usage of patterns made me think of him as atonal minimalist. overall, i wanted to show how minimalism is very vast notion. and it has (the term) more of a philosophical value than purely musical. it's a style of thinking (in this case-musical) to me.
I hold to that idea as well.
There is nothing 'better' about any certain aspect of music, when compared to a like aspect. Gm is not 'better' then A. 16th notes are not 'better' than 8th note triplets. Except as per our personal preferences and value judgments. Those aspects have no 'value' in and of themselves.
I think that's why so many composers used aleatoric methods. To break away from their 'interference' with those aspects. (What did I really just say?)

Personally, I happen to like the preferences and value judgments I've made about music. That's, uh, why I made them....




Quote:
Originally Posted by gianluca View Post
It's easy to write a minimalist piece following the Philip Glass formula: .......
Quote:
Originally Posted by QcCowboy View Post
or you can write non-minimalist music following the Boulez-formula:.......
Quote:
Originally Posted by QcCowboy View Post
1. the Boulez comment was a retort to the "compose like Glass" comment he previously made. Don't take it out of context.
Can I for a moment though? If only to say:

What is wrong with that, if that is what you want to do?

Actually, I don't really like Glass or Boulez, so, well, I guess I'll agree with both of you......ROFLMAO

Seriously though.


Quote:
Originally Posted by oingo86 View Post
Noone has mentioned Terry Riley! I think In C is one of the most important pieces of the 20th century! It's not performed enough, I don't think.
I agree!!!

Quote:
Originally Posted by HymnSpace View Post
I think you will find that writing good minimalism is rather harder than you think. I would say that writing music that is atonal (or at least very cacophonous such as the aforementioned Boulez) is much easier....or at least I feel it is
Yes, but is it good?
I think you'll find that writing good music is harder than you think.
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