Minimalism

What do people think about minimalism? Personally, I don't think the early works of Glass, Reich, Young etc were much to write home about (stasis seems to be exactly what it says - static!). But the modern works of Glass and Reich I find extremely interesting: my personal favourite is the "You Are" Variations by Reich (2003). If I had to choose I'd take minimalism over serialism, any day.

I think that the general trend with new and developing musical genres is that the first wave will be nearly entirely experimental, with the second wave starting to incorporate the findings of these experiments with our already rich and complex musical language. For example, Sch

I agree - whilst it was fine for Glass to produce works like "Two Pages" (21 minutes of a repeated A minor chord on an electric organ) in the early '60s, now it would just seem lazy: minimalism has evolved into something much more interesting, and to produce the equivalents of these early "stasis" works would be a little like backtracking, IMHO.

In reading the words of Kyle Gann I have latched onto two principles that came in tandem with minimalism and whose implications are bigger than the original movement.

1: "It's only as good as it sounds." The surface texture of music is an important thing for a composer to consider.

2, and this one hails from Cage somewhere or another: Taking the behemoth attention paid to harmony in the last centuries and turning it towards rhythm. Rhythm as aspect of primary interest.

Hmmm. The possibility of being accused of laziness is a troubling issue that I must give more thought...