Minimalism

Minimalism describes the American concert-music style that emerged in the 1960s built on repetition, gradual change, sustained tones, simple modal pitch material and audible regular pulse — in deliberate contrast to the high-complexity serialism that dominated postwar academic composition. La Monte Young's drone pieces, Terry Riley's modular cells, Steve Reich's phase-shifting and Philip Glass's additive rhythmic structures established four distinct approaches under the same broad label. Ensembles are often unusual — Reich's mallet-and-vocal lineup, Glass's amplified keyboard ensemble — and the experience of long minimalist pieces depends on the listener's attention adapting to slow change rather than tracking conventional thematic development.

La Monte Young's drone work (Trio for Strings, 1958; the ongoing Theatre of Eternal Music) opened the field in the late 1950s; Terry Riley's 'In C' (1964) introduced the modular cell-based approach. Steve Reich (Drumming, 1971; Music for 18 Musicians, 1976) brought West African and Balinese rhythmic thinking to bear and developed phase-shifting from his early tape pieces (It's Gonna Rain, 1965). Philip Glass (Music in Twelve Parts, 1971-1974; Einstein on the Beach, 1976; his film scores from Koyaanisqatsi onward) used additive rhythmic processes and brought the language to stages and movie theatres. The 1980s saw John Adams arrive as a post-minimalist (Shaker Loops, 1978; Harmonielehre, 1985) and the language begin to feed back into film scoring, popular music and ambient electronics.

Stop waiting for change to be dramatic. Once you accept that you'll be in the same harmonic and rhythmic neighborhood for twenty minutes, your hearing starts to notice tiny shifts — one note added to a repeating cell, a single instrument crossfaded out, a half-beat phase offset. Reich's 'Music for 18 Musicians' grows entirely through these slow accumulations across an hour. Listen with the body as much as with the ear; minimalism is partly an entrainment phenomenon, where the listener's pulse synchronizes with the repeating pattern.

Terry Riley's 'In C' (1964) in the original Columbia recording or in the Bang on a Can ensemble version is the form's most accessible entry — short modular cells played by an unspecified ensemble until everyone has worked through all 53 of them. For the mature American minimalist masterpiece, Steve Reich's 'Music for 18 Musicians' (1976).

Philip Glass drove a taxi in New York City through the late 1970s to support his composition career, even after the success of 'Einstein on the Beach' (1976) — the opera was a critical sensation but financially ruinous, leaving him with debts that took years to clear despite an apparent international career.