A warning: this blog post is about to be biased. Sure, all of mine are; but this is discussing some of my truly favorite music. This is the music that I listen to when I want to relax; when I want to do some good active listening; when I want something for listening while going for a run; when I go for a long drive; when I want to procrastinate listening to music I should be studying. This is music that I often prepare with chamber groups and as soloist, and program on recitals. I have rarely had more fun playing music than when I've played In C, Clapping Music, Music for 18, and more. In fact, when I was writing my previous blog post (on Cage's HPSCHD), I was listening to two of the assigned listening pieces for today's blog: Reich's Piano Phase and Music for 18 Musicians. This was pure coincidence--I had no idea that the next blog would be about minimalism; I just wanted to listen to Music for 18 and Piano Phase (well, it was Marimba Phase, but it's just the same piece with different instrumentation).
(Go here for my favorite video of Marimba Phase. I was at this performance, and it was spellbinding. In a small but massively echoey church, the shifting pitch combinations resonated far longer than usual, and the result was beautiful.)
As Kyle Gann writes in his article "Minimal Music, Maximal Impact," minimalism gets a bad rap from the high-brow, academic music field. This is not remotely fair. In my experience, this is because it is "simple" and "tonal," instead of impenetrably complex and wildly atonal, and therefore does not help to push music forward. In response, I would argue that just because it tends to have a sense of pitch centricity does not mean that it is not innovative, boundary-pushing, and worthwhile. In addition, minimalist is, more than any other concert-based classical music, the music that can and does reach out to atypical audiences--and this is a very good thing.
Generally (with definite exception), minimalism tends to be "pretty"--that is to say, tonal/modal without an awful lot of chromaticism. However, this is only an examination of pitch material--what about every other parameter of music? Texture, timbre, rhythm, meter, time, form, instrumentation, and so much more are massive aspects of music, but so often we only discuss pitch material when defining and discussing areas of music. LaMonte Young innovated in form, timbre, tuning and instrumentation with The Well-Tuned Piano; Reich innovates in time with most of his works, such as Piano Phase, Clapping Music, all the way to his most recent works; Terry Riley hugely innovated in form with In C; Glass innovates in texture in all his oeuvre. Why, then, should they be seen as composers of music that is less worthwhile than Boulez and Stockhausen? Just because they have a fondness for repeat signs?
It is also important to note that minimalism is massively effective at reaching audiences who would not typically listen to concert music, much more so than any other area of concert music. Could Babbitt have found himself composing a piece for Sesame Street? Certainly not--but Philip Glass did, and it's awesome.
Glass, "Geometry of Circles," as aired on Sesame Street (1979)
Sure, it doesn't fit in with the general vibe of the show, but I'm betting that the kids who have seen this segment on this show during any of the multiple times it has aired have had a much more positive response than if it had been 20th century cutting-edge classical music of a different sort. How often does cutting-edge contemporary music reach out to young children? Almost never, and I love that minimalism has that power.
A personal anecdote: years ago, in freshman or sophomore year of high school, I was riding in my good friend Adam's car, and I was controlling the music. Adam was always interested in the arts, but leaned more toward film, theater, and various areas of popular music. He did not have much interest in "classical music." I put on a recording of Reich's Vermont Counterpoint.
Reich, "Vermont Counterpoint" (1982)
Adam was instantly transfixed. It was groovy, fun, intense, and intelligent but followable. I hooked him. We didn't even finish the piece before arriving at our destination, and he was asking me everything about where he could find more like it. Since then, I have taken him to Bang on a Can Concerts; we have seen the BSO premiere a new work at Tanglewood; I have seen Reich in concert with him twice; he has gone on his own accord to see So Percussion concerts; and he is an avid listener of Cage, Xenakis, Reich, Glass, and more. Minimalism was the gateway drug for him into concert music, and he hasn't looked back. I again attribute this to minimalism's power to reach out, without compromising its artistic integrity. Some musicians seem to think that one has to pander, to lower one's art to reach the masses. Minimalism negates this outright.
One more quick example. Last year, I went on tour with the Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra to Long Island and NYC. We made a stop at a Long Island High School to play a concert, and the next morning we had an informal session with the high school's musicians where chamber groups from the ICSO played works for the high schoolers. The percussion section decided to play Clapping Music. Our section leader, Chris Demetriou, quickly summarized the compositional process at play so that they could listen for the phasing and the re-syncing at the end. The result? The kids loved it. All around the band room, they all were clearly enthusiastic about their applause, and a bunch of them came up to me afterward to talk about how cool it was. Sure, at this point it's a bit of a novelty gimmick for us trained musicians, but for them it was new, it was understandable, and it was cool. All from one of the earliest works in the genre of minimalism.
Another argument that the over-arrogant members of the music establishment often have against minimalism is that it has little variation. I could not disagree more. I look at the diversity between works like Music for 18 Musicians and The Well-Tuned Piano, and while both are pretty, they are different in nearly every other way. One is rhythmic, metric, and groovy; the other ametric and improvisatory. One is intense and driving, the other meditative. One is six hours long, the other is one hour. The differences are huge; they just both have enough common traits that they are both minimalist. Minimalism only lacks variation if you don't listen for anything other than pitch material (though even then, the variety of scales, modes, and other devices can vary widely).
To conclude, in short: minimalism IS innovative, varied, intelligent, and worthwhile; and it reaches out to new audiences without compromising this, which adds infinitely more value to it.
Just for fun, I'll end this post with this: Clapping Music as you've never heard (or seen) it before.
No comments:
Post a Comment