La Monte Young was saxophonist and jazz musician as a youth, but his postgraduate work at the University of California at Berkeley (where he met Riley) led to a performance of his Trio for Strings (1958) arranged by his composition teacher, Seymour Shifrin (1926–79), in an attempt to show Young how much he had miscalculated. The work, consisting entirely of long notes and rests, is now regarded as the source of minimalist composition. Young’s music uses a limited number of pitches and a high degree of repetition, but his biggest contribution to minimalism was his use of drones. This can be heard highly effectively in Drift Studies (1964), where two or more sine waves shift gradually in phase relationship so that volumes and harmonics are subtly altered. In Berkeley, Young performed numerous works by Cage, which attracted the derision of most but found sympathy with his fellow student Riley.

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