, 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 ...
Minimalism is a musical style of composition that began in the 1960s, seeking to convey musical ideas with few elements. It often involves musical patterns that repeat while their effect is manipulated through changes in duration, speed and volume. These alterations can create patterns that join together, overlap or phase. For its part, a pattern may consist ...
been explored, exploiting every sort of colouristic effect and instrumental combination. Movements such as integral serialism (music derived from a single series of numbers), aleatoricism (music based on chance), minimalism (the repetition of very short musical ideas) and postmodernism (music that combines modern ideas with more traditional elements) have demanded a new sort of virtuosity from performers and a consistently ...
Alternative-metal guitarist Adam Jones (b. 1965) was born in Park Ridge, Illinois. He learned violin in elementary school, continuing with the instrument in high school, before playing acoustic bass for three years in an orchestra and later teaching himself guitar by ear. Jones studied art and sculpture in Los Angeles before working in a Hollywood character shop sculpting ...
movies. Introduction | Modern Era | Opera Major Operas | Nixon in China by John Adams | Modern Era Personalities | Thomas Adès | Modern Era | Opera Techniques | Minimalism | Modern Era | Opera ...
of young composers who demonstrated at concerts of the Concertgebouw and together created a two-hour musical ‘morality’, Reconstructie, on the life of Che Guevara. Following his encounter with American minimalism, works such as De staat (‘The Republic’, 1976, using text from Plato), De tijd (‘Time’, 1980–81), De snelheid (‘Velocity’, 1982–84) and De materie (‘Matter’, 1984–88) shun traditional orchestral ...
in which the normal linear narrative of opera is replaced by an exploration of various symbols related to Einstein, such as the Theory of Relativity. Glass’s objective approach to minimalism was gradually infused with expressiveness (The Canyon, 1988). He has collaborated with artists as varied as Paul Simon (Songs from Liquid Days, 1986) and Doris Lessing (the operas ...
he formed the Philip Glass Ensemble and teamed up with theatrical concept artist Robert Wilson. Their hallucinogenic four-hour opera Einstein on the Beach (1976) was a critical smash and brought minimalism to the mainstream. They then produced Satyagraha (1980), which used a traditional orchestra, and the more accessible Akhnaten (1984). They have also enjoyed many commissions, including The CIVIL ...
Ambient music has existed since the late-nineteenth century. Although Brian Eno was the first artist to use the term ‘ambient’ to describe his music on his 1978 album, Music For Airports, composers like Claude Debussy and Erik Satie, with their notion of composing pieces to complement listening surroundings, broke with musical conventions and expectations. Frenchmen Erik Satie ...
Punk The first of the new wave acts to be signed were The Ramones, a band that relied more upon goofy, dark humour than anarchy. Given their near-legendary musical minimalism, it was highly remarkable that The Ramones made music for some twenty years after Ramones, their May 1976 debut. Cleveland chipped in with The Dead Boys, and ...
male and female voices, creates a hypnotic momentum over the course of almost an hour. It is a seminal work in the style that came to be known as minimalism, a term that embraces the music of other composers including Terry Riley (b. 1935) and Philip Glass (b. 1937), whose musical language is based on repetitive melodic or rhythmic ...
Originating as a device to mask the sound of a whirring projector, film music has become so much more than ‘music from the movies’. Before the advent of video and DVD, the soundtrack was the most accessible way to return to a favourite movie. It has since evolved into a multi-million dollar industry and one of the most thriving ...
with the realities of global success. And others would probably point to The Ramones, a New York act who inspired the British scene into being and whose stripped-down musical minimalism remains the essence of the genre. Like Motörhead, a band from the neighbouring territory of hard rock, The Ramones endure as an iconic name, whose logo alone ...
New age music has become the most popular form of contemporary electronic music. Unlike the other variants, new age has become popular with a global mainstream audience, even more so than the most commercial strains of contemporary chill out. Although similarities do exist between new age and ambient music – both styles were influenced by the same pioneers, ...
as In C (1964) by Terry Riley (b. 1935), in which performers proceed at a mutually negotiated pace through a group of simple melodic fragments. Listeners, too, found minimalism accessible: the use of synthesizers and amplified instruments by groups such as Steve Reich and Musicians and the Philip Glass Ensemble won them an enthusiastic following among rock-music audiences. New ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
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