http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post–World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Donald Judd, John McLaughlin, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt, and Frank Stella. It is rooted in the reductive aspects of Modernism, and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract expressionism and a bridge to Postmodern art practices.
The terms have expanded to encompass a movement in music which features repetition and iteration, as in the compositions of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and John Adams. Minimalist compositions are sometimes known as systems music. (See also Postminimalism).
The term "minimalist" is often applied colloquially to designate anything which is spare or stripped to its essentials. It has also been used to describe the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett, the films of Robert Bresson, the stories of Raymond Carver, and even the automobile designs of Colin Chapman. The word was first used in English in the early 20th century to describe the Mensheviks.
Minimalist music is an originally American genre of experimental or Downtown music named in the 1960s based mostly in consonant harmony, steady pulse (if not immobile drones), stasis or gradual transformation, and often reiteration of musical phrases or smaller units such as figures, motifs, and cells. It may include features such as additive process and phase shifting. Starting in the early 1960s as a scruffy underground scene in San Francisco alternative spaces and New York lofts, minimalism spread to become the most popular experimental music style of the late 20th century. The movement originally involved dozens of composers, although only five—Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams and, less visibly if more seminally, La Monte Young—emerged to become publicly associated with it in America. In Europe, its chief exponents[citation needed] were Louis Andriessen, Karel Goeyvaerts, Michael Nyman, Gavin Bryars, Steve Martland, Henryk Górecki, Arvo Pärt, and John Tavener. The term "minimalist music" was derived around 1970 by Michael Nyman from the concept of minimalism, which was earlier applied to the visual arts.For some of the music, especially that which transforms itself according to strict rules, the term "process music" has also been used. Recently, Minimal techno has started gaining popularity among dance music enthusiasts. It takes the same idea that "less is more" from classical composers and applies to this new genre.
Stylistic origins Minimalism
Detroit techno
Acid techno
Ambient
Cultural origins Early 1990s, Detroit, Michigan, USA, Berlin
Typical instruments Keyboard, synthesizer, drum machine, sequencer, sampler
Mainstream popularity Underground initially, widespread club trend by mid 2000s
Derivative forms Maximal
Minimal techno is a minimalist sub-genre of techno. It is characterized by a stripped-down aesthetic that exploits the use of repetition, and understated development. This style of dance music production generally adheres to the motto less is more; a principle that has been previously utilized, to great effect, in architecture, design, visual art, and Western art music. Minimal techno is thought to have been originally developed in the early 1990s by Detroit based producers Robert Hood and Daniel Bell,although what is currently referred to as 'minimal' has largely been developed in Germany during the 2000s, and made very popular in the second half of the decade by labels such as Kompakt and M-nus.
In his essay Digital Discipline: Minimalism in House and Techno Philip Sherburne also proposes what the origins of Minimal techno might be. Sherburne states that, like most contemporary electronic dance music, minimal techno has its roots in the landmark works of pioneers such as Kraftwerk and Detroit Techno's Derrick May and Juan Atkins. Minimal techno focuses on "rhythm and repetition instead of melody and linear progression", much like classical minimalist music and the polyrhythmic African musical tradition that helped inspire it. By 1994, according to Sherburne, the term "minimal" was in use to describe "any stripped-down, Acidic derivative of classic Detroit style".
Los Angeles based writer Daniel Chamberlin, attributes the origin of minimal techno to the German producers Basic Channel and in doing so fails to credit the contributions of Robert Hood or mention the influence of Hood, and other members of Underground Resistance, on the Berlin techno scene of the early 1990s (the scene out of which Basic Channel emerged). Chamberlin draws parallels between the compositional techniques used by producers such as Richie Hawtin, Wolfgang Voigt, and Surgeon and that of American minimalist composer Steve Reich, in particular the pattern phasing system Reich employs in many of his works; the earlist being "Come Out". Chamberlin also sees the use of sine tone drones by minimalist composer La Monte Young and the repetitive patterns of Terry Riley's "In C" as other influences. Sherburne has suggested that the noted similarities between minimal forms of dance music and American minimalism could easily be accidental; he also notes that much of the music technology used in EDM has traditionally been designed to suit loop based compositional methods, which may explain why certain stylistic features of minimal techno sound similar to works of Reich's that employ loops and pattern phasing techniques.
Wikipedia has enabled me to provide an appropriate format or framework within which i will be to characterise and develop research.. Contemporary minimal sound artists.
Further research will include looking at Richie Hawtin and M-nus records (Gaiser, Heartthrob) and a look at some of the Compakt artists such as Michael Mayer, Justus Köhncke and Jürgen Paape.
This will also tie in and further develop looking into the minimalist visuals that Quayola has created. His whole PTA series was done in conjunction with M-nus records artist such as.. Autobam, Audion, My My, Peter Spiess, Oliver Hacke, RunStopRestore, JPLS, Hearthrob.
This is the sort of minimalist construction process that i will be adapting to my project. Simple, reductive sounds, with the emphasis being on rhythmical patterns and reduced and sliced samples.
(Lots of white space)
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