Description
Book SynopsisA revisionist history of minimalism's transformative rise, through the voices of the musicians who created it. When composers like Philip Glass and Steve Reich began creating hypnotically repetitive music in the 1960s, it upended the world of American composition. But minimalism was more than a classical phenomenonminimalism changed everything. Its static harmonies and groovy pulses swept through the broader avant-garde landscape, informing the work of Yoko Ono and Brian Eno, John and Alice Coltrane, Pauline Oliveros and Julius Eastman, and many others. On Minimalism moves from the style's beginnings in psychedelic counterculture through its present-day influences on ambient jazz, doom metal, and electronic music. The editors look beyond the major figures to highlight crucial and diverse voicesespecially women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ musiciansthat have shaped the genre. Featuring more than a hundred rare historical sources, On Minimalism curates this history anew, documenting one of the most important musical movements of our time.
Trade Review"A gust of fresh air blowing across a stage. . . . As a compilation of source texts, On Minimalism is unparalleled, containing prescient, critical writings from many commentators and participants. . . . Organized in 21 accessible chunks (not only the expected ones, but also others covering spirituality, multimedia and altered states), each headed by an introduction that synthesizes the coming information, this is a breeze to navigate and, for all its scholarly chops, relaxed in its learning."
* The Wire *
"An array of voices and perspectives kept from being bewildering by the editors’ clear and sensible organization. . . . .
On Minimalism, with its contradictory array of opinions, assertions and recollections shows us how musicians, critics, the listening public and the larger cultural machine experienced, thought about and grappled with one of the more unlikely success stories in the American avant-garde." * Spectrum Culture *
Table of ContentsContents
Foreword by Joan La Barbara
Introduction
PART ONE
1. Improvisation and Experimentation
2. Dream Music
3. Loops and Process
4. Altered States
5. Gurus and Teachers
6. Cultural Fusion
7. Across the Arts
8. Ensembles
PART TWO
9. 1976
10. The New Downtown
11. Instruments and Environments
12. Ambient and New Age
13. Canons
14. Backlash
15. Politics, Identity, and Expression
16. Postminimalists
17. Spiritual Minimalism
18. Popular Culture
PART THREE
19. Histories
20. Silences
21. Futures
Acknowledgments
Listening Guide
Notes
Bibliography
Index
