Music Innovators

Unit
Year 12 Music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=fruY31DQvb0
 Minimalism
Originated in New York in the 1960s

Any music that employs limited or minimal musical

materials

Pieces that use few notes, few words of text, limited

instruments, pieces that move in endless circles and
pieces that use a limited range of pitches ect

Constant Harmony, steady pulse, stasis or gradual

transformation, often reiteration of musical phrases, or
smaller units such as motifs, figures and cells.

Composers of Minimalist music: Steve Reich, Phillip Glass,

John Adams, Terry Riley, la Monte Young
 Tehillim Part 1.
Tehillim (1981)

A great example of the emotional possibilities in minimalist music.

There is no fixed meter or metric pattern inTehillim.

The rhythm, of the music here comes directly from the rhythm of the Hebrew text and
is consequently in flexible changing meters.

The non-vibrato, non-operatic vocal production will also remind listeners of Western
music prior to 1750.

The overall sound of Tehillim and in particular the intricately interlocking percussion
writing which, together with the text, forms the basis of the entire work, marks this
music as unique by introducing a basic musical element that one does not find in
earlier Western practice including the music of this century.Tehillimmay thus be
heard as traditional and new at the same time.

None of the writing is informed by the sound or structure of Jewish music

Indeed, a major factor in Reich's choosing the Psalms was that, "the oral tradition for
Psalm singing in the Western synagogues has been lost. This meant he was free to
compose the melodies forTehillimwithout a living oral tradition to imitate or ignore.
 Steve Reich
American, minimalist
composer

Pioneered minimalism
in the 1960s

https://
www.youtube.com/
watch?v=yg7kKJsFpvc
 Different Trains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=1E4Bjt_zVJc