In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as a form of post-tonal thinking

Other types of serialism also work with sets, collections of objects, but not necessarily with fixed-order series, and extend the technique to other musical dimensions (often called “parameters”), such as duration, dynamics, and timbre.. The idea of serialism is also applied in various ways in the visual arts, design, and architecture,[2][3] and the musical concept has also been adapted in literature.[4][5][6]

Composers such as Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono, Milton Babbitt, Elisabeth Lutyens, Henri Pousseur, Charles Wuorinen and Jean Barraqué used serial techniques of one sort or another in most of their music. Other composers such as Tadeusz Baird, Béla Bartók, Luciano Berio, Benjamin Britten, John Cage, Aaron Copland, Ernst Krenek, György Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Arvo Pärt, Walter Piston, Ned Rorem, Alfred Schnittke, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Igor Stravinsky used serialism only in some of their compositions or only in some sections of pieces, as did some jazz composers, such as Bill Evans, Yusef Lateef, Bill Smith, and even rock musicians like Frank Zappa.

The term expressionism “was probably first applied to music in 1918, especially to Schoenberg”, because like the painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) he avoided “traditional forms of beauty” to convey powerful feelings in his music.[1] Theodor Adorno interprets the expressionist movement in music as seeking to “eliminate all of traditional music’s conventional elements, everything formulaically rigid”. This he sees as analogous “to the literary ideal of the ‘scream’ “

Adorno also describes it as concerned with the unconscious, and states that “the depiction of fear lies at the centre” of expressionist music, with dissonance predominating, so that the “harmonious, affirmative element of art is banished”.[2] Expressionist music would “thus reject the depictive, sensual qualities that had come to be associated with impressionist music. It would endeavor instead to realize its own purely musical nature—in part by disregarding compositional conventions that placed ‘outer’ restrictions on the expression of ‘inner’ visions”.[3]

The three central figures of musical expressionism are Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) and his pupils, Anton Webern (1883–1945) and Alban Berg (1885–1935), the so-called Second Viennese School. Other composers that have been associated with expressionism are Ernst Krenek (1900–1991) (the Second Symphony, 1922), Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) (Die junge Magd, Op

In music, the early twentieth century was a time of. The years following 1900 saw more fundamental changes in the language of music than any time since the beginning of the baroque era.

Twentieth-century music relies less on preestablished relationships and expectations.. After 1900 each musical composition is more likely to have a unique system of pitch relationships, rather than be organized around a central tone.

The most famous riot in music history occurred in Paris in 1913 at the first performance of. All of the following composers worked in the early years of the twentieth century except

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Prominent features of minimalist music include repetitive patterns or pulses, steady drones, consonant harmony, and reiteration of musical phrases or smaller units. It may include features such as phase shifting, resulting in what is termed phase music, or process techniques that follow strict rules, usually described as process music

The approach originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School.[5] In the Western art music tradition, the American composers Moondog, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass are credited with being among the first to develop compositional techniques that exploit a minimal approach.[6][2][7][8][9] The movement originally involved dozens of composers, although only five (Young, Riley, Reich, Glass, and later John Adams) emerged to become publicly associated with American minimal music; other lesser known pioneers included Dennis Johnson, Terry Jennings, Richard Maxfield, Pauline Oliveros, Phill Niblock, and James Tenney. In Europe, the music of Louis Andriessen, Karel Goeyvaerts, Michael Nyman, Howard Skempton, Éliane Radigue, Gavin Bryars, Steve Martland, Henryk Górecki, Arvo Pärt and John Tavener exhibits minimalist traits.

– Chapter 3 Terminology: Post-Minimalism, Postmodernism, and Neo-Romanticism. – Chapter 4 Philip Glass’s Early Life and Career, 1937–1975

– Chapter 3 Terminology: Post-Minimalism, Postmodernism, and Neo-Romanticism. – Chapter 4 Philip Glass’s Early Life and Career, 1937–1975

Minimalist artists used right angles and other clear and simple geometric forms and structures , while emphasizing stasis and impersonality. Applying the term to music is often credited to critic Michael Nyman, who allegedly borrowed the idea from art in 1968 when describing a music performance

Music, like the other arts, does not occur in a vacuum. Changes brought on by advances in science, and inventions resulting from these advances, affected composers, artists, dancers, poets, writers, and many others at the turn of the twentieth century

These inventions included the light bulb, the telephone, the automobile, and the phonograph. Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877 and patented it in 1878

He would speak into a mouthpiece and the recording needle would indent a groove into the cylinder. The playing needle would then follow the groove, and the audio could be heard through a horn speaker (in the shape of a large cone)

Minimalism is a strong movement in many art forms, including musical composition. While it has a recognizable structure, there is also plenty of room within the genre to evolve your own style and create a specific flavor of minimalistic music.

While you may know what minimalism sounds like in music, some specific features set the groundwork for these composers to build on. Keep reading to gain a basic understanding of the genre and how each piano composer involves it in their works.

While these pieces focus on the piano, they may also feature other classical instruments like violins, violas, cellos, clarinet, or flute. As minimalism evolved in the mid-20th century, modern instruments like guitar or saxophone may be seen in some of their works.

Last week we discussed how minimalism became a musical movement in the mid-1900s. After decades of experimental music and a shift away from traditional melodic and harmonic ideas, a group of American composers aimed to return to the simple and – as a result – created minimalism

*This post is by no means a comprehensive list of minimalist composers. Expect future posts on composers who influenced the development of, wrote in the style of, and further developed minimalism.

While they each had their own compositional style, these composers helped define minimalism as a musical movement.. Generally recognized and accepted as the first truly minimalist composer, Young was heavily influenced by music ranging from the 12-tone system (read about that here) to drone sounds to Gregorian Chant

Around the middle of the 20th century several new compositional styles (while not emerging entirely new) came to represent dominant streams, almost establishing a kind of “common practice”, for at least a few years. While these methods of composing have lost much of their initial momentum, their influence continues to effect composers even today.

Specifically, Serialism was taken up by the composers of the European continent, most famously at the Darmstadt conferences by composers such as Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Karel Goeyvaerts and others. Indeterminacy, while used earlier by Charles Ives and Henry Cowell, the most important contributions were by John Cage and the New York School including Morton Feldman, Earle Brown and Christian Wolff

However, the term “concrete” is a bit misleading for English speakers, since the French term has nothing to do with cement pavement, but might better be translated as “real” sounds.. Schaeffer and Henry recorded the sound of locomotive engines, street sounds, doors closing, etc

But they do know something about guilt by association.. Most composers commonly called Minimalists have disavowed the label at one point or another, suggesting that it mischaracterizes their music, which can be mind-bogglingly intricate — and huge

The designation arose mainly from the friendships of composers with Minimalist artists: Steve Reich and Philip Glass, for example, with the sculptor Richard Serra.. But there certainly was something new and big (however minimal the means) stirring in the second half of the 20th century

The pollen carried far and wide, even to Eastern Europe with the “mystical Minimalism” of Arvo Pärt and others as a spiritualized offshoot.. The 70th-birthday year of Philip Glass, which is being widely observed, seems as good a time as any to take stock of the Minimalist achievement by way of recordings

Satie and minimalism: Parallels & points of contact. Research > Minimalism > Parallels & points of contact

Works by Satie such as the Ogives (1886) and the enormous Vexations (1893) have sometimes been hailed as radical forerunners of the late twentieth-century movement of minimalism because of their use of repetition as the sole means of progression, instead of traditional Western development. Certain minimal composers, such as Gavin Bryars and Howard Skempton, have openly acknowledged the importance of a knowledge of Satie’s music on the development of their own styles; but the fact that Satie is not a commonly-cited source of the style outside of Britain, while not ruling out the possibility of such an influence, does pose questions of how composers separated by nearly a century’s-worth of music can come up with such (relatively – allowing for technological advances, in particular) similar solutions to musical problems

Much has been written on the development of the minimalist style of music in America in the 1960s and rather than repeat what has already been clearly presented by others, only those facts which reveal parallels with Satie’s musical development will be given. For more detailed information, a book such as Wim Mertens’ American Minimal Music1 and Edward Strickland’s interviews with the four major composers in the style (La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass) in American Composers2 are very helpful.