| Minimalism has nothing to do with funk/groove or other pop music,
mostly, except new age, for which it provided a platform.
Minimalism is a metaphor taken from paintings with almost nothing
in them, such as solid color paintings by Rothko, for music which
changes very very slowly. To a pop-oriented person, minimalist
music has no melody, often no apparent harmonic change, no lyrics,
no drum kit, and no commercial value. Composers labelled 'minimalist'
by dumb critics include Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry Riley (who
started the current version in ca. 1965 with In C, but left minimalism
in the late 70's), and the up and coming media hype success John
Adams. I have written some pretty minimal pieces as well.
To describe this music is difficult, but here are a couple pieces.
Piano Phase by Steve Reich: two pianos play the same figure at slightly
different tempo. I seem to recall calculating that one plays this
repeating 12-note figure at MM 60, the other plays at 59.5, but
it's done approximately, for an indefinite length of time.
"Bed" from the "opera" "Einstein on the Beach" by Philip Glass has
a phrase with 4 chords: f minor, Eb major, C major, D major, a
sustained slow bass part, and a vocal line without words on long
long notes. The chords are in alberti figures, slow. On the record,
the phrase is played twice, then added to a little by adding more
notes to the alberti harmonic line, played twice, added to again,
played twice. The f and C chords have the same partitioning (number
of eighths in the fegure) . So do the Eb and D chords.
No rhythmm track.
gotta go long distance
Tom
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| Hmm...I do know 'minimalism' as a musical form. But, this is far
from what I had in mind. I suppose I should bave a better
understanding of the terminology before I begin using these terms
like there is no tommorrow. I'm sorry for this.
I'm more interested in the production technique of subtraction.
Funk/Pop lends itself to this technique, while driving R&R works
better with the layering of instruments. Placement of an instrument
relative to other instruments (notes or phrases as well) is more
important to a song with a funk back-drop.
Does anyone know of a midi software product that would create an
optimum envoirment for this approach. A friend has has a Mac and
he uses 'M' and 'Jam Factory'. He gets very good results. Are there
any others out there anyone knows of?
Thanx
jo citizen
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well, tom offered a nice explanation for do i dare say the
"avant garde" definition of minimalism. However, the term has
been used in a pop/rock context - as when John Lennon put out
his 1st solo album - compared with excess of white album and
abbey road productions it was noted as being quite minimalistic,
if that can be considered an actual term.
I suspect your basic problem is one of not starting with
a more simple bass track. I'm not sure the brain can cope
well with the taking away - you will always hear the part you
took away, and want to at least replace it with something. However,
if you perhaps started with a more minimalist approach - simple
rythms, some pedal tones (that would get you closer to toms definition)
and stay away from the urge to layer more and more stuff in, you
may come up with different results!
btw, and quite aside, it seems to me i saw something on the
news or whatever was on the tube the other night about Mr. Janzens
beloved Mobius - was it an ad? (Sorry, i was engrossed in Mr. Lewinsons
book on the Beatles recording sessions at the time, and only caught
the name and a brief picture).
bob
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Sounds like what you want to do is similar to what is called "dub"
in reggae. I hear in modern funk stuff but I don't what they call
it.
Dub was originally a form where DJs would rap over records which
they messed around with the way hip-hop DJs "scratch". Later, it
evolved into a complex studio style where the mixing engineer would
take the basic tracks and mix them so instruments popped in and
out of the mix, sudden echo effects would be added, etc. The result
was typically a rhythm track with little (if any) of the original
melody remaining. Then musicians starting working on creating the
same effects live by just dropping their parts in and out at random.
You can approximate such effects with any sequencer that allows
you to mute tracks while the sequence plays.
Hope this helps some.
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Dub mixes are just that...mixes of overdubs that were used to create
the final product, usually with the rhythm track underneath. Whether
reggae, funk, Top40, club, house...whatever, they're still called dub
mixes. Sometimes producers get cute and call them other names but
that's the general title.
cdH
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