What is Minimalist Music?
Minimalism rose to prominence during the mid – 20th century and developed as a way to counter the complexity of other genres such as neoclassical music. Minimalism is considered to mainly be an American musical genre although some European countries still contain elements of musical characteristics that are common in minimal music. Minimalism can be easily recognized by its ability to focus on developing certain themes or rhythmic figures over an extended period of time, the reiteration of smaller phrases, and having more gradual transitions than other 20th century genres. Unlike other musical genres, minimalism does not have a set instrumentation and can feature both acoustic and electronic instruments.
While composers such as Philip Glass and John Adams are described as the forerunners of minimalism, none of them can truly say that they have had as much of an impact the way that American composer Steve Reich has had on the future development of music. An example of his influence on minimalism can been seen in his development of phasing. When he was composing “It’s Gonna Rain” in 1965, the recordings on the two separate recorders he was working with became out of sync and created echoes of the original recording; this resulted in his innovation of the technique of phasing – where two or more instruments play a melody in a steady tempo, but one instrument gradually changes tempo, creating multiple variations of the melody. Reich notes in his interview with Jonathan Cott that “it [phasing] was a process of gradually passing through all the canonic relationships making an entire piece and not just a moment in time”.
Piano Phase served as an important stepping stone for Steve Reich. During this time, Steve Reich had only been able to apply his phasing technique to electronic instruments. In previous compositions, Reich utilized tape recorders to produce the actual phasing. The piece represents Steve Reich’s transition into working with acoustic instruments and his ability to continue applying techniques achieved with electronic instruments to acoustic instruments.
While composers such as Philip Glass and John Adams are described as the forerunners of minimalism, none of them can truly say that they have had as much of an impact the way that American composer Steve Reich has had on the future development of music. An example of his influence on minimalism can been seen in his development of phasing. When he was composing “It’s Gonna Rain” in 1965, the recordings on the two separate recorders he was working with became out of sync and created echoes of the original recording; this resulted in his innovation of the technique of phasing – where two or more instruments play a melody in a steady tempo, but one instrument gradually changes tempo, creating multiple variations of the melody. Reich notes in his interview with Jonathan Cott that “it [phasing] was a process of gradually passing through all the canonic relationships making an entire piece and not just a moment in time”.
Piano Phase served as an important stepping stone for Steve Reich. During this time, Steve Reich had only been able to apply his phasing technique to electronic instruments. In previous compositions, Reich utilized tape recorders to produce the actual phasing. The piece represents Steve Reich’s transition into working with acoustic instruments and his ability to continue applying techniques achieved with electronic instruments to acoustic instruments.
What is Gamelan?
Gamelan is a type of musical ensemble and genre that mainly originates from Bali and Java. The term gamelan iteself covers a large variety of potential instrumentation, as some gamelan ensembles focus on metallophones and percussive instruments while others utilize bamboo flutes in their ensemble. In “Manuk Rawa”, the type of gamelan is called gamelan gong kebyar. Gamelan gong kebyar is a gamelan ensemble that focuses on metallophones and other percussive instruments including gongs, gong chimes, drums and cymbals (Gold 36).
The instruments are tuned to a pentatonic scale known as pelog selisir. Because of their tuning system, most of the pitches are often heard as sharper or flatter to people who are used to Western music. Although there are seven pitches in a pelog selisir scale, most gamelan ensembles only utilize five notes of the scale, making it pentatonic. The degrees of the scale that are used are the tonic, supertonic, mediant, dominant and submediant. When the tonic is D, the following notes would make up the pentatonic pelog selisir scale: D, E flat, F, A and B flat. However, because each instrument is tuned to a different tonic, it becomes difficult to create a universal constant. While most Balinese can learn pieces by memory, some require sheet music. However, instead of writing out music in the Western style, most Balinese write out a cipher score to provide a visual representation.
Figure 1
The numbers represent the degrees of the pelog selisir scale with the underline represents the lower register. The letters on the lower three instruments represent the gong struck and how it is struck. The dots are shown to be the equivalent of rests in Western art music.
The piece “Manuk Rawa” is a gamelan gong kebyar piece made by composer I Wayan Beratha that is meant to be an accompaniment to a dance – or “tari” - choreographed by I Wayan Dibia. The dance itself was originally created in 1981 as a part of a Mahabarata ballet. The Mahabarata is an Indian epic that is very popular in Bali. The dance reprsents the mating ritual of the birds.
The instruments are tuned to a pentatonic scale known as pelog selisir. Because of their tuning system, most of the pitches are often heard as sharper or flatter to people who are used to Western music. Although there are seven pitches in a pelog selisir scale, most gamelan ensembles only utilize five notes of the scale, making it pentatonic. The degrees of the scale that are used are the tonic, supertonic, mediant, dominant and submediant. When the tonic is D, the following notes would make up the pentatonic pelog selisir scale: D, E flat, F, A and B flat. However, because each instrument is tuned to a different tonic, it becomes difficult to create a universal constant. While most Balinese can learn pieces by memory, some require sheet music. However, instead of writing out music in the Western style, most Balinese write out a cipher score to provide a visual representation.
Figure 1
The numbers represent the degrees of the pelog selisir scale with the underline represents the lower register. The letters on the lower three instruments represent the gong struck and how it is struck. The dots are shown to be the equivalent of rests in Western art music.
The piece “Manuk Rawa” is a gamelan gong kebyar piece made by composer I Wayan Beratha that is meant to be an accompaniment to a dance – or “tari” - choreographed by I Wayan Dibia. The dance itself was originally created in 1981 as a part of a Mahabarata ballet. The Mahabarata is an Indian epic that is very popular in Bali. The dance reprsents the mating ritual of the birds.