MP3 Music Things - CLASSICAL: Minimalism

Harmoniously looping polymetric miniatures.

7 MP3 Songs
CLASSICAL: Minimalism, AVANT GARDE: Sound Art

Show all album songs: Music Things Songs


Details:
Minimalism can be difficult to define. Musically speaking we believe the most fundamental aspect to be repetition. This is in conflict with the notion of minimalism being ambient with not much happening.

We have been interested since the start in a music that removes the sense of the barline. Just as planets orbit at different rates so do our loops. It is described in musical terms as being polymetric.

Most importantly the loops need to be loop-like, rising falling and returning. Secondly and as well as we can define it, the loops are to be combined in a musical way. We can call it loop harmony.

Loop harmony allows for a time aspect to harmony which gets away from the now standard vertical approach. We create the music and then we can look at the math of it. Sometimes these repeating loops can take surprisingly long to complete a single cycle in their harmony. For example if we are using three loops of differing length say, 3 and 5 and 7 units of time, this musical thing or event will not actually repeat until the passing of 105 units of time.

Just like a baby's mobile or the characteristics of a flower or perhaps certain kaleidoscopes, we gain different perspectives as we circle around the object or the object itself circles.

In Music Things we created our looping counterpoint then we chose to record a few different sounds for each voice (loop). We then spent a substantial amount of time mixing them together, giving us another part to the process. The mixing of the different voices was an effort to keep the music interesting for the listener as it creates an evolving event.

But in essence, each combined group of loops creates a static musical truth that can repeated and repeated and repeated. Music Things is seven tracks with each track containing two looping events.

The running time is approximately 20 minutes.