Minimalism, Colotomy & EDM

An aerial view of the John River in north central Alaska in the late summer, showing the meandering river, neighboring oxbow lakes, areas of forests and plains surrounding them, and mountains at the south end of the Brooks Range on the horizon. The John River in North Central Alaska. Oxbows like these are created as a river slowly changes course over long periods of time.
(Travis S | CC BY-NC-2.0)

Repetition is ubiquitous in music, and is an effective compositional technique to give a piece identity and cohesion. In some genres of music, repetition is not only common but a primary defining characteristic.

Minimalism

Minimalism involves continued repetition and gradual changing of a relatively small amount of musical material.

Length

Because they involve gradual change over time, minimalistic pieces tend to be lengthy. American composer Philip Glass' 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach is around five hours long and contains no intermissions, though audience members are generally encouraged to come and go as they wish during the performance. Performances of American composer La Monte Young's 1964 work The Well-Tuned Piano are also generally five hours long, though composer considers each performance a part of a longer work that has spanned the life of the composition.

Figure 1: Knee Play 1 and Train from the opera Einstein on the Beach by the American composer Philip Glass. In lieu of a traditional plot and libretto, the opera consists of minimalistic music and uses numbers, solfege syllables and other avant garde text as lyrics.

Minimalism & Aleatory

Minimalism works well when combined with aleatory, especially in regards to instrumentation and repetition. In American composer Julius Eastman's 1979 work Gay Guerrilla, no strict instrumentation is given — though it is often played on four pianos — and performers are given patterns to play at their own pace until specific time markings in the score.

The first one minute and forty-five seconds of Gay Guerriila by Julius Eastman. The score shows repeated quarter notes on A5, D4 and F4, with occasional eighth-note pairs included.
Figure 3: From the beginning to the 1:45' mark of Gay Guerrilla, a 1979 piece by American composer Julius Eastman.

Phasing

Occasionally composers will incorporate phasing, a phenomenon where two musicians playing the same rhythmic pattern at slightly different tempos will gradually fall out of sync and realign in different ways.

The first three repeated measures of Steve Reich's Clapping Music. There are parts for two performers; the first performer repeats the same eighth note pattern of notes and rests. The second performer starts in unison, but rotates notes to the right by one eighth note per measure.
Figure 4: The first three measures of Clapping Music, a 1972 work by American composer Steve Reich. The score directs the performers to repeat each measure twelve times before moving on. (In the linked recording, British percussionists David Hockings and Toby Kearney perform the piece with six repetitions per measure.)

Phasing can be scored intentionally, as in American composer Steve Reich's 1972 piece Clapping Music, or it can arise as a result of performers selecting tempos indeterminately.

Colotomy

Colotomic music is based on several layers of repetition which happen simultaneously, like the second, minute and hour hands on an analog clock. The term was coined by Dutch ethnomusicologist Jaap Kunst to describe the indigenous gamelan music of western Indonesia.

In a colotomic structure, different instruments are used to mark periodic intervals. For example, a piece may be comprised of a repeating 16-beat pattern, in which a lower-pitched instrument is played once every 16 beats, and higher-pitched instruments play every 8, 4, 2 or 1 beats.

Units 9 through 40 of the traditional Javanese gendhing Babar Layar. The printed notation is a string of numbers, presenting the pitches on the gamelan's gongs and other metallaphones. Some numbers are modified by dots, breves, macrons and enclosing ovals.
Figure 5: Units 9 through 40 of traditional Javanese gendhing Babar Layar, shown in Kepatihan notation. In this system, numbers represent the pitch to be played, dots above or below the number represent octave transpositions, bars over the number represent rhythmic divisions, and arcs and circles indicate the striking of larger gongs.

Because of their repetitive nature, colotomic music like gamelan and Khmer pinpeat is performed as background music, and it is considered appropriate for audience members to socialize and come and go during performances.

EDM

Electronic dance music, usually referred to as EDM, is a genre of music intended for nightclubs and other dance-centered environments. EDM is often created primarily in a digital audio workstation or DAW, sometimes with vocals and instrumental added in a studio environment. EDM is generally very repetitive and layered, and nearly always features driving beat. Specific subgenres of EDM, like house, dubstep, and drum and bass, have their own characteristic tempo ranges.

Form is an important functional element of EDM. Tension is often created by adding rhythmic complexity and electronic effects and filters to a repeated phrase, and released by suddenly removing filters, increasing volume and adding heavier percussion and lower-pitched timbres, a technique called a drop.

A chart showing the form of the 2012 track `Language` by Porter Robinson. Five tracks are shown: beat, light synth, heavy synth, break and vocals; at measures 65 and 145 the break and light synth tracks stop and are replaced by the heavy synth and beat tracks.
Figure 6: A formal map for the 2012 track Language by American DJ and composer Porter Robinson. Drops occur at measures 65 and 145, where the break ends and the beat and heavy synth parts suddenly resume.

EDM is performed by DJs. A performance consists not of a single piece but an hours-long, curated stream of recorded music by different artists called a DJ set or DJ mix. Segues from one piece to another are carefully managed by the DJ in a way that preserves the beat and tempo, giving the impression that the mix is a long, single performance. A DJ may include their own original tracks in the mix, performing elements of the piece live. DJ mixes are often created for specific performances or events, though some DJs will reuse successful mixes for multiple events. Well-known DJs sometimes create mixes which achieve their own measure of popularity, independent of their component tracks.

A photograph taken from stage left of DJ Nina Kravis performing onstage at her console under blue lights.
Figure 7: Russian DJ Nina Kraviz performs a set in 2018 in Romania.
(Merlijn Hoek | CC BY-NC-ND)

Minimalism, Colotomy & EDM: Summary

  • Minimalism is the gradual change of constantly repeated material.
    • Because of their repetitive nature, minimalistic pieces tend to be long, lasting for hours or more.
    • Though not a requirement, many minimalistic pieces use aleatoric elements.
    • Some minimalistic pieces use phasing, a process where multiple parts move in and out of rhythmic alignment.
  • Colotomy is a process common in indigenous musics of southeast Asia where instruments perform in nesting layers of repetition.
    • Colotomic music is often performed as background music, where audience members are not expected to attend solely to the performance taking place.
  • EDM — electronic dance music — is music intended for dance-focused environments that centered on heavy, rhythmic repetition.
    • EDM is usually created in a digital audio workstation.
    • Different subgenres of EDM tend to have characteristic tempos.
    • EDM is strongly form-oriented, with gradual changes of texture leading to sudden changes called drops.
    • Performances of EDM consist of live programming and mixing of recorded music by a DJ, who creates sets of continuous music using seamless segues between pieces.

Exercises

Exercise 1: Compose a Minimalistic Piece

Exercise 2: Compare Katy Perry's Resilient with Tiësto's Remix

Exercise 3: Construct a DJ Set

Next: Electronic Music