The development of the miniaturization has continued since the popularity of miniskirts peaked in the 1960s. Through this development, minimalism appeared, and has been used as a formative approach of arts in any design or style in which the simplest ...
The development of the miniaturization has continued since the popularity of miniskirts peaked in the 1960s. Through this development, minimalism appeared, and has been used as a formative approach of arts in any design or style in which the simplest and fewest elements are used to produce the maximum effect. Currently, the areas of minimalism are expanded to architecture, clothing fashion, music and dancing. The purpose of minimalism in all these fields is to reveal the best contents using the simplest materials.
This study introduces the minimal music that expresses new ideas on basic elements and structures according to the present age and limits movements of musical instruments and sounds extremely.
The minimal music emerged from 1965 centered on the United States. The main two characteristics of the minimal music are simplification and repetition.
Musical materials are simplified and continued based on process techniques.
Over the past western and eastern histories of music, musical compositions without repetition have been impossible. As in ABA forms in Sonata in western music and trolls in eastern music, the same motifs are repeated.
However, the repetition in the minimal music is different;the smallest unit is a minimalized music with continuity, and the total of the units comes to be a whole song through addition and abbreviation.
To appeal to music listeners, a variety of modifications suitable to current styles, tones and fashions have been given to the monotonous repetitions. Now, the minimal music is gain popularity successfully.
Representative composers of the minimal music include La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. Non-western music such as Balinese music, African music, and Indian music affected these music composers. This study analyzed their biographies and musical features.
These composers were influenced by ‘the experimental music’ that explores new tones of music, and they expressed minimalism where their artistic techniques were simplified.
As a contemporary genre of music in the late 20th century, minimal music has been reputed as a contributor that reconnected composers and the audience. Some cases where minimal music was applied to movies, animations and popular music were investigated in this paper. Moreover, this paper is aimed to present creative instruction schemes in music classes using minimal music.