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Process music, often used synonymously with minimalism, is specifically music which arises from a process, and more specifically, music which makes that process audible. A number of Steve Reich's early works are examples of process music, particularly a specific process called phase or phasing. In his 1968 work Pendulum Music, a number of microphones are connected to a number of loudspeakers, and each is allowed to swing freely above the louspeaker it is connected to until it is still - the feedback that results from this process, as each microphone passes above its loudspeaker, makes up the music (see also Reich's short 1968 essay Music as a Gradual Process). György Ligeti's Poème symphonique (1962), in which a hundred metronomes are set to different tempos and allowed to run down is another notable example.
Process music can also be created using relatively traditional instrumental techniques - Reich's Piano Phase is an example. James Tenney is another composer who is concerned with process, such as in his tribute to Steve Reich, Chromatic Canon, in which a tone row is eventually built up and, one note at a time, from what started as a repeated open fifth, before returning by the same path.
Michael NymanMichael Nyman (born March 23, 1944) is a British minimalist composer, pianist, librettist and musicologist, many of whose works are associated with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway. Nyman's popularity increased significantly after he wrote the soundtrack to has described how the generally minimalistic tonal music associated with process music arose from the influence of and reaction against process based music of extreme determinismPhilosophy of science Metaphysics Determinism is the philosophical doctrine which claims that every physical event, including human cognition and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. The principal consequences of this or indeterminismIndeterminism is the philosophical belief that free will and determinism are incompatible, and that there are events which do not correspond with determinism. There are generally three types of indeterminists. One version holds that some events are uncaus using serialSerialism is a rigorous system of composing music in which various elements of the piece are ordered according to a pre-determined ordered set or sets, and variations on them. The elements thus controlled may be the pitch of the notes, their length, their, aleatoric, and stochasticStochastic from the Greek "stochos" or "goal", means of, relating to, or characterized by conjecture; conjectural; random. A stochastic process is one whose behavior is non-deterministic in that the next state of the environment is not fully determined by methods.
See also:
- List of process music piecesSee also Process music. Alvin Lucier : I am sitting in a room : Music On A Long Thin Wire Steve Reich : Pendulum Music James Tenney : For Ann (rising : Chromatic Canon (1980/83) William Basinski : The Disintigration Loops I-IV (2003) Lists of pieces.
- Tom JohnsonAmerican composer and critic Tom Johnson (born 1939) is one of the few composers to self-identify as minimalist, in fact, he may have coined the term while serving as the new music critic for the Village Voice. He has since collected those articles in the
- Alvin Lucier
- Conlon Nancarrow
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Musical techniques
