Why I am NOT a postminimalist
Kyle Gann has a really intriguing (and long) blogpost about postminimalism.As a manifesto, it certainly clarified for me a lot of what's happening now. But like most really provocative writing, it asks more questions than it answers. So we're going to play a bit:
[Postminimalism] inherited from minimalism one thing: the value of limiting one's materials, of composing within a circumscribed range.
Limited materials have been the norm in music; it is only within the past century (and since WW II especially) that we've tried to make art out of everything. The possibilities within a classic-period symphony are pretty circumscribed, not only by style, but by the dynamics of how the thing works structurally...and even by the instruments (particularly the brass). The possibilities grew during the 19th cetury, and one can see serialism as an attempt to re-impose economy and consistency on music. There's a perception that "all serial music sounds alike". But all classical symphonies pretty much sound alike too. As Gann points out, individuality comes from what you don't use. But that only works if everyone is not restricting their materials in the same way. Mozart is not J.C. Bach because of his approaches to counterpoint and chromaticism; it's augmented, not diminished.
For postminimalism, there are no laws outside the composition, all tendencies are defined arbitrarily by a logic created within the specific piece of music,
The problem here is that no piece can be entirely self-referential. This is where Gann gets himself in trouble, logically, because later he says:
Thus, nothing is more characteristic of postminimalist music than that it avoids the representation of anxiety. Even when postminimalist music is partly dissonant, harsh, or rhythmically complex, it has a sustained, continuous character that gives an impression of overarching calm.
If the piece creates its own world, how do we know it's calm? And how do we know, outside of a statement of intent by the composer, that it's "meant" to create a better world? Perhaps it's all a description of the calm postnuclear world. Maybe it's prophetic instead of therapeutic.
I'm a compositional pragmatist at heart. I use what works for an audience to communicate various emotional states. Unfortunately, that leads to more involvement with received musical language than is ultimately good for my career. I've always reflected on "what I do-what I don't do". But I have to hold this as generalization rather than prescription, otherwise I risk writing the same piece over and over.
You need to read Gann. Certainly, I'm only touching the surface of his argument. But before I leave, one further comment:
Theoretically one could have argued that, if all materials are equally acceptable, then a piece of music could include anything and everything. This has certainly been the message and strategy of some of the so-called postmodernist composers such as John Zorn and William Bolcom, and one might even include the more traditionally Ivesian Henry Brant. But to allow and include everything in your music flirts once again with the idea of representing the world, reviving the illusion of non-artificiality.
But Bolcom is NOT an all-inclusive composer, even in the stylistically promiscuous Blake cycle. The music between borrowings always has stylistic fingerprints. Even the little piano piece that Billy Bolcom had published in Etude when he was 11 sounds like Bolcom. And even the music in borrowed styles does not sound like other music in those styles.
Comments
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: January 26, 2007 10:26 PM
I'll always be leery of a movement which defines itself only by contrast with its predecessor. It suggests that there's not really a coherent idea behind the movement. Nor am I overwhelmed by his emphasis on the idea of artificiality/non-artificiality. Going by that, postminimalism started about the time the first person blew a note from a reed or plucked a string.
But at least calling it postminimalism is better than calling something postmodern. If you're postmodern, it means--you're in the future.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: January 27, 2007 10:29 AM
"My time has not yet come" has been the position of many composers over the past century or two. So maybe postmodernism has a long and distinguished pedigree.
Actually, the only honest "ism" is "musicism", invented by University of Michigan composition student Chad Evans in the mid-70s. The premise of musicism is that all the great music has already been written, so there's nothing to do but write it all over again. "I'm publishing my Six French Suites next week," Chad would say.
Posted by: Tom Jackson
Posted on: January 27, 2007 12:30 PM
Jeffrey,
You do an amusing job of picking apart some of Gann's statements, but I find his attempts to describe different styles of modern music quite useful. When Gann describes postminimalist music as diatonic music with a steady pulse or provides examples (William Duckworth's "Time Curve Preludes," John Adams' "Nixon in China,") I can understand what he's talking about. And yes, William Bolcom has a compositional style, but he does draw on amazing variety of "classical" and "pop" styles, often in the same work, which I think is what Gann is referring to.
Nobody has time to listen to every work by every composer, so the job of trying to herd composers into different categories is a necessary if somewhat hopeless task if you're trying to gain an idea of what's out there, and I'm glad Gann is brave enough to defend the practice. You may not be a "postminimalist," Jeffrey, but on your home page you describe yourself as a "suburban neoclassicist."
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: January 27, 2007 09:30 PM
Tom,
Don't get me wrong: I think Gann's piece was incredibly valuable, and I thought I had made that clear. But I did see some inherent contradictions. If I blogged that many paragraphs, you'd find some here too, prolly.
As for "suburban neoclassicism", didn't I put a smiley there? No, it's not an honest "ism"; it's a lame marketing tool. We're all post-something; maybe I can be post-Grape Nuts.
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: January 28, 2007 12:15 AM
Post-prandial?
Or how about pre-postmodern?
Posted by: Tom Jackson
Posted on: January 28, 2007 12:24 AM
Personally, I'm waiting for the first neopostminimalist to appear on the scene.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: January 30, 2007 11:57 AM
You can't have "neo" until a thing is dead. Per Tom Johnson, minimalism is dead (has been for quite awhile now), ergo, neominimalism would be fine (loop pieces based on tone rows?). But we have to wait for Kyle to declare postminimalism dead.