The Rebirth of Improvisation as a Site for Religious Studies Research

In this article, I propose that studies of music’s links to religion go beyond reductionistic links between religious traditions and music forms (e.g., “Music and/in Islam”), and look instead at ways in which music responds to or expresses concerns or aspirations that are linked to religion or spirituality. The article further proposes that, should this approach be adopted, the explosion of radical improvised music-making in the 1960s (associated with such artists as the Grateful Dead, John Coltrane, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Albert Ayler, etc.) is a very promising site for investigation.

Music for Airports and the Avant-Garde

Chapter 2 places Music for Airports within the context of a “sonic turn” that occurs among various avant-garde trends in twentieth-century Euro-American music. A brief history begins with Debussy, accelerates with musique concrète and John Cage’s regard for the activity of sounds, and closes with consideration of La Monte Young and Terry Riley. The chapter insists that this history, in its technological and compositional advances, makes the experiments on Music for Airports possible. Ongoing references to chapter 1’s observations concretize the album’s relation to the Euro-American avant-garde.

Less is More, and More is Less, More or Less: The Historical Progression, Aesthetic Characteristics, and Physical Limitations of Minimalism

Since its emergence as an aesthetic category in the mid-twentieth century, minimalism has been contentious amongst scholars of all forms of art. It has been alternately celebrated, questioned, and condemned by not only its critics, but also the artists whose works have been given the historical title “minimalist.” This article explores the emergence of minimalist music, examining its relation to the earlier “avant-garde” works of John Cage and other eclectic influences, such as jazz and Eastern music. In doing so, this article attempts to establish a broad understanding of the elements integral to minimalist music, with a special focus on the composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich. The works of Riley and Reich are compared to the works of visual artists Barnett Newman and Sol LeWitt in order to highlight the pivotal elements of the minimalist aesthetic, including repetition, simplicity, and, to borrow Cage’s term, “Unfixity.” This article concludes that the minimalist compositions of the aforementioned composers ultimately demonstrate the integral characteristics of minimalism better than their visual counterparts, due to the temporal nature of music. However, the article seeks to demonstrate the importance of contemplating visual and musical interpretations of minimalism together, as they are complimentary windows into this modern movement.

Negotiating Freedom and Control in Composition

This chapter discusses the many meanings of improvisation and free improvisation in Western classical music from 1950 to 1980 and examines criteria for improvisation, composition, and performance. It investigates concepts related to improvisation such as indeterminacy, chance, aleatory, open form, minimal music, and experimental music. Discussion focuses on the terminology, ideas, and selected works of Anthony Braxton, André Boucourechliev, Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Alvin Curran, Franco Evangelisti, Vinko Globokar, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Joëlle Léandre, Witold Lutosławski, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Richard Teitelbaum, Frances-Marie Uitti, La Monte Young, and Pamela Z. Finally, it considers the role of composers and performers works involving improvisation, the improvisers’ relationship to the audience, and role of listeners in performances of improvised music.

“Fun, Yes, but Music?” Steve Reich and the San Francisco Bay Area's Cultural Nexus, 1962–65

This article traces Steve Reich through the Bay Area's cultural nexus during the period 1962–65, exploring intersections with Luciano Berio, Phil Lesh, Terry Riley, Robert Nelson, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and the San Francisco Tape Music Center. The aim is to present a revised history of this era by drawing on personal interviews with Tom Constanten, R. G. Davis, Jon Gibson, Saul Landau, Pauline Oliveros, and Ramon Sender. In addition, previously unused source materials and contemporaneous newspaper reception are employed to provide a more nuanced contextual framework. Reich's heterogeneous activities—ranging from “third stream” music and multimedia happenings to incidental scores and tape collage—deserve investigation on their own terms, rather than from within narratives concerned with the stylistic development of “minimalism.” More appropriate and viable aesthetic parallels are drawn between Reich's work for tape and Californian Funk art.

Reminiscence, Reflections, and Resonance: The Just Intonation Resophonic Guitar and Lou Harrison's Scenes from Nek Chand

Upon accepting a commission for a solo guitar piece from the 2002 Open Minds Music Festival in San Francisco, Lou Harrison decided to write Scenes from Nek Chand for a unique instrument: a resonator guitar refretted in just intonation. Harrison's last completed work draws inspiration from the sound of Hawaiian music that the composer remembered hearing in his youth, as well as from the artwork populating Nek Chand's Rock Garden of Chandigarh, India.Based on archival research, oral histories, and the author's insights as a performer of contemporary music, this article examines the piece's inception, outlining the organological evolution of resophonic guitars and their relationship to Hawaiian music. It addresses the practical and aesthetic implications of the composer's choice of tuning, and examines the work of additional artists, such as Terry Riley and Larry Polansky, who have contributed to the growing repertoire for the just intonation resophonic guitar.

Contraimágenes para una California alternativa: los diggers, Bruce Nauman y Terry Riley en San Francisco

En la segunda mitad de la década de los sesenta la ciudad californiana de San Francisco se convierte en uno de los lugares centrales de la producción de la novedad. En el seno de la comunidad hippie, los diggers se desmarcan del ambiente dominante y plantean una ruptura con el capitalismo más allá de la mera rebelión formal. Son los días en que el músico Terry Riley inaugura el minimalismo musical con su obra "In C" y el momento en el que Bruce Nauman establece las bases de un vocabulario artístico que lo encumbrará como uno de los artistas clave de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. In the second half of the sixties the Californian city of San Francisco becomes a central place in the production of novelty. Within the hippie community, Diggers distance themselves from dominant environment and pose a rupture with capitalism beyond the mere formal rebellion. These are the days when the musician Terry Riley opens with his work "In C" the musical minimalism and the time when Bruce Nauman lays the foundations of an artistic vocabulary that afterwards will elevate him as one of the key artists of the second half of the twentieth.

L’art du trompe-l’oreille rythmique

Un trompe-l’oreille est une entité sonore captieuse dont la principale caractéristique repose sur une disjonction entre sa structuration (comment elle est réalisée) et sa réception (comment elle est perçue). Dans cet article, l’auteur s’intéresse principalement aux patterns résultants qui sont des motifs mélodiques et/ou rythmiques issus de regroupements opérés par la perception sur les stimuli acoustiques provenant d’une ou plusieurs strates sonores ; la production de ces patterns et leurs répercutions auditives sont abordées à travers des exemples musicaux variés comme les polyphonies traditionnelles d’Afrique centrale ou les oeuvres de György Ligeti, Terry Riley et Steve Reich. L’auteur expose également quelques effets rythmiques que seule la précision des ordinateurs autorise, tels que les pulsations infinies ou paradoxales confectionnées par Jean-Claude Risset ou encore le ralentissement perpétuel mis en oeuvre par Autechre dans une de ses compositions. Il s’agit de montrer, à travers ce parcours musical, que des rythmes peuvent en cacher d’autres.