<lunghissimo e in inglese> Minimalism Towards Trascendense
zambra
the human mind. It has a syntax, a grammar, and is capable of
communicating human experience. More strikingly, it evolves and adapts
to its surroundings. As new genres are created and combined, a process
of erosion occurs, the "system" of music seeking to reach a point at
which only its most essential elements remain.
Eras of rapid progress in science and technology are marked by
parallel developments in music, literature, and art. Ideas are
introduced through experimentation, and artists incorporate elements
of those ideas into their works. In many ways, music is a tremendous
library of ideas that are passed on by methods similar to those of
ancient oral traditions. Each generation molds what came before into
something new, extending the past out into the future like the limbs
of a tree. Branches may intertwine while others fall off completely
and are left to decompose. Attempts to exhaustively classify and
define this process are, of course, doomed to fail, but we are curious
to understand the process, to swim upstream and discover the source.
Stagnation is poisonous to the creative spirit. This isn't so much a
curse as it is a stimulus to keep us moving in new directions. Music
has the mysterious capacity to resonate the entire spectrum of
emotions. Unfortunately, most of the means yet devised to map out the
terrain of human feeling are of limited use in the face of modern
technologies and musical forms. Sheet music has been displaced by MIDI
data, and few artists emerge from the militaristic territories of
classical music instruction with creative instincts intact. To say
nothing of the ideological motives of conservatories, much of modern
music has grown beyond the scope of traditional music theory. Textures
of sound are impossible to describe accurately, and modern
compositional practices have transformed the recording process itself
into a musical instrument, with its own properties and range of
applications.
To better understand the evolutionary behavior of music, we might
first examine and compare its structure to that of other syntactic
systems -- language, technology, and the creative process itself.
During the late 19th century, Ferdinand de Saussure studied the
relationship between Indo-European languages, and was later recognized
as the founder of semiology, the science of signs. He developed an
analytical view of the structure of language and the significance of
the correspondences in the functions and positions of sounds
throughout the system. As comparative linguistics had already
recognized, the Indo-European languages -- English, French, German,
Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit -- evolved from a single root. What changed
was the pronunciation of the sounds. This led to the modern view of
language being defined as a system of internal, or structural,
relationships between elements in a system.
The influence of structuralism during the early part of the 20th
century extended into painting, literature, philosophy, architecture,
and, eventually, music. Resulting initially in the abandonment of
traditional notions of compositional form, structuralism led many
artists to rethink the goals and methodologies of their disciplines.
Thirty years later, abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky contemplated a
radical new view of art as a system of communication, and painted with
the sole purpose of direct emotional expression. Kandinsky's ideas
were in stark contrast to those espoused by realism, the dominant form
of the time. Following Kandinsky, the content of an artist's work was
no longer required to be the representation of the world. For
Kandinsky, feeling was content, and he developed his own vocabulary of
emotions in his paintings using color and shape. In 1912, Kandinsky
and fellow artist Franz Marc published "On the Spiritual in Art," a
manifesto of their work:
"We believe that we stand today at the turning point of two long
epochs. . . . There is a new religion arising in our country, still
without a prophet, recognized by no one. . . . But the artistic style
that was the inalienable possession of an earlier era collapsed
catastrophically in the middle of the 19th century. There has been no
style since. . . . The first works of a new era are tremendously
difficult to define. Who can clearly see what their aim is and what is
to come? But just the fact that they do exist and appear in many
places today, sometimes independently of each other, and that they
possess inner truth, makes us certain that they are the first signs of
the coming new epoch -- they are the signal fires for the
pathfinders."
The goal of these artists was to define the primary compositional
elements of visual art, and to integrate these elements into their
works. Through Kandinsky's connection with Walter Gropius, Laszlo
Moholy Nagy, and other artists, architects, and industrial designers
associated with the German Bauhaus, many of these ideas became the
basis of graphic design and communication arts.
The drive to master the human mind is an ancient instinct. The
spiritual traditions of Eastern Asia are a primary example. For
thousands of years they have explored the deepest regions of the
intellect and mapped out its inner structure. Their methods are
similar: intense introspection and transcendence of the erratic
habitudes of ordinary consciousness. Yoga and meditation are central
practices in both Hinduism and Buddhism. Once the restless mind
reaches a state of serenity by slowing the rate of breathing, the Yogi
focuses on an image or idea. This loosens the knot of the ego -- the
selfish, child-like aspect of the psyche. Layer by layer, and after
much practice, the cloak of the conscious mind begins to lift, giving
access to unity with divine consciousness, and freedom from all
limiting thought. Meditative states often are impossible to describe
in common terms, much like the feelings we get while listening to
music. The goal is spiritual attainment, but the immediate effects are
calmness, increased mental capacity, and heightened awareness.
Increasingly refined and subtle states of transcendence are
experienced until one reaches a point of complete mental stillness --
samadhi, a point at which only the most primary thoughts persist.
Another method for inducing a trance-like state is to repeat a phrase,
or mantra, until the conscious mind becomes completely absorbed in the
rhythm and tone of the words. "Aum Ma-ni Pad-me Hum" expresses the
course of the universe from zero to one; when repeated enough times it
begins to sound like a 4/4 techno beat. It is the repetition of the
rhythm in dance music that enables the mind to recede and the
spiritual essence to control the body. Certain ancient traditions
believe that this same energy is stored within us and released in the
form of art. By discovering the simple elements in music that evoke
this, we tap into the limitless current of creative force.
In Western culture, a close parallel can be drawn between Eastern
spiritual traditions and systems of technology. The mantra of
technology is efficiency. In order for the amount of energy consumed
by a machine to equal the amount of energy being used for work,
friction (waste) must be removed. Unnecessary components in the chain
are removed, and those that remain are streamlined. The ultimate goal:
the elimination of resistance.
There are several factors that make up the musical experience. We'll
concentrate on just four: composition, arrangement, texture, and
context. By looking at each of these and comparing, we can begin to
understand the parallels between musical structure and that of other
systems.
Composition is the combination of melodic, rhythmic, and other musical
materials. In the recent past, restless guitar solos have given way to
monochromatic drones, and recognizable drum patterns have become
intricate arrays of pops and clicks. Melodies have become less
complicated and more in balance with the other elements of the song.
Since the advent of digital recording the skills of the performer are
no longer showcased; the more valuable skill is to use as few notes as
possible to convey the feeling of the song. Percussion depends less on
the limitations of live drumming, and rhythm has been allowed a larger
portion of the composition. Sampling techniques even use the pitch of
the percussion to achieve subtle melodies in the rhythm. Composition
is the selection of syntax that communicates musical ideas to the
listener.
Arrangement involves the organization of the compositional elements
described above. In recent years, arrangement has shifted away from
strict formulas, such as the verse-chorus-verse scheme traditionally
used in rock and pop. Alternate formulas have been created, but
strategies of discontinuity and surprise have replaced predictability
and anticipation as guiding principles. Techno does this by building
up slowly, adding layer upon layer before reaching a dramatic climax.
This is similar to the waxing and waning arrangements of Indian ragas,
which are themselves modeled on the natural flow of the cycle of life.
Other styles aim for a sort of compositional degree zero, arrangements
reduced to the elemental dynamic of presence and absence, such as in
the static drones of minimal ambient or the unbreaking repetitive
sounds aimed for the dancefloor. Arrangement is the music's grammar,
the functional relationships between syntactic elements that together
tell the story.
Texture refers to the qualities or characteristics of the sounds used
in composition. Previously the domain of timbre in acoustical
instruments, texture now includes the sculpted output of synthesizers
and digital signal processing. Texture is where the most visible
results of erosion can be seen. The explicit features of familiar
sounds have been made strange, disintegrated into their ghostly
remnants. Percussive sounds might be derived from the standard drum
kit -- snare, kick, hi-hat, symbols -- but they've been simplified
almost beyond recognition, abstracted to clicks, bumps, hisses;
mid-range treble used as a snare, muted bass as a kick, discrete
blasts of white noise as a hi-hat. If we look at texture in terms of
density, the spaces between the sounds become just as important.
Texture is the phone or pronunciation of syntax, giving rise to
differences in dialect between different orders of expression.
Context, finally, defines the purpose or use the music serves for the
listener. It's the dancefloor, the office, the movie theater, or the
psycho-topologies of chemically altered states. The idea of music as a
tool is not new, but we've only recently adapted its use to areas
other than elevators and discotheques. This was the departure point of
ambient music as it was conceived by Brian Eno, Robert Rich, and
others. We can more accurately measure a song's value in terms of the
potentialities for listening that it encompasses.
The value of music's progress towards minimalism is in the closer
examination of the elements that make up the whole, and the discovery
of the connections these elements have to inner motives. When we
attempt to construct the basic elements necessary to convey a
particular idea or emotional state, we also learn how our minds are
composed. This process is increasing in velocity and momentum as the
opportunity to create music shifts from the hands of the few and
privileged to the many and able. Any model we construct to define the
basic structure of music is a diagram of some aspect of our
intellectual and emotional processes. Each sound can resonate
sympathetic areas of our brains like wires in a piano. The organic
nature of music is its ability to mutate and adapt to an environment.
Its meaning is determined by its relationships to the other elements
in the system. Its goal is to understand itself -- and transcend.