minimalist music
Gradual, repeating patterns
Minimalist music is a style of composition built on repetition, gradual transformation, and sustained tones.
Emerging in the 1960s with composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass, it strips away complex harmonies and development in favor of hypnotic patterns that shift slowly over time.
The term extends to any music emphasizing simplicity and restraint: ambient minimalist music, minimalist electronic beats.
- phasingImplementing by stages
- repetitionAct of redoing
- Philip GlassAmerican minimalist composer
- John AdamsSecond American chief executive
- marimbasTuned wooden bar instruments
synthesizers · drones · Zen Buddhism · vibraphones · transcendentalism · meditation · pianos · layering · string quartets · electric organs · tape loops · vocal ensembles · time perception · simplicity · sound art · gamelan · conceptual art · pulse
minimalist musicRomantic music
Expressive 1800s compositional movement
expressionism · Tchaikovsky · Rachmaninoff · Puccini · bombastic
minimal, minimalism, minimalist, minimize, minimum, mini, minus, minuscule, minority