# Minimal Piano



## Mesa

Rough outline of a piece i've been working on in a minimal style. Evidently very much influenced by Nyman and Einaudi. Tried to make it a bit unique by placing the lead melody to the left hand.

(Apologies for the MIDI sequenced awful piano, i can't quite get the left hand bit up to full speed when i have to play both sections, my brain starts caving in)
http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/36984939/file.html

Feedback appreciated  my main concerns are the potentially dull intro and the right hand melody becoming tedious. Finding it tricky to flesh out a middle section that would follow what i have so far without further blagging Einaudi or sounding like Debussy after severe blunt force trauma to the head.


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## Jeremy Marchant

A few points:

I feel it's either not minimal enough or too minimal. Compared with, say, early Glass there's a great deal going on but the detail isn't worked out enough. (And of course if you did work it out it would less minimal still.) This is the paradox that hits all minimalist composers. Most lack the discipline to be truly minimalist for long and risk end up just being simplistic. As does Mr Glass, here (for example) [starts at 2:30]:


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## Mesa

Thanks for the feedback! I certainly see where you're coming from. I'm quite well acquainted with Glass's piano work (can play to a reasonable degree of faithfulness the metamorphosis cycle from memory), and in writing in this style i have to consciously try to stop myself from doing 2 note right hand melodies . I think it may favour a reduction, with my current skill set or lack thereof, i'd rather end up with a potentially over-simplistic but elegant piece than punching above my weight with more notes than i know how to deal with.

I'll keep working at it


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## PetrB

Minimalism, as a 'school' is very much about (to be simplistic) one kind of process, with an aesthetic behind it. Personally, I can't abide Nyman or Eunaudi, and I do think of them, truly, as 'bad' composers. Since that is my opinion, I would advocate using other models.

It sounds like you are trying to imitate 'the sound they make,' vs. the more abstract - finding a few notes and musical ideas You find interesting, and considering if they will 'work' within the fundamental premises of 'HOW' minimalist style pieces work. I would advocate looking at the mechanisms, if you will, of the style. Often, there are one ore more musical cells -- which either work together or seem to be a logical extension or continuation of an idea, one to the next. There is the technic of 'additive' where the little idea of four notes later becomes five, or the numbers increase or decrease, whether pitches, bars or beats; and there is phasing Repetition in this 'school of writing' is often enough that a later change, often not a 'true' modulation, is perceived as one, or more dangerously, becomes a surprise and a relief from the long 'sitting still' of the previous X no. of bars.

The best works, from even the most raw of beginners, come when someone has first a musical idea which intrigues them, an idea which has enough potential 'content' to be one way or the other expanded into 'a piece.' This essay sounds like you did not have much more of an idea other than emulating the sound of others. Better to gamble on being less generic, or in the genre of an established composer, and find what is both most original and interesting to you.

Listen to the instrumental, not piano music, of early John Adams, or some of the more 'minimalist' striped work of Louis Andriessen, or Terry Riley, David Lang, Simeon ten Holt, Michael Gordon, Graham Fitkin, etc. Listen for how the material is worked 'as process.' Then, with your own idea of 'what sounds good' - try another.

Avoid imitating or 'sounding like.' Think of 'minimalism' and the many various types of music any number of composers have made within the genre, which means there is room for something fresher than second-hand Nyman, Second-hand glass, etc.
Not a bad effort, just so you think your work was all down the tubes and for naught.


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