The history of minimalist music can be traced back to Schumann in the 19th century. Nevertheless, the word "simplicity" was first used to describe music in 1968, when Michael? Among the comments written by Michael Nyman on Cornelius Cardew's work "The Great Digest". Nieman later expanded his definition of simple music in his book "Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond" published in 1974.

In addition, Tom Johnson, a musician who defines himself as minimalism, also claims to be the first person to use the word minimalism to describe music. He described minimalism in Village Voice (1989): "The concept of minimalism is much bigger than many people think. By definition, it includes any music written with little or limited materials: only a few notes, a few words, or music written for only a few musical instruments, such as ancient cymbals, pedal wheels, and even whiskey bottles. It includes music with long-lasting electronic synthesis and low hum. It includes music recorded only by the sound of rivers and streams. It includes music that keeps repeating. It includes music that creates a sound wall with saxophone sound effects. It includes music that takes a long time to change from one style to another. It includes any music that uses all possible pitches (as long as they are between C and D). It also includes music as slow as two or three beats a minute. "

Many people (especially pop fans) find simple music easier to listen to than so-called twelve-tone music or classical music of modern music school. For others who support romantic music or earlier music, it is easy to find simple music annoying because of its repetitive nature, lack of complexity, or lack of rigor like procedural music.

The most important minimalist musicians include John Adams, Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Terry Riley, and the less famous La Monte Young is called the father of minimalist music.

There are also differences in minimalist music. We can observe whether a music belongs to minimalist music from many aspects: the method of playing, the structure of music and the skills of music.

The early styles of Glass and Reich were very simple, with little embellishment on the theme, and they were small-scale composers (the composer was also a performer). Therefore, in the case of Glass, it is the wind organ, wind instrument (especially saxophone) and singer; In Reich's example, it focuses on the mallet and percussion instruments (such a combination can be used in various combinations, and Reich has a piece of music called "Six Pianos" which is such a combination).

On the other hand, Adams' works are often written for classical instruments and arrangements: orchestral music, string quartets and even piano solos. Although all the four musicians mentioned above have written such works, none of them are as dense as Adams. His music is more acceptable to the appreciators of classical music, because although his works have simple colors, they also pay attention to classical logic. In particular, he will not stop the evolution of music for a long time like others. Some of Adams' orchestral works have been described as "maximalism", but this term is not generally agreed by all critics, and composers such as Charles Wuorinen are generally regarded as maximists.

In a word, the three composers pay attention to the three extreme aspects of simple music: Steve Reich uses almost mechanical timbre; Philip Glass uses a lot of imagery materials and pays attention to chords; Adams, on the other hand, is the successor of modern music school, which is even more unpredictable in rhythm and chord. Silence

Conceptual music

Simplicity

Continuity: slow evolution with more than one component

Stages and regularity (including repetition)

Simple music has only one term borrowed from visual art in the history of music, which may be the reason why many simple musicians don't like this term. When Philip Glass's band first played, it was performed at an exhibition of paintings by a friend who was also a minimalist. His friend kept saying, "This word should be banned!" .