Skip to main content

Philip Glass – Metamorphosis 1-5

 

Minimal Music is, as the name implies, characterized by repetitive, chiefly consonant harmonic and melodic patterns that, depending on the piece, can be repeated ad nauseam. One would think this would render the genre rather boring and bland, but to me, it often has a markedly soothing, almost meditative effect – as is definitely the case for Philip Glass's Metamorphosis series.

            The pieces are all but void of sudden, hectic twists and turns, instead opting for a more subtle dramatism (via the occasional alteration of pitch and volume) and unobtrusive minor mode melancholy. This made them excellent to have on in the background while writing this paper! Their repetitive composition and lack of thematic disruptions also efficiently not only prevented disruptions of my concentration, but seemingly slightly increased it. The music blended into the background so well that it honestly felt as though it made me lose track of time.

            All in all, listening to Glass's Metamorphosis felt to me like a pleasant change of pace, especially since I tend to prefer listening to more energetic, one might even say aggressive genres of music, such as Rock and Electronica, which is not to say that these genres cannot also have a soothing and meditative effects (one need only mention the more ambient strand of Post-Rock), but there is something about the melancholy repetition of Glass's Metamorphosis that seems to provide an extra layer of emotional security – perhaps the genre of Minimal Music seeing its heyday after America was fresh out of the paranoid and uncertain McCarthy era may have something to do with its frequent embodying of consistency and relaxation; a clear countercultural response to the hectic times.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure

 Sarah Kumar Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath The Future of (American) Music 06 Mar. 2023 Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure According to John Oswald, “[a] plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something familiar which has already been recorded” (Lecture Slides 18). However, only if the source stays recognizable can it be called plunderphonics. In his album Plexure , several songs are played back and mixed together, thus creating a new sound. This is interesting because while the excerpts of songs that are used are recognizable or at least sound familiar to some degree, played backwards and mashed up as they are in Plexure , they create a new sound. Like on the cover of the album, on which a collage making up a man can be seen, the mixing of different songs played backwards gives a new feeling to something known. The way the songs are mixed makes them unintelligible. The meaning of the words of the original recordings are not able to be compr...
Post a Comment
Read more

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops III

  The Disintegration Loops is a quartet of albums published in 2002 and 2003 by American avant-garde composer William Basinski. The pieces are made up of tape loop recordings that were played over time, with noise and crackles rising as the tape deteriorated. Basinski noticed this effect when attempting to convert his older recordings to digital format. The completion of the recordings coincided with the September 11, 2001 events, which Basinski witnessed and adds a deeper meaning to the composition. The composition is fascinating in many ways and makes the listener lose track of time. The tape loop recording had a very calming effect on me and put me in a trance-like state when I listened to it in its entirety. The tape loop is really soothing, so much so that I didn't even notice the loss of quality when I first listened to it. It makes you forget about time and allows you to really get into the piece capturing the calmness it exudes. You forget or don't really notice how i...
Post a Comment
Read more

John Cage – Inlets

  This does not sound like music to me. Depending on the interpretation of different players or performers, this piece will always sound different. In this case, it sounds to me like someone is walking through a cave with water at the bottom, dragging their feet through it. Sometimes it sounds like water in a toilet bowl, especially when we hear the water in a bigger shell being swished around. These sounds are relaxing in the background, it is like a gentle stream of water. I just wonder what went through the head of the composer while writing this piece. But I guess he had some experimental ideas that are interesting to try out. Those shells are quite pretty, I have never seen such big ones that are not broken. I was surprised when something else happened towards the end of the piece. That tone which came out of the one shell was so clear, it sounded like a trumpet. I didn’t know that shells can sound like that. It was quite beautiful. It was a nice way to end the piece. I di...
Post a Comment
Read more