The Minimal artistic ideal

[ParanoidDancer]

Since this topic is going off topic in allot of directions, i'll try to add some things to the discussion. Also a note to everyone, try to be respectful of other opinions. I won't point any fingers but some people are a bit high on their own opinion.

What is minimal?

First of all, the question 'What is minimal?' seems to be pretty relevant for a forum that's mainly about minimal techno. It almost equals the question 'What is this forum about?'. I think the answer to that question is pretty straightforward, a musical genre. Allot of what has been said can be applied to any musical (sub)genre.

So when is a musical piece defined as minimal techno? Well I don't think minimalism can exist without maximalism. For example there wouldn't be any minimal techno without hard techno, it would just be techno. There is no predefined line between both of the styles. It comes down to your own interpretation.

What is the use of genres anyway?

Actually maybe musical genres are slowly becoming obsolete. As information technology advances we might discover more useful or precise organization principles. Cause most of the times musical genres can be more confusing then clarifying. For example a website like last.fm can give us a more detailed view of what a certain artist sounds like then a website like discogs.

Apart from organizing music to support findability, genres are also used for communication between humans. For example, when you are trying to explain in the record store what kind of records you are looking for, or telling a new friend what kind of music you are into. Most of the time this doesn't really work out though because there is no authority that defines which record belongs to which genre. There isn't really another way though (yet?). Except for summing up some artist that sound alike. But if the other person is new to the genre he probably doesn't know those.

Does the fact that someone tries to produce a 'minimal' record limit his creativity?

Well theoretically, yes. If you are a producer and choose the produce in the latest hottest genre, you are trying to fit within the boundaries already set by others. Practically, no. These producers are probably making tracks for the wrong reasons. making money, being cool etc. These people probably didn't have the passion to create something that stands out anyway. For those who do, the boundaries probably work in their advantage. Allot of times having limitations pushes you to do more with the options you do have.

Is minimal techno something new or has it been around for longer?

Well obviously minimalism has been around for longer in different art forms. As some people already said everything is influenced by everything. There is no clear start, sometimes someone does something radically different and becomes popular, resulting in a new genre. But it's not like this persons hasn't been influenced by others in his live. If we would have a video tape of everything that ever happened, maybe we would be able to analyze it all the way back tot the beginning of time.

Also trends tend to reoccur. So maybe in ten years there will be another minimal hype and people will be asking this same question. Would it be the same as the things we do now? Nope, allot of the context probably changed. More importantly, does it really matter? If the music is new to you or feels fresh, it's new enough right?

Studying your past is useful though, since as we all know, you can learn from the past.

Something that came up early in this topic:

"Minimal music doesn't exist, its just a concept shrouded in vague ambiguity, for the sake of pretentious elitism..."

So you are saying we are all just enjoying this to be part of the club? Some people might, who knows maybe we all do partly. Still the club is defined by people who listen to a certain kind of music. Saying it's all just a philosophy and doesn't have any end result with certain minimal characteristics would be strange.

It might even imply that the philosophy came before someone created something minimalistic. Which I doubt. We rather recognized that there are certain musical pieces that are stripped down. Grouped them, and thought why it is that we liked those tracks.

Anyway, that's enough for now I guess. I can recommend reading this:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/02/common-usage.html

It about the meaning of words, which is sort of what we are trying to do here. Problem is thats it's way more complicated when it comes to a genre label.

[Smear]

"Minimal music doesn't exist, its just a concept shrouded in vague ambiguity, for the sake of pretentious elitism..."

There's a lot of truth in the above quote, in a sense(obviously it's been taken out of context but on its own, yeah). There are certain truths about 'minimal' techno:

A. It's the one type of techno most easily associated with modern art.
B. It's the one type of techno where the (in my opinion false) image is that all the producers are out pushing boundaries and constantly doing something new, more so than other genres.
C. It's the one type of techno where (the perception of) 'cleverness' is seen to be an asset.

If you're convinced that what you are doing is modern, artful, clever and innovative by default then you're doomed to being nothing of the sort, which is the case for a lot of 'mnml'. All other styles of music are almost entirely made up of vulgar, moronic and stagnant material, but not all of them claim to be the complete opposite of what they are, so in that sense there is a lot of pretention around.

I dislike the word 'elitism' though, it's very elitist

[steevio]

Absence of Ego my ass!!!
There's no such thing in minimal.
If you don't believe me just come out and say sometime when you're commenting on somebodies new track they posted "LOL that's some straight up bullshit" and see if their feelings don't get hurt. A minimalist without ego would be one who goes to some forums for other styles of music and posts their work for review and learns from the negative reviews more than they do the positive ones. The Minimal scene is too clique filled, there's too much back patting going on. Some serious competition in this genre would be a great idea.

i think you missed my point, i wasnt talking about the minimal scene as it exists today, i was referring to a hypothetical minimalistic ideal.
todays minimal scene is full of ego, but todays minimal scene has very little actual minimal music in it either.

[tone-def]

Todays minimal scene is ego and has very little good music minimal or not.

[AVX23]

I tend to think minimal as we know it has very little to do with the actual concept of minimalism.

There's a lot of flowery talk, I like flowery talk, but I like the truth of things also.

When you take something like DBX 'losing control' or Studio 1 'lila' or any in the series, or any of the music which could happily be compared to this sort of thing, then the point as I see it was not to conform to a concept of minimalism as defined by any of these classic composer cats people are referring to.

The Idea seems to me to be to make records which will mix in a way which allows for creativity within the mix.

Such as taking two records with say only a single hit/stab for a 'melody' mixing it with a record which has another hit/stab with a slightly different timing and then mixing the elements in and out to create a more fuller melody from the 2 sounds.

Or it could be taking a track with no ride cymbols and mixing it with one which does to allow the DJ to have more control over the flow of the set.

This isn't really anything to do with a concept of minimalism or a movement as such, it's simply logical that if you are going to make records to be mixed together, you might want to keep them sparse to avoid clashy badly phased trainwrecks.

Some have gone and bolted these ideas into their music, but I don't feel there's any new ground being covered in that particular area, and I have no problem with keeping things sparse to allow DJs the afformentioned control, but I would say it's not really worth anyone's while to keep disecting this, it's like looking for somehting that isn't there.

For me it's completely irrelevant anyway - music made for DJs to mix is like designer music - it's designed to be used for something, it's a tool, in fact that's the way Studio 1 is described by it's own creator.

If we want to get all arty about it and start looking for meaning, then perhaps it's more appropriate to talk less about loco dice or what people now refer to as 'minimal artists' and more about people like Murcof, Arvo Part, Steve Reich, Phillip Glass, Brian Eno etc who have made music which is not strictly designed, it's more like fine art if you will, it affords the sort of freedom of expression which is I feel hampered by Club musics need to create an endless stream of tangible sound and rythym for dancers to enjoy.

The upbeat nature of human gathering requires certain rules to be followed, eg: certain levels of repetition, clarity of sound, definition of melody, whereas fine art can be highly conceptual, and therefore, need not fit in the same way dance music does.

Dance music , be it minimal, techno, trance or otherwise, is all pop music to me, I've played enough gigs at just about every kind of genre based clubnight to know if you ain't rockin the party - you ain't gonna make people dance, and therefore are unlikely to be popular on the night , never mind outside of that sphere, which is why I raise my eyebrows when DJs and dance music producers are constantly referred to as 'artists'.

Seems to me the underground will always be based on more conceptual stuff (such as techno when it first started - not so much now) which is why it's underground, it's not 'designed' to be bombastic crowd pleasing music to rock out, there's more of an element of testing the unknown , taking risks and trial and error.

Which is why I laugh when I see all these Music press pieces on 'cutting edge artists' and 'maverick producers' when it's the case that most of the time - they are looking in completely the wrong places for them.

The truth is (In my opinion that is) minimalism as a concept will never be found on a dancefloor listening to Audion or Loco Dice or Hawtin, and that's not a diss to them, I think they make great club music, and in Hawtin's case - he has actually explored the realms of minimalism as an artist with his plastikman material, it's just that his DJ sets right now do not reflect any kind of avante Guarde minimalist movement and it's ridiculous to me to try and say that they do or that they have anything to do with the guys I've mentioned above.

[packetst0rm]

When people say minimal I don't think of minimal techno but the minimalist composers like Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Brian Eno. I first got into the idea of minimal as a way of really appreciating sounds within music. Not the layers or the rhythms but the separate sounds.

[ferdy]

i believe its pretty hard to describe what's minimal and what not. personally i feel anything with a few layers of instruments with enough space but complexity in structure is what minimal is all about. its when you can use just a kick drum and bass for 8 mins and keep it interesting. thats minimal for me.

[Shepherd_of_Anu]

Absence of Ego my ass!!!
There's no such thing in minimal.
If you don't believe me just come out and say sometime when you're commenting on somebodies new track they posted "LOL that's some straight up bullshit" and see if their feelings don't get hurt. A minimalist without ego would be one who goes to some forums for other styles of music and posts their work for review and learns from the negative reviews more than they do the positive ones. The Minimal scene is too clique filled, there's too much back patting going on. Some serious competition in this genre would be a great idea.

i think you missed my point, i wasnt talking about the minimal scene as it exists today, i was referring to a hypothetical minimalistic ideal.
todays minimal scene is full of ego, but todays minimal scene has very little actual minimal music in it either.

Steevio is right on the ball there. If we are actually talking about the music itself then ego should have no place in the discussion as most often then not there is not a lot of messages within the medium therefore ego is difficult to convey by the very nature of the music. More often then not the music is simply an expression of something intangible that matters or moves you.

Torque, what you are getting into is the more social aspect of the kind of people that are drawn to "minimal" music. "clique-wise"

I do not think that questions of ego are a part the music for me. This is probably in a large part due to the fact that I am at this point fairly removed from "the scene." I do not go to parties or even really go to clubs anymore but I have kept the music. The one thing I do not miss in the least is the elitist clique mentality of those that like minimal techno music or any kind of music for that matter.

On the subject of ego as it relates to the social scene, I feel that there is nothing more enraging to a real man then having some anorexic androgynous homosexual pretentiously presume to lecture to you about something that you enjoy. It's enough to make you feel like beating them to death with a pool noodle.

We should be careful to separate the two items because often humanity tends to taint good ideas by using them to augment and coax their ego while engaging in self preening.

This isn't say that the "social scene" aspect of the music is inherently negative or debilitating to the music itself. Much the opposite! When these things are in sync and synergisticly positive experiencing that relationship becomes one of the greatest products of this entire venture in expression.

Moral of the story - Egotistical snobs ruin everything. Its these kind of people that cause a general disrespect and create a stigma towards the music and the people that like it.

i believe its pretty hard to describe what's minimal and what not. personally i feel anything with a few layers of instruments with enough space but complexity in structure is what minimal is all about. its when you can use just a kick drum and bass for 8 mins and keep it interesting. thats minimal for me.

A lot of music that is labeled minimal is not music that I consider minimal. If I am were to look for a defining quality that would allow me to asses as to whether a track is minimal or not then I look to the empty negative space in the sound. If a track has a expressive quality that originates in the emptiness between the sound then I feel that a track is minimal.

For example - I have these old records that are so minimal that they are barely a beat. If they were any more static or simpler then they would just be noise but there is a slight syncopation to the sound that creates a really rhythmic quality thats driven by the emptiness. This is an extreme example of what I am talking about but I am sure you will understand what I mean.

This isn't the sole defining aspect of what makes a track minimal but I do believe that all good minimal music makes good use of its negative space.