Process music is

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

that arises from a

process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management * Business process, activities that produce a specific s ...

. It may make that process audible to the listener, or the process may be concealed. Primarily begun in the 1960s, diverse composers have employed divergent methods and styles of process. "A 'musical process' as Christensen defines it is a highly complex dynamic phenomenon involving audible structures that evolve in the course of the musical performance ... 2nd order audible developments, i.e., audible developments within audible developments". These processes may involve specific systems of choosing and arranging

note Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened versi ...

s through pitch and

time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

, often involving a long term change with a limited amount of musical material, or transformations of musical events that are already relatively complex in themselves.

Steve Reich Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer best known as a pioneer of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich descr ...

defines process music not as, "the process of

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography * Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...

but rather pieces of music that are, literally, processes. The distinctive thing about musical processes is that they determine all the note-to-note (sound-to-sound) details and the overall

form Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form may also refer to: *Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter dat ...

simultaneously. (Think of a

round Round or rounds may refer to: Mathematics and science * Having no sharp corners, as an ellipse, circle, or sphere * Rounding, reducing the number of significant figures in a number * Round number, ending with one or more zeroes * Round (crypt ...

or infinite canon.)"

History

Although today often used synonymously with

minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

, the term predates the appearance of this style by at least twenty years.

Elliott Carter Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (December 11, 1908 – November 5, 2012) was an American modernist composer who was one of the most respected composers of the second half of the 20th century. He combined elements of European modernism and American " ...

, for example, used the word "process" to describe the complex compositional shapes he began using around 1944, with works like the Piano Sonata and First String Quartet, and continued to use throughout his life. Carter came to his conception of music as process from

Alfred North Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He created the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which has been applied in a wide variety of disciplines, inclu ...

's "principle of organism", and particularly from his 1929 book, ''

Process and Reality ''Process and Reality'' is a book by Alfred North Whitehead, in which the author propounds a philosophy of organism, also called process philosophy. The book, published in 1929, is a revision of the Gifford Lectures he gave in 1927–28. Wh ...

''.

Michael Nyman Michael Laurence Nyman, Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 23 March 1944) is an English composer, pianist, libretto, librettist, musicologist, and filmmaker. He is known for numerous film soundtrack, scores (many written during his lengthy ...

has stated that "the origins of this minimal process music lie in

serialism In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also ...

Kyle Gann Kyle Eugene Gann (born November 21, 1955, in Dallas, Texas) is an American composer, professor of music, critic, analyst, and musicologist who has worked primarily in the New York City area. As a music critic for ''The Village Voice'' (from 1986 ...

also sees many similarities between serialism and minimalism, and Herman Sabbe has demonstrated how process music functions in the early serial works of the Belgian composer

Karel Goeyvaerts Karel August Goeyvaerts (8 June 1923 – 3 February 1993) was a Belgian composer. Life Goeyvaerts was born in Antwerp, where he studied at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory; he later studied composition in Paris with Darius Milhaud and analysi ...

, especially in his electronic compositions ''Nr. 4, met dode tonen'' ith dead tones(1952) and '' Nr. 5, met zuivere tonen'' ith pure tones(1953). Elsewhere, Sabbe makes a similar demonstration for ''

Kreuzspiel (Crossplay) is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen written for oboe, bass clarinet, piano and four percussionists in 1951 (it was later revised for just three percussionists, along with other changes). It is assigned the number 1/7 in the c ...

'' (1951) by

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

. Beginning in the early 1960s, Stockhausen composed several instrumental works which he called "process compositions", in which symbols including plus, minus, and equal signs are used to indicate successive transformations of sounds which are unspecified or unforeseeable by the composer. They specify "how sounds are to be changed or imitated rather than what they are to be". In these compositions, "structure is a system of invariants; these invariants are not substances but relations. ... Stockhausen's Process Planning is structural analysis in reversed time-direction. Composition as abstraction, as generalization. Analysis of reality before its entry into existence". These works include '' Plus-Minus'' (1963), '' Prozession'' (1967), '' Kurzwellen'', and ''

Spiral In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which emanates from a point, moving further away as it revolves around the point. It is a subtype of whorled patterns, a broad group that also includes concentric objects. Two-dimensional A two-dimension ...

'' (both 1968), and led to the verbally described processes of the intuitive music compositions in the cycles ''

Aus den sieben Tagen ''Aus den sieben Tagen'' (From the Seven Days) is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968, in reaction to a personal crisis, and characterized as " Intuitive music"—music produced primarily from the ...

'' (1968) and '' Für kommende Zeiten'' (1968–70).) The term ''Process Music'' (in the minimalist sense) was coined by composer Steve Reich in his 1968 manifesto entitled "Music as a Gradual Process" in which he very carefully yet briefly described the entire concept including such definitions as phasing and the use of phrases in composing or creating this music, as well as his ideas as to its purpose and a brief history of his discovery of it. For Steve Reich it was important that the processes be audible: "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music. ... What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one and the same thing". This has not necessarily been the case for other composers, however. Reich himself points to John Cage as an example of a composer who used compositional processes that could not be heard when the piece was performed. The postminimalist David Lang is another composer who does not want people to hear the process he uses to build a piece of music.

Theory

Michael Nyman has identified five types of process: # Chance determination processes, in which the material is not determined by the composer directly, but through a system he or she creates #People processes, in which performers are allowed to move through given or suggested material, each at his or her own speed #Contextual processes, in which actions depend on unpredictable conditions and on variables arising from the musical continuity # Repetition processes, in which movement is generated solely by extended repetition # Electronic processes, in which some or all aspects of the music are determined by the use of electronics. These processes take many forms. The first type is not necessarily confined to what are normally recognised as "chance" compositions, however. For example, in Karel Goeyvaerts's Sonata for Two Pianos, "registral process created a form that depended neither on conventional models nor ... on the composer's taste and judgment. Given a few simple rules, the music did not need to be 'composed' at all: the notes would be at play of themselves". Galen H. Brown acknowledges Nyman's five categories and proposes adding a sixth: mathematical process, which includes the manipulation of materials by means of permutation, addition, subtraction, multiplication, changes of rate, and so on. Erik Christensen identifies six process categories: #Rule-determined transformation processes #goal-directed transformation processes #indeterminate transformation processes #Rule-determined generative processes #goal-directed, and generative processes #indeterminate generative processes He describes Reich's ''Piano Phase'' (1966) as rule-determined transformation process, Cage's '' Variations II'' (1961) as an indeterminate generative process, Ligeti's ''In zart fliessender Bewegung'' (1976) as a goal-directed transformation process containing a number of evolution processes, and Per Nørgård's ''Second Symphony'' (1970) as containing a rule-determined generative process of a fractal nature.

Notable works

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

::'' As Slow as Possible'' (1987) *

::Sonata for Cello and Piano (1948) :: String Quartet No. 1 (1950–51) :: String Quartet No. 2 (1959) :: Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano with Two Chamber Orchestras (1959–61) ::

Piano Concerto A piano concerto, a type of concerto, is a solo composition in the classical music genre which is composed for piano accompanied by an orchestra or other large ensemble. Piano concertos are typically virtuosic showpieces which require an advance ...

(1964–65) ::Duo for Violin and Piano (1974) *

Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminacy in music, a development associated with the experimental New York School o ...

:: Piece for Four Pianos (1957) *

:: Nr. 1, Sonata for Two Pianos (1950–51) ::''Nr. 4, met dode tonen'' (1952) ::'' Nr. 5, met zuivere tonen'' (1953) * Annea Lockwood ::''Piano Transplant No. 1. Burning Piano'' * Alvin Lucier ::'' I Am Sitting in a Room'' *

::''

It's Gonna Rain ''It's Gonna Rain'' is a tape composition written by American composer Steve Reich in 1965. It lasts about 18 minutes. It was Reich's first major work and is considered a landmark in minimalism and process music. Analysis Around 1964, influe ...

'' (1965) ::'' Come Out'' (1966) ::''

Reed Phase Reed or Reeds may refer to: Science, technology, biology, and medicine * Reed bird (disambiguation) * Reed pen, writing implement in use since ancient times * Reed (plant), one of several tall, grass-like wetland plants of the order Poales * Re ...

''(1966) ::'' Violin Phase'' (1967) ::'' Piano Phase'' (1967) ::''Phase Patterns'' (1970) ::'' Drumming'' (1971) *

Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist music, minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his work became notab ...

::''

In C ''In C'' is a composition by Terry Riley from 1964. It is one of the most successful works by an American composer and a seminal example of minimal music, minimalism. The score directs any number of musicians to repeat a series of 53 melodic fr ...

'' (1964) ::''Keyboard Studies'' *

Frederic Rzewski Frederic Anthony Rzewski ( ; April 13, 1938 – June 26, 2021) was an American composer and pianist, considered to be one of the most important American composer-pianists of his time. From 1977 up to his eventual death, he lived mainly in Be ...

::''Les Moutons de Panurge'' (1969) *

::''

'' (1951) ::'' Kontakte'' ::'' Plus-Minus'' (1963) ::'' Mikrophonie I'' (1964) ::''

Solo Solo or SOLO may refer to: Arts and entertainment Characters * Han Solo, a ''Star Wars'' character * Jacen Solo, a Jedi in the non-canonical ''Star Wars Legends'' continuity * Kylo Ren (Ben Solo), a ''Star Wars'' character * Napoleon Solo, fr ...

'' (1965–66) ::'' Prozession'' (1967) ::'' Kurzwellen'' (1968) ::''

'' (1968) ::''

'' (1968) ::'' Pole'' (1969–70) ::'' Expo'' (1969–70) ::'' Für kommende Zeiten'' (1968–70) ::''

Ylem Ylem ( or ) is a hypothetical original substance or condensed state of matter, which became subatomic particles and chemical element, elements as are understood today. The term was used by George Gamow, his student Ralph Alpher, and their associa ...

'' (1972) ::''Michaelion'', scene 4 of '' Mittwoch aus Licht'' (1997) * James Tenney ::'' For Ann (rising)'' (1969) ::''Postal Pieces'' (1965–71) ::''Clang'' (1972) ::''Spectral CANON for CONLON Nancarrow'' (1974) ::Three Pieces for Drum Quartet (1975) ::''Chromatic Canon'' (1980) ::''Glissade'' (1982) ::''Koan for String Quartet'' (1984) *

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best k ...

::''Poem'' (1960)

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
''Piano Transplants''
* * * * * * *

History

Theory

Notable works

See also

References

Sources

Further reading