Get out from behind the couch

I was listening to Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" and it made me feel all gooey.  Like I couldn't stand up straight, my stomach turning to mush like I was on a date for the first time. 

It's been my first foray into a world that should be starkly adorned, given it's name, but is not.  Minimalism is a strange medium and the connotations of it's name should mean that the music is the aural equivalent of a blank page.  At least, that's what's in the name.

Ostensibly a reaction to and strongly influenced by the barrage of media and music brought into the american home in the 50s & 60s by the T.V., the genre has had an enormous impact on all forms of pop music.  But reading about the form and all of it's conceits of construction had me seriously skeptical.  How the music is constructed sounds like uber-geek-out nonsense of the worst kind:

"In Piano Phase the performers repeat a rapid twelve-note melodic figure, initially in unison. As one player keeps tempo with robotic precision, the other speeds up very slightly until the two parts line up again, but one sixteenth note apart. The second player then resumes the previous tempo. This cycle of speeding up and then locking in continues throughout the piece; the cycle comes full circle three times, the second and third cycles using shorter versions of the initial figure."

I've heard atonal jazz music and overly conceited compostions countless times, and every time it sounds exactly like how I thought the music of Steve Reich and Terry Riley should sound.  Technically adept but bland, empty and emotionless. A musical version of "The Phantom Menace", if you will.

But listening to Reich's "Music..." and an excellent rendition of Rileys "In C" does what, immediately?  Mush.  I want to curl up and just swim in it.  I feel a nauseous excitement in the pit of my stomach identical to the feeling you have when you kiss someone for the first time. There's no grace period, no "this record is growing on me" feeling just complete and utter elation, excitment, dizziness, sweaty palms...the lot.

One of the most deeply effecting aspects of this music is the fact that the lack of melodic movement places a whole new emphasis on rhythm.  The counterpoints that the musicians are pressured to find within the 4/4 time are some of the most exciting and emotive passages.  The explorations are jazz-like in the way they poke and prod and the limits of my understanding of cross and poly rhythms.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised...Stripping music to it's bear essence should have this effect.  But I won't make the same mistake twice.  Despite the music's obvious conceits in construction, the composers had the emotional impact of the music in the forefront of their minds, not a flexing of their technical or musical muscle.  They've communicated something wordless, effortless and timeless here.  At the end of the day, that's the whole fucking point.