PDA

View Full Version : Minimalist Music Favorites


dado potato
10-12-17, 12:11pm
I am hopeful that some of you good people will share exemplars of minimalist music that you like immensely.

I would like to start with pianist Ludovico Einaudi. At the present time I am listening to a Youtube of the album Una Mattina. My favorite cut is Nuvole bianche, which I believe was inspired by the poem by the same title. It is a sad poem about lost love. But of course the music can be appreciated outside of this context.

White Clouds
... Sighs and tears,
I haven't got love anymore.
You were my love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcihcYEOeic

This music through headphones makes my heart throb!
catherine
10-12-17, 12:52pm
Wow, I just heard of Ludovico Einaudi last week, when one of my Climate Change sites sent me this YouTube of him playing his original composition, Elegy for the Arctic on an ice floe.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DLnhdnSUVs


He is great. I'll check out some others of his.
Float On
10-12-17, 1:02pm
I liked that and recognized the music.

Phillip Aaberg is my favorite pianist. I play a few of his pieces. This is one of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGh9SWx42A0 and this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tWmiGULgfM. I tend to play them a bit slower than written and a bit softer, very meditative.
dado potato
10-12-17, 1:38pm
catherine,

That "Elegy for the Arctic" video is so-o-o moving... one can see and hear the ice shelf calving icebergs.
Rogar
10-12-17, 1:50pm
R. Carlos Nakai, Native American flute. A bit new agey, but a heavy traditional influence. I've seen him perform live.
bae
10-12-17, 1:53pm
John Cage's 4'33" - I greatly enjoy performing this myself, in an arrangement I have created for Bagpipes and Theremin.
ToomuchStuff
10-12-17, 2:18pm
I'd like to see you play those BAE.
One I like may not be truly minimalist (orchestra), as it fits this to me (all the bits combining for the bigger picture):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuVN-3XkS5Q
razz
10-12-17, 2:35pm
Dado, I really enjoy Gaia Prime radio playing in the background on my Sonos speaker. Usually unique peaceful music but occasionally it does have more jazz sound for a short time.
The pianist's performance is exquisite. Thanks for posting

This youtube is beautiful as well. So glad to get to know this pianist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLNtn1uv1X4
Yppej
10-12-17, 6:24pm
"Thank U" by Alanis Morissette.
jp1
10-12-17, 7:03pm
John Cage's 4'33" - I greatly enjoy performing this myself, in an arrangement I have created for Bagpipes and Theremin.

Can't get much more minimal than that, although I question whether this piece fully exploits the extensive musical abilities of the theremin.
Gardnr
10-12-17, 8:04pm
This is a favorite of mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN-vQ14CBAM&list=RDzN-vQ14CBAM&t=40

There Is a Place
Williamsmith
10-12-17, 9:08pm
As a child our living room often filled up with friends....”mill hunkies” as we were known, who picked a guitar, clawed at a banjo or dragged a rotten bow across a fiddle. This is what I think of in terms of minimalist music.....or simple songs. It’s a different take on what has mostly been presented but it’s my take....just a guitar and somebody telling a story. One I remember was “Jimmy Brown The NewsBoy”. Simple stories that made you think in a social context even as a kid.


https://youtu.be/4Krey-_0-TA?list=RDEMs3DdCshjgviDAXJeAvxs2w

Then, I would have to be given space for an accapella , voice only song. “Jacobs Ladder” has to be on that list.


https://youtu.be/i14sMDbcpRg

Pardon the interruption.
dado potato
10-14-17, 9:37am
This morning I listened to Steven Halpern's recording, "Healing Music #2" on his album Music for Healing. That must be about his 70th album. We are talking about a prodigious output of a musical entrepreneur here.

Halpern as musicologist observed that western music (popular, classical, and jazz for instance) involve the listener in consciously or unconsciously anticipating where the music will go next. The listener tends to listen forward to the future, when perhaps a resolving chord will be played. Thus it is stimulating, but not especially relaxing to listen. In his "anti-frantic alternative" music, Halpern avoids the tense dynamics. "You can only relax in the present moment", he says on his website.

His instrument now is the electric piano keyboard. (He started out as a jazz trumpet player on the NYC scene.) He has attributed his inspiration to the redwood forests of California.