In music, any mishmash with a beat or a scale has an at least slightly repetitive structure. The sounds emanating from a beer garden or a rap concert are extremely repetitive. The good stuff is in between. While the musical lines in a piece by Glass have subtle variations, they are often too simple and repetitive to be interesting by themselves. Happily, they are not by themselves. Something special emerges when they are superimposed.
Descriptive short phrases can become oversimplified facades that obscure realities too complex to be described well (not just named) by the phrases. Neither Glass nor I can think of a good short descriptive phrase for his style, but I can offer a decent visual analogy that can be expressed concisely in a haiku. I should be doing my chores rather than responding to
But how could I resist a chance to put a link inside a haiku and pun on both the composer’s name and the title of one of my favorites among the works by him that I have heard?
Seeing while Listening
Transparent layers,
etched to form Moiré patterns:
See the sounds of Glass.
I’m grinning like an idiot reading this. Well done. 🙂
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Absolutely enjoyed your thoughts and haiku and listening to the Glass selection.
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Glad U followed the link.
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I agree that repetition in music is common feature, for instance there is use of the ostinato – a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm – upon which the musician(s) can elaborate and contradict over the course of the piece. I can’t say I get Glass’ resistance to the notion of minimalism as a label, for it is more descriptive of his effort to strip away unnecessary ornamentation, achieving a rich complexity with bare bones of notes. Your haiku captures the essence of that – the transparency’s clarity blurred by the etchings in glass, enough to distort the view (the listening) to create a lush feedback of contrast and friction.
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An excellent response. I enjoyed reading this and listening to the other piece of music by Philip Glass … chapeau!
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Many thanks for the “LET THE MUSIC INSPIRE YOU” series!
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Very clever as there are 17 morae in haiku! Well done.
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Confession: counting morae demands more phonetic sophistication than I possess, so I just count syllables and sometimes luck out. 😉
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