Totalism (music)
Encyclopedia
In music, totalism is a term for a style of art music
Art music
Art music is an umbrella term used to refer to musical traditions implying advanced structural and theoretical considerations and a written musical tradition...

 that arose in the 1980s and 1990s as a developing response to minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...

—parallel to postminimalism
Postminimalism
Postminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...

, but generally among a slightly younger generation, born in the 1950s.

In the early 1980s, many young composers began writing music within the static confines of minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...

, but using greater rhythmic complexity, often with two or more tempos (or implied tempos) audible at once. The style acquired a name around 1990, when it became evident to composers working in New York City that a number of them—John Luther Adams
John Luther Adams
John Luther Adams is a composer whose music is inspired by nature, especially the landscapes of Alaska where he has lived since 1978.-Biography:...

, Glenn Branca
Glenn Branca
Glenn Branca is an American avant-garde composer and guitarist known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series. In 2008 he was awarded an unrestricted grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.-Beginnings: 1960s and early 1970s:Branca...

, Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions...

, Kyle Gann
Kyle Gann
Kyle Eugene Gann is an American professor of music, critic and composer born in Dallas, Texas. As a critic for The Village Voice and other publications he has been a supporter of progressive music including such Downtown movements as postminimalism and totalism.- As composer :As a composer his...

, Michael Gordon
Michael Gordon (composer)
Michael Gordon is an American composer and co-founder of the Bang on a Can festival and ensemble. His music is associated with the genres of totalism and post-minimalism.-Early life:...

, Arthur Jarvinen, Diana Meckley, Ben Neill
Ben Neill
Ben Neill is a composer and trumpeter who has studied with La Monte Young. His music has been recorded on the Thirsty Ear, Astralwerks, Verve, and Six Degrees labels. Neill spent seven years as the music curator for The Kitchen in New York. He has collaborated with DJ Spooky, David Wojnarowicz...

, Larry Polansky
Larry Polansky
Larry Polansky is a composer, guitarist, mandolinist, and a professor at Dartmouth College. He is a founding member and co-director of . He co-wrote HMSL with Phil Burk and David Rosenboom....

, Mikel Rouse
Mikel Rouse
Mikel Rouse is an American composer. He has been associated with a Downtown New York movement known as totalism, and is best known for his operas, including Dennis Cleveland, about a television talk show host, which Rouse wrote and starred in.Rouse writes music that is idiomatically and...

, Evan Ziporyn
Evan Ziporyn
Evan Ziporyn is an American composer of post-minimalist music and music for Balinese gamelans. He plays the clarinet, bass clarinet, saxophone, and metallophone, borrowing from classical music, avant-garde, and jazz...

, among others—were employing similar types of global tempo structures in their music.

The term totalist refers to the aims of the music, in trying to have enough surface rhythmic energy, but also to contain enough background complexity. There is also an echo in the term of serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

's "total organization," here drawn not from the 12-tone row, but from Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. His contribution to the world of music was summed up by Virgil Thomson, writing in the early 1950s:...

's theories about using the same structuring devices for rhythm that have been traditionally used for pitch. For instance, the traditional ratio between frequencies of a major second interval is 9:8, and 9-against-8 is an important tempo contrast in many totalist pieces, achieved by having some instruments play dotted eighth-notes while others play triplet half-notes. In practice, totalist music can either be consonant, dissonant, or both, but generally restricts itself to a small number of sonorities within a given piece.

Examples of works in the totalist idiom include:
  • Mikel Rouse
    Mikel Rouse
    Mikel Rouse is an American composer. He has been associated with a Downtown New York movement known as totalism, and is best known for his operas, including Dennis Cleveland, about a television talk show host, which Rouse wrote and starred in.Rouse writes music that is idiomatically and...

    : Quick Thrust, Failing Kansas, Dennis Cleveland (a talk-show opera), The End of Cinematics
  • Michael Gordon
    Michael Gordon (composer)
    Michael Gordon is an American composer and co-founder of the Bang on a Can festival and ensemble. His music is associated with the genres of totalism and post-minimalism.-Early life:...

    : Thou Shalt!/Thou Shalt Not!, Acid Rain, Four Kings Fight Five, Van Gogh Video Opera, Trance
  • Rhys Chatham
    Rhys Chatham
    Rhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions...

    : An Angel Moves Too Fast to See
  • John Luther Adams
    John Luther Adams
    John Luther Adams is a composer whose music is inspired by nature, especially the landscapes of Alaska where he has lived since 1978.-Biography:...

    : Dream in White on White, Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing, The White Silence
  • Kyle Gann
    Kyle Gann
    Kyle Eugene Gann is an American professor of music, critic and composer born in Dallas, Texas. As a critic for The Village Voice and other publications he has been a supporter of progressive music including such Downtown movements as postminimalism and totalism.- As composer :As a composer his...

    : Long Night, Custer and Sitting Bull, Unquiet Night
  • Ben Neill
    Ben Neill
    Ben Neill is a composer and trumpeter who has studied with La Monte Young. His music has been recorded on the Thirsty Ear, Astralwerks, Verve, and Six Degrees labels. Neill spent seven years as the music curator for The Kitchen in New York. He has collaborated with DJ Spooky, David Wojnarowicz...

    : 678 Streams, ITSOFOMO
  • Arthur Jarvinen: Murhpy-Nights, The Paces of Yu
  • Dominic Thurgood: Én Skikk, Én Sorg, Sonnets-Actualities, Remx>s/tape/

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