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Transcription, Recording, and Authority in ‘Classic’ Minimalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2018

PATRICK NICKLESON
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Abstract

This article considers several prominent pieces of minimalism in their movement from primary sound recording to secondary transcription. In place of the score-based formalism of much musicological scholarship on minimalism, I draw on my own archival work and interviews to consider the frequency of transcriptions of minimalism, as well as the politico-historical aspects of minimalism's development that are elided when the distinction between score and transcription is not taken into account. I argue that defining minimalism in relation to material practices of composing, writing, performing, and listening – rather than to formal features like gradual process, long duration, and diatonicism – helps in defining minimalism as a cohesive field of musical production.

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Articles
Information
Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , October 2017 , pp. 361 - 389
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2018 

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Footnotes

The research in this article was supported by a Joseph Armand-Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and by a Doctoral Completion Award from the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. My thanks go to the Paul Sacher Stiftung, to Marc Mellits and Michael Harrison, and especially to Evan Ziporyn for first making clear the potential of this topic for extended investigation.

References

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