Repetitive music
Encyclopedia
Repetitive music is music
that features a relatively high degree of repetition
in its creation
or reception
. Examples includes minimalist music
, krautrock
, disco
(and its later derivatives such as house music), some techno
, some of Igor Stravinsky
's compositions, barococo
, and the Suzuki method
. (Fink 2005, p. 5)
Repetitive music has often been negatively linked with Freudian thanatos. Theodor Adorno (1948, p. 178) provides an example in his criticism of Igor Stravinsky
, whose, "rhythmic procedures ostinato
closely resemble the schema of catatonic conditions. In certain schizophrenics
, the process by which the motor apparatus becomes independent leads to infinite repetition of gestures or words, following the decay of the ego." Similar criticism was levelled at Ravel's Bolero.
Wim Mertens
(1980, p. 123-124) argues that "In repetitive music, repetition in the service of the death instinct
prevails. Repetition is not repetition of identical elements, so it is not reproduction, but the repetition of the identical in another guise. In traditional music, repetition is a device for creating recognizability, reproduction for the sake of the representing ego. In repetitive music, repetition does not refer to eros
and the ego, but to the libido
and to the death instinct."
Repetitive music has also been linked with Lacan
ian jouissance
. David Schawrz (1992, p. 134) argues that the repetition in John Adams
's Nixon in China
"trapping listeners in a narrow acoustic corridor of the Real
" while Naomi Cumming (1997, p. 129-152) argues that the repetitive string ostinatos of Steve Reich
's Different Trains
are "prearticulate" pieces of the Real providing a refuge from the Holocaust and its "horror of identification."
clubs in the 1970s played a smooth mix of long single disco records to keep people dancing all night long. The twelve-inch single was popularized as a means to this end. While disco
songs do have some repetitive elements, such as a persistent throbbing beat, these repetitive elements were counterbalanced by the musical variety provided by orchestral arrangements
and disco mix
es that added different sound textures to the music, ranging from a full, orchestral sound to stripped-down break sections.
The electronic dance music
genres that followed disco in the 1980s and 1990s, such as house music and techno
kept the bass drum rhythm introduced by disco but did not use the orchestral arrangements or horn sections. House and techno had a more minimalist sound that layered electronic sounds and samples over a drum machine drum part and a repetitive synth bass bassline.
In the 1990s, an offshoot of one form of house music (acid house) developed into rave music
, a high-energy electronic music for dancing that depends heavily on samples. Initially rave music was considered a particular style that was a combination of fast breakbeat and more hardcore forms of techno. Rave music was played at massive dance parties, called raves, where many dancers would dance all night to the throbbing, repetitive beat of rave songs.
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
that features a relatively high degree of repetition
Repetition (music)
Repetition is important in music, where sounds or sequences are often repeated. One often stated idea is that repetition should be in balance with the initial statements and variations in a piece. It may be called restatement, such as the restatement of a theme...
in its creation
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
or reception
Reception
Reception is a noun form of receiving, or to receive something, such as information, art, experience, or people. It is often used in the following contexts:...
. Examples includes minimalist music
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
, krautrock
Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
, disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
(and its later derivatives such as house music), some techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
, some of Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
's compositions, barococo
Barococo
In music Barococo is a term coined by musicologist H.C. Robbins-Landon which refers to a certain type of easy listening music that originated in the Baroque and pre-Classic periods...
, and the Suzuki method
Suzuki method
The Suzuki method is a method of teaching music that emerged in the mid-20th century.-Background:The Suzuki Method was conceived in the mid-20th century by Shin'ichi Suzuki, a Japanese violinist who desired to bring beauty to the lives of children in his country after the devastation of World War II...
. (Fink 2005, p. 5)
Repetitive music has often been negatively linked with Freudian thanatos. Theodor Adorno (1948, p. 178) provides an example in his criticism of Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, whose, "rhythmic procedures ostinato
Ostinato
In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in...
closely resemble the schema of catatonic conditions. In certain schizophrenics
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
, the process by which the motor apparatus becomes independent leads to infinite repetition of gestures or words, following the decay of the ego." Similar criticism was levelled at Ravel's Bolero.
Wim Mertens
Wim Mertens
Wim Mertens is a Flemish Belgian composer, countertenor vocalist, pianist, guitarist, and musicologist.-Life and work:Mertens was born in Neerpelt, Belgium...
(1980, p. 123-124) argues that "In repetitive music, repetition in the service of the death instinct
Death instinct
In classical Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the death drive is the drive towards death, self-destruction and the return to the inorganic: 'the hypothesis of a death instinct, the task of which is to lead organic life back into the inanimate state'...
prevails. Repetition is not repetition of identical elements, so it is not reproduction, but the repetition of the identical in another guise. In traditional music, repetition is a device for creating recognizability, reproduction for the sake of the representing ego. In repetitive music, repetition does not refer to eros
Eros (love)
Eros is one of the four words in Ancient Greek which can be rendered into English as “love”. The other three are storge, philia and agape...
and the ego, but to the libido
Libido
Libido refers to a person's sex drive or desire for sexual activity. The desire for sex is an aspect of a person's sexuality, but varies enormously from one person to another, and it also varies depending on circumstances at a particular time. A person who has extremely frequent or a suddenly...
and to the death instinct."
Repetitive music has also been linked with Lacan
Lacan
Lacan is surname of:* Jacques Lacan , French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist** The Seminars of Jacques Lacan** From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power, a book on political philosophy by Saul Newman** Lacan at the Scene* Judith Miller, née Lacan...
ian jouissance
Jouissance
The term jouissance, in French, denotes "pleasure" or "enjoyment." The term has a sexual connotation lacking in the English word "enjoyment", and is therefore left untranslated in English editions of the works of Jacques Lacan. In his Seminar "The Ethics of Psychoanalysis" Lacan develops his...
. David Schawrz (1992, p. 134) argues that the repetition in John Adams
John Coolidge Adams
John Coolidge Adams is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer with strong roots in minimalism. His best-known works include Short Ride in a Fast Machine , On the Transmigration of Souls , a choral piece commemorating the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks , and Shaker...
's Nixon in China
Nixon in China (opera)
Nixon in China is an opera in three acts by John Adams, with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams' first opera, it was inspired by the 1972 visit to China by US President Richard Nixon. The work premiered at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, in a production by Peter Sellars with...
"trapping listeners in a narrow acoustic corridor of the Real
The Real
The Real refers to that which is authentic, the unchangeable truth in reference both to being/the Self and the external dimension of experience, also referred to as the infinite and absolute - as opposed to a reality based on sense perception and the material order.-In psychoanalysis:The Real is a...
" while Naomi Cumming (1997, p. 129-152) argues that the repetitive string ostinatos of Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
's Different Trains
Different Trains
Different Trains is a three-movement piece for string quartet and tape written by Steve Reich in 1988. It won a Grammy Award in 1990 for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.The work's three movements have the following titles:...
are "prearticulate" pieces of the Real providing a refuge from the Holocaust and its "horror of identification."
Genres that use repetitive music
DJs at discoDisco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
clubs in the 1970s played a smooth mix of long single disco records to keep people dancing all night long. The twelve-inch single was popularized as a means to this end. While disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
songs do have some repetitive elements, such as a persistent throbbing beat, these repetitive elements were counterbalanced by the musical variety provided by orchestral arrangements
Orchestral build
Orchestral build is a term used in disco music to describe the systematic overlapping of prerecorded elements of the symphony orchestra during an interlude of a song....
and disco mix
Disco mix
A disco mix is a method of producing a recording of a song which was used in the 1970s for disco music, a funk/soul-influenced, dance-oriented pop music style. A disco mix uses orchestral build-ups to a full rich sound and then contrasts this full sound with "breaks" in which only percussion plays...
es that added different sound textures to the music, ranging from a full, orchestral sound to stripped-down break sections.
The electronic dance music
Electronic dance music
Electronic dance music is electronic music produced primarily for the purposes of use within a nightclub setting, or in an environment that is centered upon dance-based entertainment...
genres that followed disco in the 1980s and 1990s, such as house music and techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
kept the bass drum rhythm introduced by disco but did not use the orchestral arrangements or horn sections. House and techno had a more minimalist sound that layered electronic sounds and samples over a drum machine drum part and a repetitive synth bass bassline.
In the 1990s, an offshoot of one form of house music (acid house) developed into rave music
Rave music
Rave music may either refer the late 1980s genre or any genre of electronic dance music that may be played at an electronic dance party such as a rave. Very rarely, the term is used to refer to less electronic related genres glam, powerpop, psychedelic rock and dub music parties...
, a high-energy electronic music for dancing that depends heavily on samples. Initially rave music was considered a particular style that was a combination of fast breakbeat and more hardcore forms of techno. Rave music was played at massive dance parties, called raves, where many dancers would dance all night to the throbbing, repetitive beat of rave songs.
Source
- Adorno, Theodor (1948). The Philosophy of Modern Music. Trans. Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley V. Blomster (1973). Cited in Fink 2005.
- Cumming, Naomi (1997). "The Horrors of Identification: Reich's Different Trains" Perspectives of New Music 35, no. I (winter).
- Fink, Robert (2005). Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal Music as Cultural Practice. ISBN 0-520-24550-4.
- Mertens, Wim (1980/1983/1988). American Minimal Music, trans. J. Hautekiet. ISBN 0-912483-15-6. Cited in Fink 2005.
- Schwarz, David (1992). "Postmodernism, the Subject, and the Real in John Adams's Nixon in China" Indiana Theory Review 13, no. 2 (fall). Cited in Fink 2005.
Further reading
- Attali, Jacques (1977/1985). "Repeating" Noise. ISBN 0-8166-1287-0.