# Philip Glass' Music **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 6, 2003, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319 "2003-02-06T22:07:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jesseboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/90ced4/32.png) [@jesseboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jesseboy)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2003, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/1 "2003-02-06T22:07:24Z")
yoyo, i am an absolute fan of this man’s music. i think each of his soundtracks to the qatsi films are masterpieces beyond belief. but for some reason i would like to hear criticism about this man’s music. i have only heard a few references to his music, but they were all quite dismissive. Violently dismissive, i could almost say. So what are the main objections and criticisms to his work? ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/2 "2003-02-07T03:04:35Z")
The main objection is, he’s a “minimalist” composer. When I was studying for my undergrad degree in music composition at UCLA, one of the other composers performed a tape-recorded piece that consisted of a single recording of a guy’s voice speaking one line, played over and over and sometimes overlapping with itself. (This is more in keeping wth the style of Steve Reich, a different minimalist composer, but Phil Glass is guilty-by-association I guess.) What was the one recorded spoken line repeated over and over? Why, it was: “Minimalist music is repeating the same few notes over and over again. Minimalist music is repeating the same few notes over and over again. Minimalist music is repeating the same few notes over and over again. Minimalist music is repeating the same few notes over and over again. Minimalist music is repeating the same few notes over and over again. Minimalist music is Minimalist music is Minimalist music is Minimalist music is repeating the same few notes over and over again. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.” et cetera. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/3 "2003-02-07T05:53:49Z")
Other composers of “New Music” feel insecure and threatened by any music that has recognizable rhythm, harmony and melody because that kind of music shows what talentless frauds they are. ---
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/4 "2003-02-07T05:54:47Z")
Uum… well, **tracer** that’s a bit of an oversimplification wouldn’t you say? As a big fan of minimal music perhaps I may enlighten a bit. First off I should say that **Tracer’s** explanation is pretty much dead-on as the reason why most people would bash his music. Stick on a Glass CD for most of the people you know, they are sure to respond with something to that effect (“It’s just the same thing over and over again. How boring!!”). A few things about Glass: 1. He is a very visual composer. Many more people would agree that his score in any given film is very effective, than would agree that a CD of his is interesting. 2. He really has hardly grown at all as a composer in decades. So many of his recorded works are just the same thing with different instruments. Most of his music basically involves simple progressions of triadic harmonies arpeggiated with different instruments arpeggiating them in different patterns. 3. He was at a time (the 70’s) very ground breaking. The Glass to own: _Einstein on the Beach_ - perhaps his most groundbreaking piece, a huge minimal opera from the 70’s. Different from most of his other stuff in that the harmony stays exactly the same (sometimes for longer than 20 minutes at a time) (i.e. no chord progression) and the same patterns repeat throughout. So what changes? The rhythm, or more often the meter (i.e. a pattern may play for 5 beats, and repeat this 2 or 4 times, then suddenly the same thing with the final beat removed so that it lasts only 4 beats. The meter keeps changing which really keeps you on your toes.) _Passages_ with **Ravi Shankar**. A truly beautiful recording which for the most part has very little to do with minimalism at all. _Koyaanisqatsi_ - I can take or leave Powa personally. _Aguas de Amazon_ - (or something like that). Same Glass as always but with this particular instrumentation (the group Uakti, a lot of wooden mallet instruments, and tropical-sounding flutes and stuff) it really is like a pleasant trip through the jungle on a river. **Steve Reich** is infinitely more interesting than Glass. He began with tape stuff, as **Tracer** described, specifically having the same exact recording of a spoken phrase play on 2 tape decks that differ in speed by the tiniest fraction of a second. They would begin at the exact same time and seem to stay together for some time, but they would very gradually split and over the course of 10 minutes or so, many really neat musical things would happen. He brought this idea over to instruments and wrote some of the most interesting and influential music of the 20th century. I’ll stop here, since you didn’t ask about Reich, but one more response to **tracer’s** post (and I promise to shut up for a bit). “Minimal” is not a term coined by composers to describe their own trend, but rather a term used by scholars in more or less retrospect. Thus there are as many kinds of “minimal” music as there are composers of it, and Reich and Glass are about 3 worlds apart. (though most minimal music usually involves some sort of repetition). OK I’m done. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/5 "2003-02-07T06:11:24Z")
Glass also (according to a program I saw on him) _hates_ academia, and does everything in his power to make life difficult for them. What inspired this, I can’t say, but it might very well be the source for some of the criticism of him. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/6 "2003-02-07T08:26:56Z")
I agree with Moe; Steve Reich’s music is much more interesting than Glass’. The 3 biggies in the minimalist world are Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams. What bugs me is that the 3 are always lumped together as if their music is somehow all identical, when in fact some aspects of their music are almost polar opposites. They can all be termed “minimalist”, but that doesn’t mean they are of equal ability. It would be like saying that Mozart and Salieri were equally talented because they wrote in the same genre. Having said that, let me proceed with my criticism. When I listen to Glass, I just find that it sounds overly simplistic. I know, in a sense, minimalist music is simplistic _by definition_, because it involves a lot of repetition of short, basic ideas. But I think _what_ the composer chooses to repeat is important. And with both Adams and Reich, the thematic ideas are much more interesting to start with. In addition, their compositions just seem more skillfully crafted to me. In a lot of Reich’s stuff, for example, there is an influence from African rhythms, which to me makes for a more interesting listening experience than Glass’ relatively primitive rhythmic structure. I guess what Glass is trying to accomplish is to apply minimalism across the board: minimal thematic material, minimal rhythmic complexity, and minimal harmonic interest. I just think it makes for less stimulating music overall. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/7 "2003-02-07T08:32:31Z")
Stever Reich and John Adams are great artists who create music that is interesting and stimulating; Philip Glass is a hack who writes elevator music for pseuointellectuals. ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/8 "2003-02-07T10:19:55Z")
OK, someone had to post this, plus I heard this joke a few weeks ago and have been DYING to tell it to someone who’d get it: Knock knock! Who’s there? Knock knock! Who’s there? Knock knock! Who’s there? Knock knock! Who’s there? Philip Glass. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/9 "2003-02-07T22:43:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by blowero \* > **The 3 biggies in the minimalist world are Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams.** Wow, second president of the United States **and** a minimalist composer! That Adams sure gets around. ---
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/10 "2003-02-07T23:11:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by blowero \* > \*\* The 3 biggies in the minimalist world are Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams. \*\* Let’s not forget **Terry Riley** whose famous piece _In C_ is what’s generally considered to have started it all. > [@](#): > > Wow, second president of the United States and a minimalist composer! That Adams sure gets around. Yeah, and despite it all he’s such a modest guy he even keeps his number listed. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Alex\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_B)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/11 "2003-02-08T14:36:03Z")
> [@](#): > > _posted by_ **lissener** > Philip Glass is a hack who writes elevator music for pseuointellectuals (sic) Thanks for that enlightening contribution. Personally I enjoy Glass, Adams and Reich. ‘Minimalist’ is a handy word to refer to them and a few of their peers, but it’s not much use beyond that. Adams in particular often ventures into what you might call a maximalist style, throwing in anything he feels like. I think Glass comes under fire because he writes music that can be appreciated by those without any musical knowledge or expertise. A lot of recent serious music (i.e. since the beginning of the 20th century) has been aimed at those with a technical understanding of music theory, just as modern art often requires a grasp of recent art history to make its point. (A lot of jazz is pretty impenetrable to non-musicians as well.) One way of thinking about minimalist music is to compare it to abstract painting: just as an abstract painter like Mondrian or Rothko uses colour and light without bothering to represent any particular object, so a minimalist composer like Glass might use harmony and rhythm without using orthodox patterns of notes. Or not. It was just a thought. The main influence on Glass’ minimalism has been Indian classical music (hence his collaboration with Ravi Shankar), which has explored repetitive musical patterns for centuries. You don’t often hear the Indian classical tradition referred to as ‘moronic’, but many critics call Glass’ music just that. Oh well. Alex B ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2003, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/12 "2003-02-08T14:53:52Z")
The key to Glass’s music is that there really is no repetition if you listen closely. Yes, the main melody repeats the same pattern, but in a different key or a different note, changing subtly within the framework of a single phrase. And with all due respect to **Lissener** , I defy him to listen to _Satyagraha_ or _Akhenaten_ and call either work “elevator music for pseudointellectuals.” Creating libretti from the _Bhaghavad-Gita_ in the original Sanskrit and religious poems in Akkadian, Hebrew, and Egyptian is not exactly pop-culture friendly. ---
**Author:** ![Fibonacci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df788c/32.png) [@Fibonacci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fibonacci)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2003, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/13 "2003-02-09T15:50:59Z")
I’m a big fan of Glass, Reich, And Riley, but it is a very hard genre to share with people. I saw Philip Glass live back in the mid 80’s and was just blown away that a group of musicians could perform that music live. Reich’s “Music For 18 Musicians” still knocks me out when I listen to it after all these years. To me, the only similarity this music has to elevator music is that it is uplifting. Y(Vertical)MMV. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2003, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/14 "2003-02-09T16:10:51Z")
I could be wrong, but I don’t think Adams has written anything that could safely be called “minimalism” since _Harmonium_, back in 1981 or so. And even that wasn’t terribly minimalist. _Shaker Loops_ is his first well-known piece, and THAT was minimalist. But he’s feeling much better now. ---
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2003, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/philip-glass-music/153319/15 "2003-02-09T20:01:14Z")
Yeah, Adams is more associated with the next stage of music (whatever that is). Not some I consider one of the forefathers, er… 3 fathers (Glass, Reich, Riley), of minimalism. Though his stuff has certainly developed from the minimal school of thought. I heard an “opera” of his, I think it was something like _I Was Staring at the Ceiling and then I Saw the Sky_ (not too minimal of a title), which often sounded right out of Glass’ world. His orchestral piece _Fearful Symmetries_ which I highly recommend, is definitely based in minimalism, but also clearly a more advanced stage.