Gig #115: Minimalists: Gavin Bryars, Marc Mellits, La Monte Young, Louis Andriessen, Wim Mertens, Michael Nyman, Graham Fitkin, Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, Karel Goeyvaerts, Terry Riley, Simeon ten Holt, John Cale, Steve Martland, Moondog, Ari Benjamin Meyers, Tom Johnson, Steve Reich

‘Minimalism is a long way from whatever it meant to the composers who were at its vanguard in the 60s. The big four back then, as now, were Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Steve Reich and Philip Glass. None of them, it is worth pointing out, has ever fully embraced the term “minimalism”, and the seeds of how differently the minimalist impulse would be taken up by later composers are already there in the huge aesthetic and temperamental gulfs that separate Riley’s music from Reich’s, or Glass’s from Young’s. All are now in their mid-70s: Riley is a devotee of Indian philosophy, Young lives according to a 27-hour day in his Dream-House in downtown New York, Glass writes symphonies and film scores, and Reich, the most revered of the quartet, continues to plough his furrow of pulses, phases and rhythmic richness.

‘But 50 years ago, all four did have something in common: a commitment to exploring the base materials of music with forensic, analytical detail. Reich’s early works, such as the tape piece It’s Gonna Rain and Piano Phase, for two pianists are about a single, obsessively pursued idea. Reich’s revolution was to loop different versions of the same material at different speeds against itself. Written down here, it sounds like a tortuous, solipsistic process – but it’s really pretty simple to hear. In It’s Gonna Rain, the voice of a Pentecostal preacher is looped at gradually different speeds, creating a sumptuous sonic texture, and in Piano Phase the pianists have to move in and out of phase with one another, subtly shifting from one semiquaver of a melodic pattern to the next. The effect is the sonic equivalent of slowly turning a kaleidoscope as the music comes in and out of focus. If you haven’t heard it yet, do it now – it’s a thrilling, essential listen.

‘But there’s something else in early Reich, Glass and Riley, too – an insistence on returning music to the roots that all three composers felt European modernisms, such as serialism, had left behind: melody, modality and rhythm. Riley’s In C puts all of that together in a piece that remains a masterpiece of compression, one of the great musical proofs of how less really can be more. From 53 tiny cells of musical material – the whole score fits on one page – Riley allows his performers to create an unpredictable, ever-changing tapestry of sound as the musicians (of which there can be any number) move from one bar to the next. In C is a game-changer not just for minimalism but for music history. Glass wasn’t far behind, either, in such pieces as Music With Changing Parts, while Young created music of slowly shifting chords and harmonies, extending the minimalist idea into larger, longer spheres of time and being.

‘Once minimalism became just another style for composers to use, it stopped being minimalist in any meaningful aesthetic sense. Such composers as David Lang or Michael Gordon, or any of the Bang on a Can group of New York-based post-minimalists, couldn’t have written their music without Glass; but equally, they couldn’t have written it without the influence of rock. The impulse for any composer who uses minimalism as a style today – whether you’re Thom Yorke or Nico Muhly – is the diametrical opposite of what Reich and Riley were up to half a century ago. Stylistic free-for-all has replaced forensic, monomaniacal obsession.’ — Tom Service

Gavin Bryars
Marc Mellits
La Monte Young
Louis Andriessen
Wim Mertens
Michael Nyman
Graham Fitkin
Philip Glass
Arvo Pärt
Karel Goeyvaerts
Terry Riley
Simeon ten Holt
John Cale
Steve Martland
Moondog
Ari Benjamin Meyers
Tom Johnson
Steve Reich

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Gavin Bryars Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1975)
‘In 1971, when I lived in London, I was working with a friend, Alan Power, on a film about people living rough in the area around Elephant and Castle and Waterloo Station. In the course of being filmed, some people broke into drunken song – sometimes bits of opera, sometimes sentimental ballads – and one, who in fact did not drink, sang a religious song “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet”. This was not ultimately used in the film and I was given all the unused sections of tape, including this one. When I played it at home, I found that his singing was in tune with my piano, and I improvised a simple accompaniment. I noticed, too, that the first section of the song – 13 bars in length – formed an effective loop which repeated in a slightly unpredictable way. I took the tape loop to Leicester, where I was working in the Fine Art Department, and copied the loop onto a continuous reel of tape, thinking about perhaps adding an orchestrated accompaniment to this. The door of the recording room opened on to one of the large painting studios and I left the tape copying, with the door open, while I went to have a cup of coffee. When I came back I found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping. I was puzzled until I realised that the tape was still playing and that they had been overcome by the old man’s singing. This convinced me of the emotional power of the music and of the possibilities offered by adding a simple, though gradually evolving, orchestral accompaniment that respected the tramp’s nobility and simple faith. Although he died before he could hear what I had done with his singing, the piece remains as an eloquent, but understated testimony to his spirit and optimism.’ — Gavin Bryars

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Marc Mellits Tight Sweater (2005)
‘Composer Marc Mellits is an apprentice to Steve Reich whose own worklist stretches back into the early ’80s. Endeavor Classics’ Tight Sweater is the first all-Mellits disc and features four works performed by the new music ensemble Real Quiet. If Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians is like an 11-course meal with appetizer and dessert, then the short movements that make up Mellits’ suites, such as Fruity Pebbles and Tight Sweater, are like hors d’oeuvres. Mellits’ post-minimalist spin is to deliver the tasty treat of minimalist style minus its messy forward development, which only works when the trajectory is seamless. Mellits’ work is all “seams,” just like the seams in the tight sweater pictured on the front cover, but unashamedly so, and it is clear that Mellits is hoping to acquire an audience through cutting to the chase and not making them wait for the payoff. The strategy seems to be working, as Mellits has collected positive concert reviews even from such tough publications as The New York Times.’ — Dave Lewis

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La Monte Young The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer (1962)
‘Three decades after its composition, La Monte Young’s The Second Dream of The High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer remains as radical a statement and as uniquely revelatory an experience as ever. … Long, steady tones and protracted silences gradually efface the clock, to open up an airier, unfenced domain. Facets of sound become apparent that are usually only peripheral to conscious perception. The tones diffract (via Harmon mutes) to form a brilliant corona of partials that soon flares to dazzling intensity. In a dream, events of little apparent significance may be evocative of fathomless resonances. As The Second Dream develops, the four pitches virtually turn inside out to reveal astonishing depths of sonic phantasmagoria.’ — Sandy McCroskey

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Louis Andriessen Workers Union (1975)
‘Workers Union is a composition by Louis Andriessen intended for any loud-sounding group of instruments; Andriessen did not want to handicap orchestras by providing a list of instruments. It is a melodically indeterminate piece; this means there is no key and no defined melody.[2] The piece is very strict rhythmically, with only a guide to lower or raise pitches. Sections may be repeated as many times as the conductor wishes, resulting in varying performance lengths. Every instrument plays different notes that follow the same rhythm and ascending or descending patterns. This creates an atonal piece with many polyphonic phrases. There are points in the piece where the ensemble splits into two groups. The groups alternate lines before coming back together again. If executed properly, the piece sounds mechanical as the instrumentation operates in perfect unison.’ — collaged

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Wim Mertens Often a Bird (1996)
‘Mertens’ style has continually evolved during the course of his prolific career, starting from downright experimental and avant-garde, always gravitating around minimalism, usually, however, preserving a melodic foundation to the forays that he makes into the worlds that he is exploring. His compositional quality has often overweighted the “labelling issue” and reached wider audiences although stemming from a far-from-mainstream musical context. One can follow three separate threads of musical styles throughout his work: a) Compositions for ensemble, perhaps his most accessible and “commercial” material; b) Solo piano and voice compositions, which features haunting keyboard melodies accompanied by Mertens’ unique high-pitched tenor voice singing in an invented, personal language; and c) Experimental minimalist “cycles” for single, dual, and sometimes more instruments.’ — collaged

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Michael Nyman Angelfish Decay (1985)
‘Celebrated for his modular, repetitive style, minimalist composer Michael Nyman was among experimental music’s most high-profile proponents, best known in connection with his film scores for director Peter Greenaway. Born in London on March 23, 1944, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music and King’s College, London, under communist composer Alan Bush and Thurston Dart, a musicologist specializing in the English Baroque. Under Dart’s tutelage, Nyman was introduced to 16th- and 17th-century English rounds and canons, their repetitive, contrapuntal lines highly influencing his own later work; Dart also encouraged him to travel to Romania in the interest of seeking out the country’s native folk music traditions. Upon graduating during the mid-’60s, Nyman found himself disconnected from both the pop music of the times and the school of modern composition heralded by Stockhausen; as a result, from 1964 to 1976, he worked not as a composer but as a music critic, writing for publications including The Listener, New Statesman, and The Spectator. In a review of British composer Cornelius Cardew, he first introduced the word “minimalism” as a means of musical description.’ — collaged

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Graham Fitkin Hook (2002)
‘Graham Fitkin lives and works as a composer in Cornwall. He works with dance, film and digital media alongside concert, orchestral and chamber music. He runs his own ensemble Fitkin Band of 9 soloists which tours new material each year. Graham has collaborated with many of today’s foremost performers of new music including Powerplant, Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, Yo-Yo Ma, Kathryn Stott, Will Gregory, Smith Quartet, Ruth Wall, ensemblebash and London Sinfonietta. He won the International Grand Prix Music for Dance Award in 2000 and has since won two British Composer awards.’ — Hyperion

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Philip Glass Music In Fifths (1969)
‘In Music in Fifths, Philip Glass’s ideas are at their most basic, using only addition and subtraction of notes in simple scales to create epic and hypnotic musical forms. Music in Fifths is in “closed form” – a predetermined structure that ends when the accumulation of repetitions fill it out completely. Glass has always considered Music in Fifths a sort of teasing homage to [legendary pedagogue Nadia] Boulanger; it is written entirely in parallel fifths, a cardinal sin in the traditional counterpoint his teacher so carefully instructed.’ — BoaCF

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Arvo Pärt Fur Alina (1976)
‘Für Alina, a brief and poignantly spare work for piano, represents the essence of the so-called “tintinnabula” technique for which Estonian composer Arvo Pärt has become famous. The work was composed in 1976, a year in which he emerged from a five-year period of intense study and reflection. Pärt’s study of medieval and Renaissance church music inspired a new approach to tonality, one that recast triadic tonality within an entirely new kind of musical syntax. Für Alina was the first piece in which this new triadic language coalesced into a consistent method of composition. Simply put, this technique, known as the tintunnabula style for the bell-like sonority it creates, involves two different lines moving in a consistent relationship with each other, one of them moving in a mostly stepwise fashion along notes of the diatonic scale (that is, without chromatic inflections), somewhat after the manner of plainchant, the other moving in tandem with the first but landing only on pitches contained in the tonic triad, or the chord of the piece’s home key. This creates an engaging combination of harmonic stability, melodic motion, and occasional shimmering dissonances.’ — allmusic

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Karel Goeyvaerts Komposition n. 5 (1953)
‘Karel Goeyvaerts’s 1953 electronic composition, Nummer 5 (met zuivere tonen) is an exact palindrome: not only does each event in the second half of the piece occur according to an axis of symmetry at the centre of the work, but each event itself is reversed, so that the note attacks in the first half become note decays in the second, and vice versa. It is a perfect example of Goeyvaerts’s aesthetics, the perfect example of the imperfection of perfection.’ — FijneWIET

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Terry Riley Desert Of Ice (1980)
‘Born in 1935 in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California, Terry Riley launched what is now known as the Minimalist movement with his revolutionary classic In C in 1964. This seminal work provided the conception for a form comprised of interlocking repetitive patterns that was to change the course of 20th-century music and strongly influence the works of Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams, as well as rock groups like The Who, The Soft Machine, Curved Air, Tangerine Dream and many others. In the 1960s and ’70s he turned his attention to solo improvisational works for electronic keyboards and soprano saxophone, and pioneered the use of various kinds of tape delay in live performance. This approach resulted in another set of milestone works, A Rainbow in Curved Air, Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band, The Persian Surgery Dervishes and Shri Camel. These hypnotic, multi-layered, polymetric, brightly orchestrated, eastern-flavored improvisations set the stage for the New Age movement that was to appear a decade or so later.’ — Other Minds

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Simeon Ten Holt Canto Ostinato for Synthesizers Section 17 (1976)
‘Simeon ten Holt wrote Canto Ostinato between 1976 and 1979 from behind the piano. The first public performance of the piece in Bergen, NH was both praised and criticized. It was critiqued for its sweetness and simplicity. Ten Holt wrote his pieces at a time when people were used to an entirely different kind of music; composers in aspiration for financial support from the “Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst” better wrote their work in an atonal style. Nevertheless, Simeon covertly persued his own way since he realized that the atonal style he had utilized thus far was not really working for him. He used to call his work “the tonality after the death of tonality”.’ — Home Concerts

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John Cale John Milton (1972)
‘Taking a sidestep from his earliest solo efforts into an exploration of his classical training and influences — thus the title — Cale on Academy creates a set of songs that probably bemused more than one listener at the time of release. The predominantly instrumental release, which finds him working with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on two tracks, steers away from the more grotesque classical/rock fusions at the time to find an unexpectedly happy and often compelling balance between the two sides. The sound is at once thick and remarkably spare, a rejection of flash for mood setting without aiming toward the drones so prevalent in much of Cale’s initial work.’ — allmusic

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Steve Martland Beat The Retreat (1995)
‘Steve Martland was one of the most vibrant, unconventional and dynamic forces in British music. He first came to prominence in 1983 with Babi Yar, for large orchestra in three groups, championed by the Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM) and premiered separately on the same day by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas Cleobury, and the St Louis Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin. It was later recorded to critical acclaim. After that, though, he avoided the orchestra, preferring, from American Invention and Re-Mix (1985) onwards, to compose for smaller ensembles, not usually exceeding 13 players, such as those scored for his Steve Martland Band (formed 1992), which toured internationally like a rock group; string quartets, as with his Patrol (1992) or arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor from the same year; and Wolf-Gang (1991), six operatic arias by Mozart reimagined for wind band.’ — Guy Richards

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Moondog Invocation (1981)
‘Moondog, who died in Germany in 1999 at the age 83, was the most celebrated of New York street denizens from the late 1940s through 1974. He dressed like a Viking, spouted short-burst poetry in a stentorian voice and cranked out unlikely consonant music on homemade instruments. The Don Drapers of the world saw him on the way to work, perched as he was near 6th Avenue at 53rd Street, near CBS’s building (a fortuitous location, as we’ll soon see). The Beats took him in, later the counter-culture hippies, then the art crowd ferried him overseas. And if you turned on a television for more than 10 minutes during the year 2003, you heard his music remixed for a Lincoln Navigator ad that played nonstop. He collaborated with the young Philip Glass, was promoted by a top rock producer, has been covered by artists as diverse as Janis Joplin and Antony and the Johnsons, and had a booster in Elvis Costello. He’s the 20th century’s avant-garde in one strangely cloaked package.’ — Vanity Fair

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Ari Benjamin Meyers Symphony X (Excerpts, 2009)
‘SYMPHONY X is a work of symphonic scale that combines elements of hardcore, experimental, and minimal music into an entirely original musical texture. Ari Benjamin Meyers has written this 70 minute through-composed piece specifically for his unique 17 member Redux Orchestra which includes saxophones, brass, strings, electric guitar, electric bass, drums, and electronics. This physically demanding work combines complex repetitive instrumental arrangements with electro-noise, martial percussion rhythms, and intense guitar melodies. At a constant tempo of 120bpm it escalates into a veritable tour de force. The intensity of SYMPHONY X rests on its extremes: static, pounding repetition layered against an almost unnoticeably slow variation of melodic and harmonic patterns – a compositional style that Steve Reich characterized as “gradual process“. By uniting the formalistic structures of classical and minimal music with the sonic palette of rock, hardcore, and electronic music, Meyers has further developed his musical language and with SYMPHONY X has taken it to a new level.’ — ABM

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Tom Johnson Nine Bells (1973)
‘Nine Bells is a conceptual album in which Johnson performs on 9 bells, evenly spaced and hanging from the ceiling. Greg Sandow (2003) describes Nine Bells, “in which he walked, at a steady rhythmic pace (and, if I remember correctly, for more than an hour), among nine suspended burglar alarm bells, systematically exploring all the possible paths among them. Which, since he strikes each bell as he passes it, are also all the possible melodies their pitches might make. As in many of Tom’s works, theory and practice are identical here… You see and hear the structure of the piece. That’s not even remotely abstract; instead, it’s pure happiness, as the pealing bells seem to ring with Tom’s concentration (visible in his face and body, audible in his steady steps), and his joie de vivre.” At the age of 55, Johnson had to stop performing this athletic piece, but Matthias Kaul, Adam Weisman, Olaf Pyras and others have developed their own interpretations of the score, using their own sets of bells.’ — collaged

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Steve Reich Six Marimbas (1986)
‘Six Marimbas, composed in 1986, is a rescoring for marimbas of my earlier Six Pianos (1973). The idea to rescore came from my friend, the percussionist James Preiss, who has been a member of my ensemble since 1971 and also contributed the hand and mallet alterations that are used in this score. The piece begins with three marimbas playing the same eight beat rhythmic pattern, but with different notes for each marimba. One of the other marimbas begins to gradually build up the exact pattern of one of the marimbas already playing by putting the notes of the fifth beat on the seventh beat, then putting the notes of the first beat on the third beat, and so on, reconstructing the same pattern with the same notes, but two beats out of phase. When this canonic relationship has been fully constructed, the two other marimbas double some of the many melodic patterns resulting from this four marimba relationship. By gradually increasing their volume they bring these resulting patterns up to the surface of the music; then, by lowering the volume they slowly return them to the overall contrapuntal web, in which the listener can hear them continuing along with many others in the ongoing four marimba relationship. This process of rhythmic construction followed by doubling the resulting patterns is then continued in the three sections of the piece that are marked off by changes of mode and gradually higher position on the marimba, the first in D-flat major, the second in E-flat dorian, and the third in B-flat natural minor.’ — Steve Reich

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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, D. Of course so sorry to hear about Irving Rosenthal’s declining health. How great, at least, that his archive is at Stanford. But still. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Shit, the heat didn’t leave you alone. Ours has disappeared for the moment, and it’s actually pretty sweet, sky-wise. I hope whatever’s hovering over Paris slides quickly into your location. Oh, sure, it’s always weird and hard to switch gears into new writing as soon as a work is finished. I try to use that time to just fool around and experiment and write random stuff without a care. Sometimes you can find something fresh that way. Good thing is that the in-between phase never lasts very long. Any news back from your book’s readers yet? Cool the zine arrived and is keeping you company. We didn’t finish the color grading yesterday, but we will on schedule today. It went very well. We’re incredibly close. We tried a couple of new approaches to the color of a couple of scenes that were flummoxing us, and they worked! But, yes, the grading was pretty much the entirety of yesterday for me. But today will be it. What did you do on your hopefully cooler Friday? ** Jamie, Hey Jouster. No, I think Toad is pretty revered. Not only is it a sublime thing, but it’s often rightly considered the father/architect of the contemporary ‘dark ride’. I’m good. Could have slept better last night, but oh well. Excited to finish the color grading today. Then we have a close-to-monthlong break from the heavy work part, although I’ll keep doing random film-related stuff. It looks great! Every time I watch the film, which we basically do every day in order to spot any slight color issues, I love it more, which has to be a good sign. You absolutely without question need to go to Tokyo at the soonest opportunity. I think you will lose at least some of your mind re: its visual (and many other) joys. We did get the big temperature drop, and I, along with presumably most of Paris, am very grateful. No, that was a cool dream. Even I, who is not normally so interested in people’s dreams, was rapt and deconstructionist about it. Yes, enter that screenplay competition! Great! I bet you could write a genius horror movie. What’s your idea(s)? May Friday dance all around you like a giddy fool. Pistachio love, Dennis. ** Steevee, Hi. It’s nice that she’s a nice person. All kinds of mediocre crap gets ecstatic buzz. No trust there. And Nolan making a great film is an oxymoron. No interest in seeing that. Possibly as a last ditch on a flight someday. ** S., Hey. Apparently, yeah. They topped the bill of my nephew’s first rock concert, which I took him to as a Xmas gift or something. He picked the line-up, obviously. Say hi to the mouse for me. I doubt he’ll remember me. ** Wolf, Wicked StepWolf! Me, comment while on rides? Hm, maybe, if it’s a slowy, and if I’m with someone who’s also into ride design/architecture like, say, Zac. But I never go ‘wow, ‘whoa’, and that kind of blah blah. When I talk, I’ll comment on the unusual or innovative way the ride uses the premise and conventions of the ride to elicit fresh responses. Ride nerd. Mr. Toad is both fun and slow, so you wouldn’t get physically ill on it, guaranteed. End credit track is as yet undetermined. We have ideas, but I can’t mention them until we decide yes or no and possibly approach their makers. It needs to be either a gift or extremely cheap because we are scraping the ultra- bottom of our budget. It’s tricky because it needs to be both interesting, pretty-ish, smart and either non-emotional or in an entirely different emotional register than our film. The film’s ending is very delicate, and it can’t be interfered with. Tricky. ** B, Hi, Bear. Yay! Best ride not only at Disneyland but ever. In my book. Oops about that snag. Yeah, you don’t want somebody hurling stress into the process. That’s for sure. Glad you liked ‘Okja’. We’re nearly finished (today) with the color grading of the film. There’s still plenty to do. The sound work, which is a big job, will take up most of September. It’ll be sad to finally finish, but I’m so excited for people to see the film that it won’t be too sad. Love back to you. ** Jeff J, Yes, a MTWR vet! Oh, the Disneyworld one. I never road it. It was well liked. I was always suspicious of it because its scale was different/larger than the Disneyland one, and the Disneyland one’s genius use of scale is one of its major points. Thank you for the congrats, but I must remain mum. Hugs about the memorial. Kind of beautiful that it almost burned its location down? I’ll look for your email, thanks. Waiting for edits! Exciting! Is there a way to extricate your collaborator? Tricky, though. If he is continually flaking out, that might be a legit reason enough? ** Nick Toti, Hi, Nick! Cool. Well, I can’t think of another ride where you’re condemned to prison, get killed, and end up in hell. All within about 20 seconds. Pretty cool. How’s stuff w/ you? ** _Black_Acrylic, That sounds like an idea of hell for damned sure. Please let me and us know how the talk with the career advisor went today. Fingers intricately crossed. ** Misanthrope, G-man. I don’t know him, but I suspect he would like the idea of you too. Uric acid crystals is a nice drug-like name. What does that Bruce Lee quote mean? I’ve never understood what the heck that’s supposed to mean. Is it as simple as, I don’t know, keep flowing, keep moving? I like to overthink things. ** Okay. As I mentioned here recently, I went to see this show that involved the Belgian choreographer Keersmaker choreographing to a live performance of Steve Reich’s seminal composition ‘Drumming’, and it got me re-thinking about minimalist music, and a post erupted thusly. See you tomorrow.