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Posted on 20070313 by MG

If you don't like a sound, it's because you haven't listened to it enough

It's difficult to write only a few lines about La Monte Young.
Born in 1935, considered one of the first minimalists and celebrated by the aforementioned school, although formally having very little in common with composers like Glass and Reich, his works are considered among the most important and radical in the post-war avant-garde and experimental scene.
An inspiration to the group Fluxus, his conceptually minimal compositions challenge the very definition of music. Many of his pieces, in fact, consist of an eternal drone.
I remember that, in my now distant youth, 8) I was struck by a score of his consisting solely of two notes in fifths (I think B and F#), with the inscription “to be held for a long time”. Probably the longest piece with the shortest score ever composed.
I was also struck by a reflection of his that touched on our consideration of time:

If a blues section lasts 12 bars, why can't it last 12 days? 4 days in C, 2 days in F...

Author of the Well Tuned Piano, a monumental work for solo piano tuned to the natural scale (just intonation), whose performances last over 6 hours in some performances and is documented in a 5-CD edition by Grammavision (and later on DVD for his Just Dreams label), he was a pioneer in the study of the effects generated by long-held natural musical intervals. Together with Marian Zazeela, he created a series of Dream Houses, environments that combine his carpets of sine waves in just intonation with Zazeela's symmetrical, almost calligraphic light sculptures.
He also studied Indian classical music with Pandit Pran Nath, to whom this piece, composed exclusively for him, is dedicated. From a tampura drone and posted online by AnaBlog.
It's long and always the same, and remember,

if you don't like a sound, it's because you haven't listened to it enough (J. Cage).

La Monte Young – The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath


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