Since the 50s, La Monte Young has been at the forefront of modern music, turning the hippies on to Indian raga, influencing the minimalism of Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Henry Flynt, the drone of Tony Conrad and John Cale (in Young's own Theater of Eternal Music/Dream Syndicate group), and the rock of the Velvet Underground.
Lou Reed credits Young's influence on Metal Machine Music; German Krautrock bands like Faust and Can have similarly listed Young as a pioneer. He also played a major role in New York's Fluxus group, trying the patience of avant artists with pieces that challenged the pianist to build a fire or push the instrument through a wall. Even Yoko Ono got tired of being showed-up.
Young's own work, despite its importance, has gone largely unheard due to several factors, first among them Young's refusal to re-release it. Most, if not all, of his work is nearly unfindable — that which is available goes for huge sums of money. (Thank you, Internet.) Another reason for the work's obscurity would be the length of the compositions. Most that are available in any commercial sense fill at least a vinyl side (20-30 minutes), and several full compositions are either hours long (or hours long snippets of infinitely long music). Young takes years to compose individual “songs,” releasing small pressings of works-in-progress, trickling psychical evidence of his ideas (and perversity) over decades.
Young's most famous piece, and one of his most economical titles, "The Well Tuned Piano," is five hours in length (at this point), was released once, briefly, in 1988, has been known about since 1965, continues to be tweaked, and realizes many of Young's obsessions. The title references Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, a series of works incorporating all 24 musical keys. Bach's original didn't expressly call for tuning adjustments between the pieces, but it is usually played that way. Young takes this a step further, presenting one long work utilizing Just Intonation, with every note on the piano being in key. This means that the sounds take on a slightly “off,” almost Eastern sound — yet, it all works together, producing not only complex harmonic relationships, but also an effect sometimes known as “ghost chords.”
"The Well Tuned Piano" is a drone, which pulses in long waves of slow build-ups and incredibly fast crescendos. As the piano lines crowd together, played faster and faster, the “ghost chords” develop, and the side effect of a combination of speed and Just Intonation — chords which are not played, but are heard — add a cloud-like second drone to the rhythmic/melodic pulse/drone/jumble which actually exists. This second drone exists in physical space as sound waves, but has no point of actual production from a human or instrumental source. It is a chance occurrence within the physical laws of the universe, and Young exploits and utilizes this mathematical anomaly to create beautiful music.
Article comments
1 - zingzing
HEY LOOK! first one since july or something. anybody even read this thing yet? sigh...
2 - Mark Saleski
will you relax! i have it printed out and will comment tonight. sheesh!!! ;-)
(cool topic, by the way)
3 - Pico
Sorry, I don't remember anyone who's been AWOL from here for six months or more.
Pretty damned fine article, stranger, but I'm surprised you didn't mention that La Monte played with Don Cherry and Billy Higgins while in high school.
4 - zingzing
yeah, and i didn't mention his blues work either, mostly because i've never heard it. he went to some very famous (for its music program) high school... but i can't be bothered to remember the name right now. i believe he started out on saxophone...
besides, there's enough jazz writing on this site without me going and pooping in the pool.
anyway, he released some blues work as well, or what he decides to call blues, back in the 80s. that's been impossible to track down so far. as for how much his blues and jazz work influenced his minimalism, i won't claim to know. some of his writings (and some samples i think) are up at ubu web, so maybe there might be a clue there.
as for the not writing thing... well... i took some time off to do other things. and other things sometimes take a while. plus blogcritics was rather unhappy with safari for a while.
5 - Jeannie Danna
So, you have only published 8 articles in how many years here? All of them music reviews and none in politics, then you come over to my thread and leave a nasty little insinuation about who? Me or Cindy? This is America and I was under the impression that I was a writer here the same as you. This is an inquiry.
6 - zingzing
the hell are you talking about? i didn't leave any nasty insinuation about anyone, unless it was justoneman... and as far as i know i haven't left any comments on any of your writings...
and what does the fact that i like to write about music rather than politics have to do with anything...
you've jumped a gun here, jeannie.
7 - zingzing
jeannie. ha. yeah. "the ugly girl in a game of spin the bottle?" that was for justoneman. i was saying his presence on the website, which i'm sure he reads (since he was commenting before the editors swooped in), is an eyesore. not you.
it's my fault for commenting on the one better left ignored and forgotten, aka jom. i just wanted to play.
see? no need to get worked up.