La Monte Young
Encyclopedia
La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American
avant-garde
composer
, musician, and artist.
Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II
avant-garde
, experimental
, and contemporary music. Young is especially known for his development of drone music
. Both his proto-Fluxus
and "minimal
" compositions question the nature and definition of music
and often stress elements of performance art
.
, Idaho, he moved with his family several times in childhood, while his father searched for work before settling in Los Angeles
, California. He graduated from John Marshall High School
and studied at Los Angeles City College
where he came out ahead of Eric Dolphy
in a saxophone
audition for the school's jazz
band . In LA's jazz milieu, he played alongside notable musicians including Ornette Coleman
, Don Cherry
and Billy Higgins
.
He undertook further studies at the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA), where he received a BA in 1958, then at the University of California, Berkeley
, from 1958 to 1960. In 1959 he attended the summer courses at Darmstadt
under Karlheinz Stockhausen
, and in 1960 relocated to New York in order to study electronic music
with Richard Maxfield
at the New School for Social Research. His compositions during this period were influenced by Anton Webern
, Gregorian chant
, Indian classical music
, Gagaku
, and Indonesia
n gamelan
music.
A number of Young's early works use the twelve-tone technique
, which he studied under Leonard Stein at Los Angeles City College. (Stein had served as an assistant to Arnold Schoenberg
when Schoenberg, the inventor of the twelve-tone method, had taught at UCLA.) Young also studied composition with Robert Stevenson at UCLA and with Seymore Shifrin at UCB. When Young visited Darmstadt
in 1959, he encountered the music and writings of John Cage
. There he also met Cage's collaborator, pianist David Tudor, who subsequently gave premières of some of Young's works. At Tudor's suggestion, Young engaged in a correspondence with Cage. Within a few months Young was presenting some of Cage's music on the West Coast. In turn, Cage and Tudor included some of Young's works in performances throughout the U.S. and Europe. By this time Young had taken a turn toward the conceptual, using principles of indeterminacy
in his compositions and incorporating non-traditional sounds, noises, and actions.
When Young moved to New York in 1960, he had already established a reputation as an enfant terrible of the avant garde. He initially developed an artistic relationship with Fluxus
founder George Maciunas
(with whom he published a text titled An Anthology) and other members of the nascent movement. Yoko Ono
, for example, hosted a series of concerts curated by Young at her loft, and absorbed, it seems, his often parodic and politically charged aesthetic. Young's works of the time, scored as short haiku-like texts, though conceptual and extreme, were not meant to be merely provocative but, rather, dream-like.
His Compositions 1960 includes a number of unusual actions. Some of them are un-performable, but each deliberatively examines a certain presupposition about the nature of music and art and carries ideas to an extreme. One instructs: "draw a straight line and follow it" (a directive which he has said has guided his life and work since). Another instructs the performer to build a fire. Another states that "this piece is a little whirlpool out in the middle of the ocean." Another says the performer should release a butterfly
into the room. Yet another challenges the performer to push a piano through a wall. Composition 1960 #7 proved especially pertinent to his future endeavors: it consisted of a B, an F#, a perfect fifth, and the instruction: "To be held for a long time."
In 1962 Young wrote The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer. One of The Four Dreams of China, the piece is based on four pitches, which he later gave as the frequency
ratio
s: 36-35-32-24 (G, C, +C#, D), and limits as to which may be combined with any other. Most of his pieces after this point are based on select pitches, played continuously, and a group of long held pitches to be improvised upon. For The Four Dreams of China Young began to plan the "Dream House", a light and sound installation where musicians would live and create music twenty-four hours a day. He formed the Theatre of Eternal Music
to realize "Dream House" and other pieces. The group initially included Marian Zazeela
(who has provided the light work The Ornamental Lightyears Tracery for all performances since 1965), Angus MacLise
, and Billy Name
. In 1964 the ensemble comprised Young and Zazeela; John Cale
and Tony Conrad
, a former Harvard mathematics major, and sometimes Terry Riley
(voices). Since 1966 the group has seen many permutations and has included Garrett List
, Jon Hassell
, Alex Dea, and many others, including members of the 60s groups. Young has realized the "Theatre of Eternal Music" only intermittently, as it requires expensive and exceptional demands of rehearsal and mounting time.
Most realizations of the piece have long titles, such as The Tortoise Recalling the Drone of the Holy Numbers as they were Revealed in the Dreams of the Whirlwind and the Obsidian Gong, Illuminated by the Sawmill, the Green Sawtooth Ocelot and the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer. His works are often extreme in length, conceived by Young as having no beginning and no end, existing before and after any particular performance. In their daily lives, too, Young and Zazeela practice an extended sleep-waking schedule—with "days" longer than twenty-four hours.
Beginning in 1970 interests in Asian classical music and a wish to be able to find the intervals he had been using in his work led Young to pursue studies with Pandit Pran Nath
. Fellow students included calligrapher and light artist Marian Zazeela
(who married Young in 1963), composers Terry Riley
and Yoshi Wada
, philosophers Henry Flynt
and Catherine Christer Hennix
and many others.
Young considers The Well Tuned Piano—a permuting composition of themes and improvisations for just-intuned
solo piano—to be his masterpiece. Performances have exceeded six hours in length, and so far have been documented twice: first on a five-CD set issued by Gramavision, then a later performance on a DVD on Young's own Just Dreams label. One of the defining works of American musical minimalism, it is strongly influenced by mathematical composition as well as Hindustani classical music practice.
Together Young and Zazeela have realized a long series of semi-permanent "Dream House" installations, which combine Young's just-intuned sine waves in elaborate, symmetrical configurations and Zazeela's quasi-calligraphic light sculptures. The effect is rigorous yet sensual, utilizing aspects of the viewer/auditor's perception to create sensory overload within a barely defined physical space. From January through April 19, 2009, "Dream House" was installed in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York as part of The Third Mind exhibition.
", on which he based many of his mature works, came from his early age appreciation of the continuous sound made by the telephone poles in Bern.
Jazz
is one of his main influences and until 1956 he planned to devote his career to it. At first, Lee Konitz
and Warne Marsh
influenced his alto saxophone
playing style, and later John Coltrane
shaped Young's use of the sopranino saxophone
. Jazz was, together with Indian music, an important influence on the use of improvisation
in his works after 1962. La Monte Young discovered Indian music in 1957 on the campus of the UCLA. He cites Ali Akbar Khan
(sarod
) and Chatur Lal
(tabla
) as particularly significant. The discovery of the tambura
, which he learned to play with Pandit Pran Nath
, was a decisive influence in his interest in long sustained sounds. Young also acknowledges the influence of Japanese music, especially Gagaku
, and Pygmy
music.
La Monte Young discovered classical music
rather late, thanks to his teachers at university. He cites Béla Bartók
, Igor Stravinsky
, Perotin
, Leonin
, Claude Debussy
and Organum
musical style as important influences, but what made the biggest impact on his compositions was the serialism
of Arnold Schoenberg
and Anton Webern
.
Young was also keen to pursue his musical endeavors with the help of experimental aids. Cannabis
, LSD
and Peyote
played an important part in Young's life from mid-1950s onwards, when he was introduced to them by Terry Jennings
and Billy Higgins
. He said that "everybody [he] knew and worked with was very much into drugs as a creative tool as well as a consciousness-expanding tool". This was the case with the musicians of the Theatre of Eternal Music
, with whom he "got high for every concert: the whole group". He considers that the cannabis experience helped him open up to where he went with Trio for Strings, though sometimes it proved a disadvantage when performing anything which required keeping track of the number of elapsed bars. He commented on the subject:
, Jon Hassell
, Rhys Chatham
, Michael Harrison, Henry Flynt
, Ben Neill
, Charles Curtis
, and Catherine Christer Hennix
. Young's students include Arnold Dreyblatt
, Daniel James Wolf
and Lawrence Chandler
. It has also been notably influential on John Cale
's contribution to The Velvet Underground
's sound; Cale has been quoted as saying "LaMonte[Young] was perhaps the best part of my education and my introduction to musical discipline."
Brian Eno
was similarly influenced by Young's use of repetition in music. In 1981, he referred to X for Henry Flynt by saying "It really is a cornerstone of everything I've done since". Eno had himself performed the piece as a student in 1960.
Andy Warhol
attended the 1962 première of the static composition by La Monte Young called Trio for Strings and subsequently created his famous series of static films including Kiss, Eat, and Sleep (for which Young was initially commissioned to provide music). Uwe Husslein cites film-maker Jonas Mekas
, who accompanied Warhol to the Trio premiere and claims that Warhol's static films were directly inspired by the performance. In 1963 Warhol, Young, and Walter de Maria
briefly formulated a musical group, which included lyrics written by Jasper Johns
.
The album Dreamweapon: An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music
by the band Spacemen 3
is influenced by La Monte Young's concept of Dream Music, evidenced by their inclusion of his notes on the jacket.
Bowery Electric
, co-founded by Chandler, dedicated the song "Postscript" on the 1996 album Beat to Young and Riley.
Lou Reed
's 1975 album Metal Machine Music
lists (misspelling included) "Drone cognizance and harmonic possibilities vis a vis Lamont Young's Dream Music" among its "Specifications".
Drone rock
pioneer Dylan Carlson
has stated Young's work as being a major influence to him.
(Ed.). “An Anthology of Chance Operations.” Something Else, 1963. (PDF version of the original publication on UbuWeb
)
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, musician, and artist.
Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
, experimental
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
, and contemporary music. Young is especially known for his development of drone music
Drone music
Drone music is a minimalist musical style that emphasizes the use of sustained or repeated sounds, notes, or tone-clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece compared to other musics...
. Both his proto-Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
and "minimal
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
" compositions question the nature and definition of music
Definition of music
How to define music has long been the subject of debate; philosophers, musicians, and, more recently, various social and natural scientists have argued about what constitutes music. The definition has varied through history, in different regions, and within societies. Definitions vary as music,...
and often stress elements of performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
.
Life
Born in BernBern, Idaho
Bern is an unincorporated town in Bear Lake County, in the U.S. state of Idaho. It is located in the southeast corner of the state, about four miles from Montpelier....
, Idaho, he moved with his family several times in childhood, while his father searched for work before settling in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, California. He graduated from John Marshall High School
John Marshall High School (Los Angeles, California)
John Marshall High School is a high school located in the Los Feliz district of the City of Los Angeles at 3939 Tracy Street, in Los Angeles, California, USA.Marshall, which serves grades 9 through 12, is a part of the Los Angeles Unified School District...
and studied at Los Angeles City College
Los Angeles City College
Los Angeles City College, known as LACC, is a public community college in the East Hollywood section of Los Angeles, California. A part of the Los Angeles Community College District, it is located on Vermont Avenue south of Santa Monica Boulevard...
where he came out ahead of Eric Dolphy
Eric Dolphy
Eric Allan Dolphy was an American jazz alto saxophonist, flutist, and bass clarinetist. On a few occasions he also played the clarinet and baritone saxophone. Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence in the 1960s...
in a saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
audition for the school's jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
band . In LA's jazz milieu, he played alongside notable musicians including Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
, Don Cherry
Don Cherry (jazz)
Donald Eugene Cherry was an innovative African-American jazz cornetist whose career began with a long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman. He went on to live in many parts of the world and work with a wide variety of musicians.-Biography:Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and...
and Billy Higgins
Billy Higgins
Billy Higgins was an American jazz drummer. He played mainly free jazz and hard bop.Higgins was born in Los Angeles, California. Higgins played on Ornette Coleman's first records, beginning in 1958...
.
He undertook further studies at the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
(UCLA), where he received a BA in 1958, then at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, from 1958 to 1960. In 1959 he attended the summer courses at Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
under Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
, and in 1960 relocated to New York in order to study electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
with Richard Maxfield
Richard Maxfield
Richard Maxfield was a composer of instrumental, electro-acoustic, and electronic music.Born in Seattle, he most likely taught the first University-level course in electronic music in America at the New School for Social Research...
at the New School for Social Research. His compositions during this period were influenced by Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
, Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...
, Indian classical music
Indian classical music
The origins of Indian classical music can be found in the Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures in the Hindu tradition. Indian classical music has also been significantly influenced by, or syncretised with, Indian folk music and Persian music. The Samaveda, one of the four Vedas, describes music...
, Gagaku
Gagaku
Gagaku is a type of Japanese classical music that has been performed at the Imperial Court in Kyoto for several centuries. It consists of three primary repertoires:#Native Shinto religious music and folk songs and dance, called kuniburi no utamai...
, and Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n gamelan
Gamelan
A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included....
music.
A number of Young's early works use the twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...
, which he studied under Leonard Stein at Los Angeles City College. (Stein had served as an assistant to Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
when Schoenberg, the inventor of the twelve-tone method, had taught at UCLA.) Young also studied composition with Robert Stevenson at UCLA and with Seymore Shifrin at UCB. When Young visited Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
in 1959, he encountered the music and writings of John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
. There he also met Cage's collaborator, pianist David Tudor, who subsequently gave premières of some of Young's works. At Tudor's suggestion, Young engaged in a correspondence with Cage. Within a few months Young was presenting some of Cage's music on the West Coast. In turn, Cage and Tudor included some of Young's works in performances throughout the U.S. and Europe. By this time Young had taken a turn toward the conceptual, using principles of indeterminacy
Indeterminacy in music
Indeterminacy in music, which began early in the twentieth century in the music of Charles Ives, and was continued in the 1930s by Henry Cowell and carried on by his student, the experimental music composer John Cage beginning in 1951 , came to refer to the movement which grew up around Cage...
in his compositions and incorporating non-traditional sounds, noises, and actions.
When Young moved to New York in 1960, he had already established a reputation as an enfant terrible of the avant garde. He initially developed an artistic relationship with Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
founder George Maciunas
George Maciunas
George Maciunas was a Lithuanian-born American artist. He was a founding member of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers, and designers...
(with whom he published a text titled An Anthology) and other members of the nascent movement. Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
, for example, hosted a series of concerts curated by Young at her loft, and absorbed, it seems, his often parodic and politically charged aesthetic. Young's works of the time, scored as short haiku-like texts, though conceptual and extreme, were not meant to be merely provocative but, rather, dream-like.
His Compositions 1960 includes a number of unusual actions. Some of them are un-performable, but each deliberatively examines a certain presupposition about the nature of music and art and carries ideas to an extreme. One instructs: "draw a straight line and follow it" (a directive which he has said has guided his life and work since). Another instructs the performer to build a fire. Another states that "this piece is a little whirlpool out in the middle of the ocean." Another says the performer should release a butterfly
Butterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
into the room. Yet another challenges the performer to push a piano through a wall. Composition 1960 #7 proved especially pertinent to his future endeavors: it consisted of a B, an F#, a perfect fifth, and the instruction: "To be held for a long time."
In 1962 Young wrote The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer. One of The Four Dreams of China, the piece is based on four pitches, which he later gave as the frequency
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...
ratio
Ratio
In mathematics, a ratio is a relationship between two numbers of the same kind , usually expressed as "a to b" or a:b, sometimes expressed arithmetically as a dimensionless quotient of the two which explicitly indicates how many times the first number contains the second In mathematics, a ratio is...
s: 36-35-32-24 (G, C, +C#, D), and limits as to which may be combined with any other. Most of his pieces after this point are based on select pitches, played continuously, and a group of long held pitches to be improvised upon. For The Four Dreams of China Young began to plan the "Dream House", a light and sound installation where musicians would live and create music twenty-four hours a day. He formed the Theatre of Eternal Music
Theatre of Eternal Music
The Theatre of Eternal Music, sometimes later known as The Dream Syndicate, was a mid 1960s musical group formed by La Monte Young, that focused on experimental drone music. It featured the performances of La Monte Young, John Cale, Angus MacLise, Terry Jennings, Marian Zazeela, Tony Conrad, Billy...
to realize "Dream House" and other pieces. The group initially included Marian Zazeela
Marian Zazeela
Marian Zazeela is a light-artist, designer, painter and musician based in New York City.-Life and work:Born to Russian-Jewish parents and raised in the Bronx, Marian Zazeela was educated at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and at Bennington College where she...
(who has provided the light work The Ornamental Lightyears Tracery for all performances since 1965), Angus MacLise
Angus MacLise
Angus MacLise was an American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher probably best known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground.-Biography:...
, and Billy Name
Billy Name
Billy Name, , is an American photographer, filmmaker and lighting designer. He was the archivist of the Warhol Factory, from 1964 to 1970. His brief romance and subsequent friendship with Andy Warhol led to substantial collaboration on Warhol's work, including his films, paintings and sculpture...
. In 1964 the ensemble comprised Young and Zazeela; John Cale
John Cale
John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
and Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
, a former Harvard mathematics major, and sometimes Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
(voices). Since 1966 the group has seen many permutations and has included Garrett List
Garrett List
Garrett List is an American trombonist, vocalist and composer.In 1950, he moved with his family to Southern California. At the age of 18, he already was busy teaching, playing and composing music . In 1965 he left California and settled in New York, where he attended the famous Juilliard School of...
, Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell is an American trumpet player and composer. He is known for his influence in the world music scene and his unusual electronic manipulation of the trumpet sound.-Life and career:...
, Alex Dea, and many others, including members of the 60s groups. Young has realized the "Theatre of Eternal Music" only intermittently, as it requires expensive and exceptional demands of rehearsal and mounting time.
Most realizations of the piece have long titles, such as The Tortoise Recalling the Drone of the Holy Numbers as they were Revealed in the Dreams of the Whirlwind and the Obsidian Gong, Illuminated by the Sawmill, the Green Sawtooth Ocelot and the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer. His works are often extreme in length, conceived by Young as having no beginning and no end, existing before and after any particular performance. In their daily lives, too, Young and Zazeela practice an extended sleep-waking schedule—with "days" longer than twenty-four hours.
Beginning in 1970 interests in Asian classical music and a wish to be able to find the intervals he had been using in his work led Young to pursue studies with Pandit Pran Nath
Pandit Pran Nath
Pandit Pran Nath was a Hindustani classical singer and teacher of the Kirana gharana , with a successful American career.-Early life:...
. Fellow students included calligrapher and light artist Marian Zazeela
Marian Zazeela
Marian Zazeela is a light-artist, designer, painter and musician based in New York City.-Life and work:Born to Russian-Jewish parents and raised in the Bronx, Marian Zazeela was educated at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and at Bennington College where she...
(who married Young in 1963), composers Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
and Yoshi Wada
Yoshi Wada
Yoshimasa "Yoshi" Wada , is a Japanese sound installation artist and musician living in the United States. He lived in New York for many years but now lives in San Francisco, California....
, philosophers Henry Flynt
Henry Flynt
Henry Flynt is a philosopher, avant-garde musician, anti-art activist and exhibited artist often associated with Conceptual Art, Fluxus and Nihilism.-Background:...
and Catherine Christer Hennix
Catherine Christer Hennix
Catherine Christer Hennix is a Swedish-American composer, philosopher, scientist and visual artist associated with drone minimal music. Hennix was affiliated with MIT's AI Lab in the late 1970s and was later employed as research professor of mathematics at SUNY New Paltz. She currently lives in...
and many others.
Young considers The Well Tuned Piano—a permuting composition of themes and improvisations for just-intuned
Just intonation
In music, just intonation is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of small whole numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval. The two notes in any just interval are members of the same harmonic series...
solo piano—to be his masterpiece. Performances have exceeded six hours in length, and so far have been documented twice: first on a five-CD set issued by Gramavision, then a later performance on a DVD on Young's own Just Dreams label. One of the defining works of American musical minimalism, it is strongly influenced by mathematical composition as well as Hindustani classical music practice.
Together Young and Zazeela have realized a long series of semi-permanent "Dream House" installations, which combine Young's just-intuned sine waves in elaborate, symmetrical configurations and Zazeela's quasi-calligraphic light sculptures. The effect is rigorous yet sensual, utilizing aspects of the viewer/auditor's perception to create sensory overload within a barely defined physical space. From January through April 19, 2009, "Dream House" was installed in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York as part of The Third Mind exhibition.
Influences
His first musical influence came in his early childhood in Bern. Young relates that "the very first sound that I recall hearing was the sound of wind blowing under the eaves and around the log extensions at the corners of the log cabin". Continuous sounds—man-made as well as natural—fascinated him as a child. The four pitches he later named the "Dream ChordDream Chord
The Dream Chord is a chord that is used prominently in the works of La Monte Young. It is made up of the pitches G-C-C sharp-D. The chord is prominently featured in Young's compositions "for Brass", "Trio", and "The Four Dreams of China"....
", on which he based many of his mature works, came from his early age appreciation of the continuous sound made by the telephone poles in Bern.
Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
is one of his main influences and until 1956 he planned to devote his career to it. At first, Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz is an American jazz composer and alto saxophonist born in Chicago, Illinois.Generally considered one of the driving forces of Cool Jazz, Konitz has also performed successfully in bebop and avant-garde settings...
and Warne Marsh
Warne Marsh
Warne Marion Marsh was an American tenor saxophonist born in Los Angeles.-Biography:Marsh came from an affluent background: his father was the cinematographer Oliver T. Marsh , and his mother Elizabeth was a violinist...
influenced his alto saxophone
Alto saxophone
The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in 1841. It is smaller than the tenor but larger than the soprano, and is the type most used in classical compositions...
playing style, and later John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
shaped Young's use of the sopranino saxophone
Sopranino saxophone
The sopranino saxophone is one of the smallest members of the saxophone family. A sopranino saxophone is tuned in the key of E, and sounds an octave above the alto saxophone. This saxophone has a sweet sound and although the sopranino is one of the least common of the saxophones in regular use...
. Jazz was, together with Indian music, an important influence on the use of improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
in his works after 1962. La Monte Young discovered Indian music in 1957 on the campus of the UCLA. He cites Ali Akbar Khan
Ali Akbar Khan
Ali Akbar Khan , often referred to as Khansahib or by the title Ustad , was a Hindustani classical musician of the Maihar gharana, known for his virtuosity in playing the sarod...
(sarod
Sarod
The sarod is a stringed musical instrument, used mainly in Indian classical music. Along with the sitar, it is the most popular and prominent instrument in the classical music of Hindustan...
) and Chatur Lal
Chatur Lal
Chatur Lal , was an Indian tabla player. Lal toured with Ravi Shankar, Aashish Khan, Vasant Rai, and Ali Akbar Khan in the 1950s and early 60s and helped popularize the tabla in Western countries. Chatur Lal was born 1925 in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Lal died October 1965...
(tabla
Tabla
The tabla is a popular Indian percussion instrument used in Hindustani classical music and in popular and devotional music of the Indian subcontinent. The instrument consists of a pair of hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres...
) as particularly significant. The discovery of the tambura
Tambura
The tambura, tanpura, or tambora is a long-necked plucked lute . The body shape of the tambura somewhat resembles that of the sitar, but it has no frets – only the open strings are played to accompany other musicians...
, which he learned to play with Pandit Pran Nath
Pandit Pran Nath
Pandit Pran Nath was a Hindustani classical singer and teacher of the Kirana gharana , with a successful American career.-Early life:...
, was a decisive influence in his interest in long sustained sounds. Young also acknowledges the influence of Japanese music, especially Gagaku
Gagaku
Gagaku is a type of Japanese classical music that has been performed at the Imperial Court in Kyoto for several centuries. It consists of three primary repertoires:#Native Shinto religious music and folk songs and dance, called kuniburi no utamai...
, and Pygmy
Pygmy
Pygmy is a term used for various ethnic groups worldwide whose average height is unusually short; anthropologists define pygmy as any group whose adult men grow to less than 150 cm in average height. A member of a slightly taller group is termed "pygmoid." The best known pygmies are the Aka,...
music.
La Monte Young discovered classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
rather late, thanks to his teachers at university. He cites Béla Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
, Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, Perotin
Pérotin
Pérotin , also called Perotin the Great, was a European composer, believed to be French, who lived around the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century. He was the most famous member of the Notre Dame school of polyphony and the ars antiqua style...
, Leonin
Léonin
Léonin is the first known significant composer of polyphonic organum. He was probably French, probably lived and worked in Paris at the Notre Dame Cathedral and was the earliest member of the Notre Dame school of polyphony and the ars antiqua style who is known by name...
, Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
and Organum
Organum
Organum is, in general, a plainchant melody with at least one added voice to enhance the harmony, developed in the Middle Ages. Depending on the mode and form of the chant, a supporting bass line may be sung on the same text, the melody may be followed in parallel motion , or a combination of...
musical style as important influences, but what made the biggest impact on his compositions was the serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
of Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
and Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
.
Young was also keen to pursue his musical endeavors with the help of experimental aids. Cannabis
Cannabis
Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...
, LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
and Peyote
Peyote
Lophophora williamsii , better known by its common name Peyote , is a small, spineless cactus with psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline.It is native to southwestern Texas and Mexico...
played an important part in Young's life from mid-1950s onwards, when he was introduced to them by Terry Jennings
Terry Jennings
Terry Jennings was an American minimalist composer and performer.Terry Jennings was born in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, California, in 1940. Coming from a background in jazz, he played piano, clarinet, and saxophones...
and Billy Higgins
Billy Higgins
Billy Higgins was an American jazz drummer. He played mainly free jazz and hard bop.Higgins was born in Los Angeles, California. Higgins played on Ornette Coleman's first records, beginning in 1958...
. He said that "everybody [he] knew and worked with was very much into drugs as a creative tool as well as a consciousness-expanding tool". This was the case with the musicians of the Theatre of Eternal Music
Theatre of Eternal Music
The Theatre of Eternal Music, sometimes later known as The Dream Syndicate, was a mid 1960s musical group formed by La Monte Young, that focused on experimental drone music. It featured the performances of La Monte Young, John Cale, Angus MacLise, Terry Jennings, Marian Zazeela, Tony Conrad, Billy...
, with whom he "got high for every concert: the whole group". He considers that the cannabis experience helped him open up to where he went with Trio for Strings, though sometimes it proved a disadvantage when performing anything which required keeping track of the number of elapsed bars. He commented on the subject:
Reputation
La Monte Young's use of long tones and exceptionally high volume has been extremely influential with Young's associates: Tony ConradTony Conrad
Tony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
, Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell is an American trumpet player and composer. He is known for his influence in the world music scene and his unusual electronic manipulation of the trumpet sound.-Life and career:...
, Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions...
, Michael Harrison, Henry Flynt
Henry Flynt
Henry Flynt is a philosopher, avant-garde musician, anti-art activist and exhibited artist often associated with Conceptual Art, Fluxus and Nihilism.-Background:...
, Ben Neill
Ben Neill
Ben Neill is a composer and trumpeter who has studied with La Monte Young. His music has been recorded on the Thirsty Ear, Astralwerks, Verve, and Six Degrees labels. Neill spent seven years as the music curator for The Kitchen in New York. He has collaborated with DJ Spooky, David Wojnarowicz...
, Charles Curtis
Charles Curtis (musician)
Cellist Charles Curtis is an internationally renowned performer and composer of a wide variety of music, with particular emphasis on the avant-garde...
, and Catherine Christer Hennix
Catherine Christer Hennix
Catherine Christer Hennix is a Swedish-American composer, philosopher, scientist and visual artist associated with drone minimal music. Hennix was affiliated with MIT's AI Lab in the late 1970s and was later employed as research professor of mathematics at SUNY New Paltz. She currently lives in...
. Young's students include Arnold Dreyblatt
Arnold Dreyblatt
Arnold Dreyblatt is an American composer and visual artist. He studied music with Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young, Alvin Lucier and media art with Steina and Woody Vasulka. He has been based in Berlin, Germany since 1984...
, Daniel James Wolf
Daniel James Wolf
Daniel James Wolf is an American composer.- Studies :Wolf studied composition with Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier, and La Monte Young, as well as musical tunings with Erv Wilson and Douglas Leedy and ethnomusicology . Important contacts with Lou Harrison, John Cage, Walter Zimmermann...
and Lawrence Chandler
Lawrence Chandler
Lawrence Chandler is an American-born musician, composer and sound artist living in London. He studied with La Monte Young, Pauline Oliveros, at The Juilliard School and Goldsmiths College. He was a founder member of Bowery Electric and has worked for Philip Glass.-References:...
. It has also been notably influential on John Cale
John Cale
John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
's contribution to The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...
's sound; Cale has been quoted as saying "LaMonte
Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
was similarly influenced by Young's use of repetition in music. In 1981, he referred to X for Henry Flynt by saying "It really is a cornerstone of everything I've done since". Eno had himself performed the piece as a student in 1960.
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
attended the 1962 première of the static composition by La Monte Young called Trio for Strings and subsequently created his famous series of static films including Kiss, Eat, and Sleep (for which Young was initially commissioned to provide music). Uwe Husslein cites film-maker Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas is a Lithuanian-born American filmmaker, writer, and curator who has often been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema." His work has been exhibited in museums and festivals across Europe and America.-Biography:...
, who accompanied Warhol to the Trio premiere and claims that Warhol's static films were directly inspired by the performance. In 1963 Warhol, Young, and Walter de Maria
Walter De Maria
-Early life and career:De Maria was born in Albany, California on October 1, 1935. He studied history and art at the University of California, Berkeley from 1953 to 1959. Although trained as a painter, De Maria soon turned to sculpture and began using other media...
briefly formulated a musical group, which included lyrics written by Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...
.
The album Dreamweapon: An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music
Dreamweapon: An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music
2004 re-issue -References:...
by the band Spacemen 3
Spacemen 3
Spacemen 3 were an English alternative rock band, formed in 1982 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Peter Kember and Jason Pierce. Their music was "colorfully mind-altering, but not in the sense of the acid rock of the '60s; instead, the band developed its own minimalistic psychedelia"...
is influenced by La Monte Young's concept of Dream Music, evidenced by their inclusion of his notes on the jacket.
Bowery Electric
Bowery Electric
Bowery Electric was an American indie band formed in New York's East Village in 1992 by Lawrence Chandler and Martha Schwendener.-Music:Bowery Electric's music defies easy classification...
, co-founded by Chandler, dedicated the song "Postscript" on the 1996 album Beat to Young and Riley.
Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
's 1975 album Metal Machine Music
Metal Machine Music
Metal Machine Music, subtitled *The Amine β Ring, is the fifth solo album by Lou Reed. It was originally released as a double album by RCA Records in 1975...
lists (misspelling included) "Drone cognizance and harmonic possibilities vis a vis Lamont Young's Dream Music" among its "Specifications".
Drone rock
Drone music
Drone music is a minimalist musical style that emphasizes the use of sustained or repeated sounds, notes, or tone-clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece compared to other musics...
pioneer Dylan Carlson
Dylan Carlson
Dylan Carlson is the lead guitarist, lead singer, and only constant member of the Drone doom group Earth.Carlson was born in Seattle, Washington, United States. His father worked for the Department of Defense, and, as a result, as a child he moved quite frequently, living in Philadelphia, Texas,...
has stated Young's work as being a major influence to him.
Quotes about Young
- "If you were going across the prairie in a Conestoga wagonConestoga wagonThe Conestoga wagon is a heavy, broad-wheeled covered wagon that was used extensively during the late 18th century and the 19th century in the United States and sometimes in Canada as well. It was large enough to transport loads up to 8 tons , and was drawn by horses, mules or oxen...
, La Monte was the father and he always had a wife and everything was like his scene. Everybody was there playing with him, but he was the hierarchical chief." Billy NameBilly NameBilly Name, , is an American photographer, filmmaker and lighting designer. He was the archivist of the Warhol Factory, from 1964 to 1970. His brief romance and subsequent friendship with Andy Warhol led to substantial collaboration on Warhol's work, including his films, paintings and sculpture...
List of works
- Scherzo in a minor (c. 1953), piano;
- Rondo in d minor (c. 1953), piano;
- Annod (1953–55), dance band or jazz ensemble;
- Wind Quintet (1954);
- Variations (1955), string quartet;
- Young's Blues (c. 1955-59);
- Fugue in d minor (c. 1956), violin, viola, cello;
- Op. 4 (1956), brass, percussion;
- Five Small Pieces for String Quartet, On Remembering A Naiad, 1. A Wisp, 2. A Gnarl, 3. A Leaf, 4. A Twig, 5. A Tooth (1956);
- Canon (1957), any two instruments;
- Fugue in a minor (1957), any four instruments;
- Fugue in c minor (1957), organ or harpsichord;
- Fugue in eb minor (1957), brass or other instruments;
- Fugue in f minor (1957), two pianos;
- Prelude in f minor (1957), piano;
- Variations for Alto Flute, Bassoon, Harp and String Trio (1957);
- for Brass (1957), brass octet;
- for Guitar (1958), guitar;
- Trio for Strings (1958), violin, viola, cello;
- Study (c.1958-59), violin, viola (unfinished);
- Sarabande (1959), keyboard, brass octet, string quartet, orchestra, others;
- Studies I, II, and III (1959), piano;
- Vision (1959), piano, 2 brass, recorder, 4 bassoons, violin, viola, cello, contrabass;
- [Untitled] (1959–60), live friction sounds;
- [Untitled] (1959–62), jazz-drone improvisations;
- Poem for Chairs, Tables, Benches, etc. (1960), chairs, tables, benches and unspecified sound sources;
- 2 Sounds (1960), recorded friction sounds;
- Compositions 1960 #s 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 15 (1960), performance pieces;
- Piano Pieces for David Tudor #s 1, 2, 3 (1960), performance pieces;
- Invisible Poem Sent to Terry Jennings (1960), performance pieces;
- Piano Pieces for Terry Riley #s 1, 2 (1960), performance pieces;
- Target for Jasper Johns (1960), piano;
- Arabic Numeral (Any Integer) to H.F. (1960), piano(s) or gong(s) or ensembles of at least 45 instruments of the same timbre, or combinations of the above, or orchestra;
- Compositions 1961 #s 1 - 29 (1961), performance pieces;
- Young's Dorian Blues in Bb (c. 1960 or 1961);
- Young's Dorian Blues in G (c. 1960-1961–present);
- Young's Aeolian Blues in Bb (Summer 1961);
- Death Chant (1961), male voices, carillon or large bells;
- Response to Henry Flynt Work Such That No One Knows What's Going On (c. 1962);
- [Improvisations] (1962–64), sopranino saxophone, vocal drones, various instruments. Realizations include: Bb Dorian Blues, The Fifth/Fourth Piece, ABABA, EbDEAD, The Overday, Early Tuesday Morning Blues, and Sunday Morning Blues;
- Poem on Dennis' Birthday (1962), unspecified instruments;
- The Four Dreams of China (The Harmonic Versions) (1962), including The First Dream of China, The First Blossom of Spring, The First Dream of The High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer, The Second Dream of The High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer, tunable, sustaining instruments of like timbre, in multiples of 4;
- Studies in The Bowed Disc (1963), gong;
- Pre-Tortoise Dream Music (1964), sopranino saxophone, soprano saxophone, vocal drone, violin, viola, sine waves;
- The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys (1964–present), voices, various instruments, sine waves. Realizations include: Prelude to The Tortoise, The Tortoise Droning Selected Pitches from The Holy Numbers for The Two Black Tigers, The Green Tiger and The Hermit, The Tortoise Recalling The Drone of The Holy Numbers as They Were Revealed in The Dreams of The Whirlwind and The Obsidian Gong and Illuminated by The Sawmill, The Green Sawtooth Ocelot and The High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer;
- The Well-Tuned Piano (1964-73-81-present). Each realization is a separately titled and independent composition. Over 60 realizations to date. World première: Rome 1974. American première: New York 1975;
- Sunday Morning Dreams (1965), tunable sustaining instruments and/or sine waves;
- Composition 1965 $50 (1965), performance piece;
- Map of 49's Dream The Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (1966–present), voices, various instruments, sine waves;
- Bowed Mortar Relays (1964) (realization of Composition 1960 # 9), Soundtracks for Andy Warhol Films "Eat," "Sleep," "Kiss," "Haircut," tape;
- The Two Systems of Eleven Categories (1966–present), theory work;
- Chords from The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys (1967–present), sine waves. Realizations include: Intervals and Triads from Map of 49's Dream The Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery (1967), sound environment;
- Robert C. Scull Commission (1967), sine waves;
- Claes and Patty Oldenburg Commission (1967), sine waves;
- Betty Freeman Commission (1967), sound and light box & sound environment;
- Drift Studies (1967–present), sine waves;
- for Guitar (Just Intonation Version) (1978), guitar;
- for Guitar Prelude and Postlude (1980), one or more guitars;
- The Subsequent Dreams of China (1980), tunable, sustaining instruments of like timbre, in multiples of 8;
- The Gilbert B. Silverman Commission to Write, in Ten Words or Less, a Complete History of Fluxus Including Philosophy, Attitudes, Influences, Purposes (1981);
- Chords from The Well-Tuned Piano (1981–present), sound environments. Includes: The Opening Chord (1981), The Magic Chord (1984), The Magic Opening Chord (1984);
- Trio for Strings (1983) Versions for string quartet, string orchestra, and violin, viola, cello, bass;
- Trio for Strings, trio basso version (1984), viola, cello, bass;
- Trio for Strings, sextet version (1984);
- Trio for Strings, String Octet Version (1984), 2 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos, 2 basses;
- Trio for Strings Postlude from The Subsequent Dreams of China (c. 1984), bowed strings;
- The Melodic Versions (1984) of The Four Dreams of China (1962), including The First Dream of China, The First Blossom of Spring, The First Dream of The High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer, The Second Dream of The High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer, tunable, sustaining instruments of like timbre, in multiples of 4;
- The Melodic Versions (1984) of The Subsequent Dreams of China, (1980) including The High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer's Second Dream of The First Blossom of Spring, tunable, sustaining instruments of like timbre, in multiples of 8;
- The Big Dream (1984), sound environment;
- Orchestral Dreams (1985), orchestra;
- The Big Dream Symmetries #s 1 - 6 (1988), sound environments;
- The Symmetries in Prime Time from 144 to 112 with 119 (1989), including The Close Position Symmetry, The Symmetry Modeled on BDS # 1, The Symmetry Modeled on BDS # 4, The Symmetry Modeled on BDS # 7, The Romantic Symmetry, The Romantic Symmetry (over a 60 cycle base), The Great Romantic Symmetry, sound environments;
- The Lower Map of The Eleven's Division in The Romantic Symmetry (over a 60 cycle base) in Prime Time from 144 to 112 with 119 (1989–1990), unspecified instruments and sound environment;
- The Prime Time Twins (1989–90) including The Prime Time Twins in The Ranges 144 to 112; 72 to 56 and 38 to 28; Including The Special Primes 1 and 2 (1989);
- The Prime Time Twins in The Ranges 576 to 448; 288 to 224; 144 to 112; 72 to 56; 36 to 28; with The Range Limits 576, 448, 288, 224, 144, 56 and 28 (1990), sound environments;
- Chronos Kristalla (1990), string quartet;
- The Young Prime Time Twins (1991), including The Young Prime Time Twins in The Ranges 2304 to 1792; 1152 to 896; 576 to 448; 288 to 224; 144 to 112; 72 to 56; 36 to 28; Including or Excluding The Range Limits 2304, 1792, 1152, 576, 448, 288, 224, 56 and 28 (1991),
- The Young Prime Time Twins in The Ranges 2304 to 1792; 1152 to 896; 576 to 448; 288 to 224; 144 to 112; 72 to 56; 36 to 28; 18 to 14; Including or Excluding The Range Limits 2304, 1792, 1152, 576, 448, 288, 224, 56, 28 and 18; and Including The Special Young Prime Twins Straddling The Range Limits 1152, 72 and 18 (1991),
- The Young Prime Time Twins in The Ranges 1152 to 896; 576 to 448; 288 to 224; 144 to 112; 72 to 56; 36 to 28; Including or Excluding The Range Limits 1152, 576, 448, 288, 224, 56 and 28; with One of The Inclusory Optional Bases: 7; 8; 14:8; 18:14:8; 18:16:14; 18:16:14:8; 9:7:4; or The Empty Base (1991), sound environments;
- The Symmetries in Prime Time from 288 to 224 with 279, 261 and 2 X 119 with One of The Inclusory Optional Bases: 7; 8; 14:8; 18:14:8; 18:16:14; 18:16:14:8; 9:7:4; or The Empty Base (1991–present), including The Symmetries in Prime Time When Centered above and below The Lowest Term Primes in The Range 288 to 224 with The Addition of 279 and 261 in Which The Half of The Symmetric Division Mapped above and Including 288 Consists of The Powers of 2 Multiplied by The Primes within The Ranges of 144 to 128, 72 to 64 and 36 to 32 Which Are Symmetrical to Those Primes in Lowest Terms in The Half of The Symmetric Division Mapped below and Including 224 within The Ranges 126 to 112, 63 to 56 and 31.5 to 28 with The Addition of 119 and with One of The Inclusory Optional Bases: 7; 8; 14:8; 18:14:8; 18:16:14; 18:16:14:8; 9:7:4; or The Empty Base (1991), sound environments;
- Annod (1953–55) 92 X 19 Version for Zeitgeist (1992), alto saxophone, vibraphone, piano, bass, drums, including 92 XII 22 Two-Part Harmony and The 1992 XII Annod Backup Riffs;
- Just Charles & Cello in The Romantic Chord (2002–2003), cello, pre-recorded cello drones and light design;
- Raga Sundara, vilampit khayal set in Raga Yaman KalyanKalyani (raga)Kalyan or Kalyani, originally called Yaman, is a melakarta rāga in the Carnatic music of South India, and is also an important raga in Hindustani music.-Kalyani in Carnatic music:...
(2002–present), voices, various instruments, tambura drone; - Trio for Strings (1958) Just Intonation Version (1984-2001-2005), 2 cellos, 2 violins, 2 violas;
Discography
- Inside the Dream Syndicate, Volume One: Day of Niagara with John CaleJohn CaleJohn Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
, Tony ConradTony ConradTony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
, Marian ZazeelaMarian ZazeelaMarian Zazeela is a light-artist, designer, painter and musician based in New York City.-Life and work:Born to Russian-Jewish parents and raised in the Bronx, Marian Zazeela was educated at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and at Bennington College where she...
, and Angus MacliseAngus MacLiseAngus MacLise was an American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher probably best known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground.-Biography:...
[Recorded 1965] (Table of the Elements, 2000. Bootleg recording of dubious title, credits, and quality Not authorized by La Monte Young)http://www.melafoundation.org/statemen.htm - 31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM Munich from Map of 49's Dream The Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery; 23 VIII 64 2:50:45-3:11 AM the Volga Delta from Studies in The Bowed Disc [a.k.a. The Black Record] (Edition X, West Germany, 1969)
- La Monte Young Marian Zazeela The Theatre of Eternal Music - Dream House 78' 17" (Shandar, 1974)
- The Well Tuned Piano 81 X 25 (6:17.50 - 11:18:59 PM NYC) (Gramavision, 1988)
- 90 XII C. 9:35-10:52 PM NYC, The Melodic Version (1984) of The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer From the Four Dreams of China (Gramavision, 1991)
- Just Stompin': Live at The Kitchen (Gramavision, 1993)
- The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath" (82 V11 15 c. 6:35 - c.7:35 PM + c.6:37-6:52:30 PM NYC) (Just Dreams JD001) 1999
- The Well-Tuned Piano in The Magenta Lights (87 V 10 6:43:00 PM 87 V 11 01:07:45 AM NYC) (Just Dreams, DVD-9, 2000)
Compilations
- Small Pieces (5) for String Quartet ("On Remembering a Naiad") (1956) [included on Arditti String Quartet Edition, No. 15: U.S.A. (Disques Montaigne, 1993)]
- Sarabande for any instruments (1959) [included on Just West Coast (Bridge, 1993)]
- "89 VI 8 c. 1:45-1:52 AM Paris Encore" from Poem for Tables, Chairs and Benches, etc. (1960) [included on Flux: Tellus Audio Cassette MagazineTellus Audio Cassette MagazineLaunched from the Lower East Side, Manhattan, in 1983 as a subscription only bimonthly publication, the Tellus cassette series took full advantage of the popular cassette medium to promote cutting-edge downtown music, documenting the New York scene and advancing experimental composers of the time...
#24] - Excerpt "31 I 69 c. 12:17:33-12:24:33 PM NYC" [included on Aspen #8's flexi-disc (1970)] from Drift Study; "31 I 69 c. 12:17:33-12:49:58 PM NYC" from Map of 49's Dream The Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals (1969) [included on Ohm and Ohm+ (Ellipsis Arts, 2000 & 2005)]
- 566 for Henry FlyntHenry FlyntHenry Flynt is a philosopher, avant-garde musician, anti-art activist and exhibited artist often associated with Conceptual Art, Fluxus and Nihilism.-Background:...
[included on Music in Germany 1950–2000: Experimental Music Theatre (Eurodisc 173675, 7-CD set, 2004)]
See also
- Terry RileyTerry RileyTerrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
- Steve ReichSteve ReichStephen 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...
- Philip GlassPhilip GlassPhilip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
- Angus MacLiseAngus MacLiseAngus MacLise was an American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher probably best known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground.-Biography:...
- Tony ConradTony ConradTony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
- Arnold DreyblattArnold DreyblattArnold Dreyblatt is an American composer and visual artist. He studied music with Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young, Alvin Lucier and media art with Steina and Woody Vasulka. He has been based in Berlin, Germany since 1984...
- Drone musicDrone musicDrone music is a minimalist musical style that emphasizes the use of sustained or repeated sounds, notes, or tone-clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece compared to other musics...
- Minimalism (music)
External links
- La Monte Young page on Mela Foundation
- La Monte Young page on Other Minds
- La Monte Young page on UbuWeb
- La Monte Young biography at Kunst im Regenbogenstadl
- La Monte Young on Record from The WireThe Wire (magazine)The Wire is a British avant garde music magazine, founded in 1982 by jazz promoter Anthony Wood and journalist Chrissie Murray. The magazine initially concentrated on contemporary jazz and improvised music, but branched out in the early 1990s to various types of experimental music...
magazine - Farley, WilliamWilliam FarleyWilliam Farley is an American film director, based in San Francisco. He directed Whoopi Goldberg in her first screen role, in the ensemble piece Citizen : I'm Not Losing My Mind, I'm Giving It Away .-Biography:...
(Dir.). In Between the Notes: A Portrait of Pandit Pran Nath, Master Indian Musician. Video documentary produced by Other MindsOther MindsOther Minds is a San Francisco based private 501 not-for-profit organization, founded in 1992 by Charles Amirkhanian and Jim Newman...
. - Gann, Kyle. “La Monte Young.”
(Ed.). “An Anthology of Chance Operations.” Something Else, 1963. (PDF version of the original publication on UbuWeb
UbuWeb
UbuWeb is a large web-based educational resource for avant-garde material available on the internet, founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives.-Philosophy:...
)
- Young, La Monte. “Notes on Continuous Periodic Composite Sound Waveform Environment Realizations.” AspenAspen (magazine)Aspen was a multimedia magazine published on an irregular schedule by Phyllis Johnson from 1965 to 1971. Described by its publisher as "the first three-dimensional magazine," each issue came in a customized box or folder filled with materials in a variety of formats, including booklets, "flexidisc"...
8 — The Fluxus Issue, edited by Dan Graham, designed by George Maciunas (1970–71). The issue also features a sound recording of Young’s Drift Study 31 1 69. - Young, La Monte. 89 VI 8 c. 1:42-1:52 AM Paris Encore (audio duration 10:33). Tellus #24 Flux Tellus, published on the Tellus Audio Cassette MagazineTellus Audio Cassette MagazineLaunched from the Lower East Side, Manhattan, in 1983 as a subscription only bimonthly publication, the Tellus cassette series took full advantage of the popular cassette medium to promote cutting-edge downtown music, documenting the New York scene and advancing experimental composers of the time...
. - link to page at Guggenheim Museum in New York where Young is represented in the exhibition The Third Mind and during which he will perform on March 14 & 21, 2009.
Interviews
- Golden, Barbara. “Conversation with La Monte Young.” eContact! 12.2 — Interviews (2) (April 2010). Montréal: CECCanadian Electroacoustic CommunityFounded in 1986, La Communauté électroacoustique canadienne / The Canadian Electroacoustic Community is Canada’s national electroacoustic / computer music / sonic arts organization and as such is dedicated to promoting this progressive art form in its broadest definition: from “pure” acousmatic...
. - Oteri, Frank J. “La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela at the Dream House.” Interview with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela from 13–14 August 2003. NewMusicBoxNewMusicBoxNewMusicBox is an e-zine launched by the American Music Center on May 1, 1999. The magazine includes interviews and articles concerning American Contemporary Music, composers, improvisers, and musicians....
— People & Ideas in Profileconversation with Frank J. Oteri, 1 October 2003 (includes video). - La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela on WNYC’s New Sounds #449. Audio of a 1990 radio show featuring an interview and sound recordings.