Originally coined by minimal artist Steve Roden

Steve Roden

Steve Roden is an American sound and visual artist. Best known for pioneering the lowercase style of music, where quiet sounds are amplified amid long stretches of silence, his huge discography includes Forms of Paper, which was commissioned by the Los Angeles public library.-External links:* * at...

, lowercase is an extreme form of ambient

Ambient music

Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...

 minimalism

Minimalist music

Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....

 in which very quiet sounds bookend long stretches of silence. Roden started the movement with an album entitled Forms of Paper

Forms of Paper

Forms of Paper is an experimental musical piece by Steve Roden created solely from heavily distorted sounds of paper being handled. It is considered to be the first lowercase album, an ambient music movement where extremely quiet sounds are amplified using a computer.-Development:Forms of Paper was...

, in which he made recordings of himself handling paper in various ways. These recordings were actually commissioned by the Hollywood branch of the Los Angeles Public Library

Los Angeles Public Library

The Los Angeles Public Library system serves the residents of Los Angeles, California, United States. With over 6 million volumes, LAPL is one of the largest publicly funded library systems in the world. The system is overseen by a Board of Library Commissioners with five members appointed by the...

.

Many artists have contributed to the lowercase movement, including electronic music pioneer and educator Kim Cascone

Kim Cascone

Kim Cascone is an American composer of electronic music who is best known for his releases in the ambient, industrial and electro-acoustic genre on his own record company, Silent Records...

, Tetsu Inoue

Tetsu Inoue

Tetsu Inoue is a producer of electronic music. His style could be described as ambient with a heavy minimalist influence. He has lived in Japan, San Francisco, and New York, and has collaborated with musicians such as Pete Namlook, Bill Laswell, Andrew Deutsch, Jonah Sharp, and Taylor Deupree.His...

, Bhob Rainey, Richard Chartier

Richard Chartier

Richard Chartier is a sound/installation artist and graphic designer. Chartier is works in reductionist microsound electronic music, a form of extreme minimalism in which the music is sometimes very quiet, sometimes very sparse, often both.-About:Since 1998, Chartier has created recordings for...

, Björk

Björk

Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...

 and Bernhard Günter

Bernhard Günter

Bernhard Günter is a German post-Cageian composer associated with microwave and lowercase movements or styles of minimalist composition. He is influenced by Morton Feldman....

.

Some of the labels that publish lowercase music include Bremsstrahlung Recordings, Trente Oiseaux

Trente Oiseaux

Trente Oiseaux is a record label founded by experimental musician Bernhard Günter in 1995.Early releases featured musicians such as Francisco López, Roel Meelkop, John Duncan, Jim O'Rourke, Daniel Menche and Günter himself....

, 12k

12k

12k is an independent record label, based in Pound Ridge, New York, USA. It was founded on January 1, 1997 by Taylor Deupree. The label focuses on experimental electronic music, specifically on digital minimalism and contemporary forms; as of January 2007, it has released over 40 CDs and become one...

, and Raster-Noton

Raster-Noton

Raster-Noton is a German electronic music record label founded in 1996 by Olaf Bender, Carsten Nicolai and Frank Bretschneider. Based in Chemnitz, Germany, Raster-Noton merged in 1999 from separate labels Rastermusik and Noton .The collective label's aesthetic focus is rhythmic, minimal electronic...

, which features famed composer Ryuichi Sakamoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto

After working as a session musician with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi in 1977, the trio formed the internationally successful electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. Known for their seminal influence on electronic music, the group helped pioneer electronic genres such as...

 in collaboration with Carsten Nicolai, a.k.a. Alva Noto

Alva Noto

Alva Noto is a stage name of sound artist Carsten Nicolai who uses art and music as complementary tools to create microscopic views of creative processes. Another alias he uses is Noto...

.

External links

• Steve Roden
• Bernhard Günter
• Richard Chartier
• 12k
• LINE
• raster-noton
• alva noto
• Bremsstrahlung Recordings
• lowercase-sound (Electronic mailing list
  Electronic mailing list
  An electronic mailing list is a special usage of email that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. It is similar to a traditional mailing list — a list of names and addresses — as might be kept by an organization for sending publications to...
  
  )
• Whisper the Songs of Silence (article in Wired
  Wired (magazine)
  Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
  
  )