Lesson video

Hi there, everyone.

Welcome to this unit on minimalism.

This first lesson is called "The Key Features of Minimalism," and it's from our "Compose and Create" series, where we are creating and combining minimalist cells.

My name is Mr. Croughan.

I'm looking forward to guiding you through the process of eventually creating our own minimalist cells.

By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to identify key features of minimalism.

Let's begin then by looking at our keywords.

We'll start with the obvious one, minimalism.

This is a musical genre originating in the 1960s, and it includes the layering of multiple short, repeated musical ideas known as cells that subtly change over time.

Minimalist, a composer who creates new music in the style of minimalism.

A cell, this is a simple musical pattern that can be rhythmic or melodic.

It's what we would call an ostinato, and in minimalism, we call it a cell.

So an ostinato then, that repeating musical pattern, which can be rhythmic or melodic as well, and repetition, that reusing of musical ideas, patterns, or phrases to make the music more memorable, to add impact, or create a musical structure.

There are three learning cycles in today's lesson.

The first one's warming up, so we're ready for music.

Then we will introduce minimalism, and then we will look at a piece of work called "Spring's Embrace." Let's begin by warming up then so that we are good and ready.

Warming up, it doesn't just warm up our voices.

It also helps us focus, warm up our bodies and our minds so that we're ready to listen and focus and work together.

We're gonna warm up our vocal folds very gently.

We don't wanna give our voice any injury at any point.

It's a very healthy thing for us to do.

And we're developing our sense of pulse, our understanding of rhythm, and preparing our minds for learning.

So first, we'll warm our body up.

This is gonna help us release any tension.

It helps us to stand with a good singing posture.

And I'd like to make sure you have some space around you and choose a leader to be the action leader.

You're gonna use the backing track, and you simply will watch the action leader's four-beat actions.

They might create a one, two, three, four, and you will copy it with the same four beats, and they can do any simple four repeated pattern that they would like to with their body.

What actions can you choose that you think will warm your body up safely? Are we just gonna keep it up here? We've got some stretches.

Have we got, as long as it's four with clear beats each time so they're easy to copy on the pulse.

Are you ready? Here comes the track.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music ends) Next, we'll warm up the muscles in our face.

This helps us feel quite relaxed.

If our face muscles have been gently warmed, we hold less tension.

Quite nice to hold less tension, especially in our jaw and our neck.

And so yawning, we know that yawning can actually help us feel quite relaxed.

We yawn when we need to take more breaths, so we'll begin by taking a deep breath in.

(inhales) We're filling our lungs, and our shoulders stay relaxed.

Our lungs are behind our rib cage, and they're more towards the back than they are the front.

So as we breathe in, (inhales) we feel our rib cage swing open, but our shoulders stay where they are.

Once we've breathed in, we are going to yawn out.

Are we ready, breathing in.

(inhales) (Mr. Croughan yawns) Lovely.

Night, everyone, that'll do.

No, no, no, time to repeat that where you are.

Have a little pause and just do that a couple of times, off you go.

By doing it a couple of times, our jaw starts to relax more, and our neck can feel more relaxed too.

Now we'll breathe.

When we control our breathing, it helps us sing longer phrases safely, more musically perhaps, and we're helping to protect the muscles that support our voice.

I would like you to place your hand between your belly button and your rib cage, just roundabout there, and we're going to pant like a dog.

We are pushing the air out with each pant.

So to give you an idea, we've all seen a dog with its head out the car window, like (pants) and it's this sort of idea, which is a (pants) and what you'll notice is some of the muscular work happening where your hand is.

See if you can feel your diaphragm moving up and down.

I'll pause and let you do that.

I don't need to see you giving your finest dog impression.

So pause here and work on that for maximum a minute, off you go.

And now we know where our breathing is coming from, how it's supported, we're ready to warm up our voice.

Now vocal exercise can helpfully warm our vocal folds, preparing us for singing and developing our vocal strength.

This helps prevent us from any injury with those tiny muscles in our throat.

So check in with your posture, first of all.

Make sure we are presenting ourselves well.

There's not tension there.

We'll take a nice deep breath in, and we'll do a sigh.

So not quite a yawn, but it's gonna go from a high pitch to a low pitch.

I'll give you one example like this.

(inhales) (Mr. Croughan yawns) Marvelous.

So a big old sigh.

I started pretty high, I finished pretty low.

It's showing that range, working right through that vocal range, so pause and practice that where you are, off you go.

And exercises like that can help us reach those higher notes and those lower notes, letting us explore our vocal range safely with an open vowel sound and an open mouth and plenty of space.

Chanting, this is really useful when we are trying to speak very clearly and improve our diction and articulation.

We're gonna play "Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar," but I'd like you to play it by speaking very, very clearly indeed.

There's a video about to come on.

This will explain the rules, and it's quite fun to watch.

Are you ready? Here it comes.

♪ Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar ♪ ♪ Alex stole the cookie from the cookie jar ♪ ♪ Who, me ♪ ♪ Yes, you ♪ ♪ Couldn't have been ♪ ♪ Then who ♪ ♪ Lucas stole the cookie from the cookie jar ♪ ♪ Who, me ♪ ♪ Yes, you ♪ ♪ Couldn't have been ♪ ♪ Then who ♪ ♪ Jacob stole the cookie from the cookie jar ♪ ♪ Who, me ♪ ♪ Yes, you ♪ ♪ Couldn't have been ♪ ♪ Then who ♪ ♪ Andeep stole the cookie from the cookie jar ♪ ♪ Who, me ♪ ♪ Yes, you ♪ ♪ Couldn't have been ♪ ♪ Then who ♪ ♪ Izzy stole the cookie ♪ <v ->So now you've seen that, play that where you are</v> in the groups that you're in.

It'll be more than four of you, obviously.

You can play in a circle, and hopefully it'll help you feel more alert and focused, and if you are speaking very clearly to the pulse, your mouth will feel warm and stretched too.

Off you go and play that where you are.

Now we're going to think about texture, and we're gonna think about how we work together as a team because we are gonna create a round, eventually, in four parts.

We'll begin by singing in unison with a chant, H-E-L-L-O.

I'm gonna pop the track on, and I would like you to join along in unison.

Are you ready? Here it comes.

♪ H-E-L-L-O ♪ ♪ This is how we say hello ♪ ♪ March your feet to the beat ♪ ♪ Can you feel your heartbeat ♪ ♪ H-E-L-L-O ♪ ♪ This is how we say hello ♪ ♪ March your feet to the beat ♪ ♪ Can you feel your heartbeat ♪ ♪ H-E-L-L-O ♪ ♪ This is how we say hello ♪ ♪ March your feet to the beat ♪ ♪ Can you feel your heartbeat ♪ ♪ This is how we say hello ♪ ♪ March your feet to the beat ♪ ♪ Can you feel your heartbeat ♪ <v ->And now, put yourself into four groups,</v> get the teacher just to chop the classroom into four, and then groups one, two, three, and four, come in one line later.

So group one will begin, "H-E-L-L-O." As they are moving on to, "This is how we say hello," group two come in with their "H-E-L-L-O," group three and group four.

Then you are all singing one line later than each group as a round, and it's chanted.

The thing that keeps you in time is keeping to the steady pulse, so make sure you are listening.

Pause here and work on that for a moment where you are, off you go.

Super.

So as we finish our warmups, we can check in with our body, perhaps if our posture's good, our feet are sort of between hip and shoulder width apart, our hands are loosely by our sides, so we're not adding any tension to our shoulders.

Shoulders feel nice and relaxed.

Our face and our neck might feel warm 'cause they've worked a bit, and we've tried to take some of the tension out of our jaw and our neck, and we might feel focused, and in this lesson, that's particularly useful.

We want to be able to be ready to concentrate.

We're alert, we've got rid of some tension, we've worked together, and now we are ready to focus, so here we go.

In our second learning cycle now, we will introduce minimalism, and we'll begin by listening to "Spring's Embrace." This is a piece of music composed in 2024 by Marty Gionis and performed and recorded by the Paraorchestra in 2025.

Now the Paraorchestra are a Bristol-based ensemble of musicians, both disabled and non-disabled, and sometimes those musicians will play adaptive instruments.

That means that an instrument has been adapted or created to meet the needs of the individual player.

While you're listening, I'd like you to think about, you can make some notes if you like on a whiteboard, on a scrap paper, or if you have music books, about how the music makes you feel, what instruments you can hear, what you notice about the texture and the structure, and what the music perhaps reminds you of.

So the overall feel of it, any instruments you can hear, something about the texture, that layering up of sound, and the structure, how the song's organized, the music's organized, and what that music reminds you of.

I'm gonna pop the track on now.

Have a listen, make some notes.

Here it comes.

(intriguing music) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music ends) Some things you might have noted down about "Spring's Embrace," there's lots of repetition.

The texture builds, it gets thicker, and then it gets thinner again.

The piece starts simple and gets busier in the middle.

There might be some instruments you've not heard or seen before.

Parts of the piece are very memorable, and ultimately, "Spring's Embrace" is inspired by minimalism.

Now minimalism, an art form, began in America in the 1960s, and it's an art form that cannot just be found in music, but also in art, in design, literature, and in other aspects of our lives too.

Minimalism in music means short, repeating musical patterns.

These are cells that are repeated, stripping music back to its basics, hence the word minimal.

Layering of these simple cells that we're talking about that can have gradual changes over time, and often using limited musical material, that could be ideas or instruments, just stripping it right back and keeping it simple and effective.

Often it's been described that minimalism offers a sort of hypnotic effect to the listener, and these cells kinda shift over time.

"Clapping Music," this is a minimalist piece of music composed by Steve Reich in 1972, and it's an example of minimalism that uses just two musicians and one instrument, which is body percussion, (claps) clapping.

You're gonna have a listen or a watch.

Go and find "Clapping Music" and tell me what else you notice.

It's about three minutes long-ish, so pause here and watch that where you are.

Now when we think about minimalism and stripping things back, "Clapping Music" by Steve Reich has one repeating musical cell.

So it begins with the piece as both musicians clap in unison, they're both clapping that same rhythm, that same cell, at the same time.

One musician does not change that.

They continue to clap that cell throughout the whole piece, and the other musician gradually moves the cell along by slightly shifting along the rhythm every few repeats.

And because he's moving forwards, and there's a finite amount of beats in that rhythm, gradually, three minutes later, they're back in unison again.

And that is called, the technical term for that is phase shifting.

I'd like you to now choose a phrase that will help you remember the rhythm of the cell in Steve Reich's minimalist piece, "Clapping Music." So two examples.

♪ We are all clapping just one cell ♪ ♪ We are all clapping just one cell ♪ (Mr. Croughan claps rhythmically) Or for the same ♪ Minimal music just like this ♪ ♪ Minimal music just like this ♪ Or you can create your own.

And I'd like you to clap and chant at the same time.

So you're getting ♪ Minimal music just like this ♪ ♪ Minimal music just like this ♪ And so on.

♪ Keeping that steady pulse ♪ ♪ Without getting quicker as a class ♪ So pause there and try that where you are.

If you'd like to, you could listen again to the piece to try and get the answer to this question, and it's, if you noticed how many times you hear the cell in unison in "Clapping Music," how many times does that happen before one cell begins to shift? So we're listening, you only need to listen to the beginning part, and how many times is that cell played in unison before you notice the first shift? Is it five, six, or seven? Pause here and let me know.

And with that active listening there, you can hear it repeated six times before the second performer shifts the rhythm along.

On the screen is a slide you've seen before, but there are now blanks.

I would like you to use what you've learned so far of minimalism to complete those sentences by filling in the blanks.

So pause here and off you go.

Let's see how well you did.

Short, repeating musical patterns or cells, stripping back music to its basics, and it's the layering of simple cells with gradual changes over time.

Don't worry if you've not got the exact word.

If you've got the meaning correct, then that's also fine.

Using minimal music materials, the clue in minimalism, or ideas, it can have a hypnotic effect.

And it is the, and this is the tricky one, shifting cells over time.

If you've got all of them, fantastic, well done.

"Spring's Embrace," now the last of our learning cycles.

We'll listen again, and we want to think about how has this been influenced by minimalism, and as you listen, it's quite nice to hum along gently to the electric viola.

See that being played there? It's the white instrument, just to help you feel connected to just the simplicity of repeated cells.

Here it comes.

(intriguing music) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music continues) (intriguing music ends) What a beautiful sound.

Now, the violin begins the piece.

It plays a four-note ascending cell.

Siobhan is playing that on bowed strings, and that is repeating.

Then the shaker comes in in percussion, and that's then added to by the snare and the bass drum.

And so we're starting to feel the texture becoming thicker.

The electric viola enters next.

That's got a slower ascending three-note cell that is repeating, and then Clarence Adoo on Headspace, and the French horn are playing the same cell.

So we've got different cells joining together as the texture becomes thicker.

There's also some synths.

Those electronics give the piece a grounded feel, and there's the opportunity on that instrument to create exciting improvisations.

And then from the clarinet come these fast, interjecting flutters that's inspired by that first cell we heard.

Quick check for you then.

What minimalist influences can you hear in "Spring's Embrace"? There's one correct answer.

The suggestions are, layers of many simple repeated rhythmic cells, simple descending in pitch repeated melodic cells, or simple ascending repeated melodic cells.

Which one do you think, A, B, or C? Which the one you think it is? Have a quick check.

And if you are all suggesting C, you're absolutely right.

We hear these cells are three or four notes going up in pitch, ascending, and they are melodic because they're not rhythmic.

Very well done.

Your final task of the day, you're going to answer these questions.

How many different cells can you hear? And do any instruments play the same cell? Question two, which instrument do you think plays the main or perhaps most important cell? How many different pitches make up that cell? And which instrument cell inspired the clarinet's improvised-feel phrase? What impact does the drums' entry have on the music? So this isn't a right or wrong answer, but it might, you might have some creative license here, but also, we are thinking about a musical term in there too.

And how does the texture change throughout the piece? Okay, they're your questions.

Pause here, answer those, and we'll come back with some answers in a moment.

So let's see how you did.

Now for question one, I'll wager, there was a variety of answers, depending how you were listening and what you noticed were playing the same cell, even though it was on a different instrument.

So the six cells, the violin, that four-pitched cell, then there's the shaker that comes in, the electric viola, the French horn, the electronic synths, and Headspace all create from the same cell.

And then, also within the electronics, there's a drone and there's other effects, so that kind of has its own too.

There's the drums with the snare and the bass, and there's the clarinet.

So that actually is six.

If you got six, fantastic.

If you didn't, you are probably pretty close and still listening very well.

Which instrument do you think plays the main or most important cell? Arguably, it's the violin.

It's the one that begins, and it sets off those four clear repeated pitches.

It begins and it ends the piece.

It's the most prominent throughout.

But again, you're welcome to think differently.

There might have been something that shifted that music for you, and maybe you felt that was the most important cell.

How many different pitches made up that particular cell? And it was four ascending notes that Siobhan bows on her violin.

Question number four, which instrument's cell inspired the clarinet's improvised feel? I think I know this one.

Yes, the clarinet has four quick ascending notes, just like the violin's cell did.

So the violin gave inspiration to those flutters on the clarinet.

The impact on the drums, well, you could have said a range of things.

Our idea says the drum kick starts a groove in the music, and it suddenly feels a bit more upbeat.

Maybe you said it made it a bit funkier, it thickened the texture, it built some energy, entirely up to you to describe that in your way.

And then how does the texture, and this is the word we're thinking of, that musical language, change throughout the piece? Well, the music begins with one layer, that's the violin, and the texture builds, and it gets thicker, thickens towards the middle where everyone's playing, and then it begins to thin out again, a bit like a texture mountain.

Very well done.

That's all we have time for for today, so let us summarize what we've learned.

Music can often be identified as fitting within a certain genre by its key features.

And we've explored that with minimalism.

And this consists of short, repetitive musical cells.

An ostinato, that's a musical phrase or a rhythm that's repeated persistently.

Cells are the building blocks, they're the structure of a minimalist piece of music.

And the use of repetition is an effective musical tool.

Very well done for today.

Great listening.

Look forward to seeing you next time.

Bye for now.