Repetitive music

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Repetitive music is music which features a relatively high degree of repetition in its creation or reception. Examples includes minimalist music, disco (and its later derivatives such as house music and techno), Igor Stravinsky's compositions, barococo, and the Suzuki method. (Fink 2005, p.5)

1 Types of repetitive music
2 Disco, House, and Rave music
3 Source
4 Further reading

[edit] Types of repetitive music

Repetitive music has often been negatively linked with Freudian thanatos. Theodor Adorno (1948, p.178) provides an early example in his criticism of Igor Stravinsky, whose, "rhythmic procedures [ ostinato ] closely resemble the schema of catatonic conditions. In certain schizophrenics, the process by which the motor apparatus becomes independent leads to infinite repetition of gestures or words, following the decay of the ego."

Wim Mertens (1980, p.123-124) argues that "In repetitive music, repetition in the service of the death instinct prevails. Repetition is not repetition of identical elements, so it is not reproduction, but the repetition of the identical in another guise. In traditional music, repetition is a device for creating recognizability, reproduction for the sake of the representing ego. In repetitive music, repetition does not refer to eros and the ego, but to the libido and to the death instinct."

Repetitive music has also been linked with Lacanian jouissance. David Schawrz (1992, p.134) argues that the repetition in John Adams's Nixon in China "trapping listeners in a narrow acoustic corridor of the Real" while Naomi Cumming (1997, p.129-152) argues that the repetitive string ostinatos of Steve Reich's Different Trains are "prearticulate" pieces of the Real providing a refuge from the Holocaust and its "horror of identification."

[edit] Disco, House, and Rave music

DJs at disco clubs in the 1970s played "... a smooth mix of long single [disco] records to keep people “dancing all night long.” While disco songs do have some repetitive elements, such as a persistent throbbing beat, these repetitive elements were counterbalanced by the musical variety provided by orchestral arrangements and disco mixes that added different sound textures to the music, ranging from a full, lush orchestral sound to stripped-down "break" sections.

The electric dance music genres that followed disco in the 1980s and 1990s, such as house music and techno kept the monotonous bass drum rhythm introduced by disco but did not use the lush orchestral arrangements or horn sections. House and techno had a more stripped-down, minimalist sound that layered electronic sounds and samples over a drum machine drum part and a repetitive synth bass bassline.

In the 1990s, an offshoot of one form of house music (acid house) developed into rave music, a high-energy electronic music for dancing that depends heavily on samples.Initially "rave music" was considered a particular style that was a combination of fast breakbeat and more hardcore forms of techno. Rave music was played at massive dance parties ("raves") where Ecstasy and Crystal Meth-fueled dancers would dance all night to the throbbing, repetitive beat of rave songs.

After some teens and young adults were injured in raves (either from drug overdoses or dehydration), the UK government introduced its Criminal Justice Bill of 1994. This was government attempt to ban large rave-style dance events featuring music with "repetitive beats" (e.g., rave music, house music, techno, etc) which were associated with illegal drug use. Although the bill did become law in November 1994, it had little effect, and rave music events continued in underground, illegal settings, such as empty warehouses or factories.

[edit] Source

Adorno, Theodor (1948). The Philosophy of Modern Music. Trans. Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley V. Blomster (1973). Cited in Fink 2005.
Cumming, Naomi (1997). "The Horrors of Identification: Reich's Different Trains" Perspectives of New Music 35, no. I (winter).
Fink, Robert (2005). Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal Music as Cultural Practice. ISBN 0-520-24550-4.
Mertens, Wim (1980/1983/1988). American Minimal Music, trans. J. Hautekiet. ISBN 0-912483-15-6. Cited in Fink 2005.
Schwarz, David (1992). "Postmodernism, the Subject, and the Real in John Adams's Nixon in China" Indiana Theory Review 13, no. 2 (fall). Cited in Fink 2005.