Product Description
Michael Nyman's book is a first-hand account of experimental music from 1950 to 1970. First published in 1974, it has remained the classic text on a significant form of music making and composing that developed alongside, and partly in opposition to, the postwar modernist tradition of composers such as Boulez, Berio, or Stockhausen. The experimentalist par excellence was John Cage whose legendary 4' 33'' consists of four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence to be performed on any instrument. Such pieces have a conceptual rather than purely musical starting point and radically challenge conventional notions of the musical work. Nyman's book traces the revolutionary attitudes that were developed toward concepts of time, space, sound, and composer/performer responsibility. It was within the experimental tradition that the seeds of musical minimalism were sown and the book contains reference to the early works of Reich, Riley, Young, and Glass.This second edition contains a new Foreword, an updated discography, and a historical overview by the author. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Somewhat superficial
For me the most useful thing about this book is that it has a lot of score excerpts that are useful if you're teaching at a university with a poor library. In the last few years a lot of valuable primary source material and interpretive writing has become available in book form through publishers like Musiktexte, and in scholarly journals like 'Perspectives in New Music'. I think the book is a fairly superficial survey, and I know its often used in introductory courses, but I don't like to recommend it to undergraduates because it's not a model for good scholarship because of the lack of citations like footnotes or endnotes when information comes from other sources.

Not a revision, a reprint
The other reviews catch it all. Nyman's points are 'interesting', but it is Nyman. This is my second copy as I thought it was revised. It's a reprint.

A Classic Introduction
Not only is this a great introduction for someone who doesn't know his or her way around this subject, but it offers more experienced listeners and readers Nyman's own sensitive, and (to my mind) highly accurate, takes on what Cage, Feldman, Brown, Cardew, LaMonte Young and others were up to back in the pre-revolutionary 50's and the revolutionary 60's and 70's.This is a snapshot, if you will, of many of the giants fully formed, and some, like Gavin Bryars, in the larval stages of their genius, so it makes for a fascinating read.Nyman's prose is pellucid, and his explanations cogent.My dream is that Michael Nyman will someday return to update this book and offer some insights on the new, strange paths, experimental music has taken in the age of the personal computer, robotics and the Internet.

THE 20th CENTURY RADICAL AVANT-GARDE
In this work originally published in 1974, Nyman discusses the work of composers and performers who shifted the boundaries of music as regards notation, time, space, and the roles of the composer, performer and audience. The author seeks to identify and explain a whole body of musical work that existed outside the classical tradition and the avant-garde orthodoxies that flowed from it. He thus explores the Anglo-American musical tradition loosely associated with John Cage. Since 1974 this book has been considered the classical work on the radical alternative to the mainstream avant-garde as represented by Berio, Boulez and Stockhausen. Many of the current popular composers like Glass and Reich trace their root to this experimental school. The most fascinating chapter to me is "Minimal Music, Determinacy And The New Tonality" in which the Theatre Of Eternal Music (Tony Conrad, La Monte Young, Marion Zazeela and John Cale) as well as the work of Terry Riley is discussed. Photographs, illustrations and musical notations enliven the text and the book concludes with a selected source bibliography, a discography of experimental music and a bibliography of publications since 1974. Brian Eno has contributed an interesting foreword to this edition. The text can get a bit technical for the non-musician, but it remains a detailed work on a radical musical direction that has borne great fruit in the years since it was first analysed in this thorough and scholarly work.

processes and fields of sound, not time-objects...
Nyman's 1974 classic is here reprinted sans revisions.Brilliant!It captures a moment -- as Nyman concludes his preface, "Thank goodness I wrote it when I did."EM is not a survey of 20th century avant-garde music.It focuses on one trend, inaugurated by Cage, Wolff, Feldman and Brown in the 1950s, a trend which explicitly attempted to overturn the traditional avant-garde then marching under the banner of total serialism.Nyman contrasts Wolff to Stockhausen, then a leading serialist:"Stockhausen is speaking of an unwanted situation needing to be remedied by his intervention, Wolff of a situation he is quite happy to accept, leaving sounds to go their own way." (27)As Cage says in his "Silence,"

"Not an attempt to understand...Just an attention to the activity of sounds."

One of the great strengths of Nyman's short book is his careful attempt to define experimental music before he moves on to discuss the artists and their music.To summarize and paraphrase, he says experimental composers are excited by creating "a process of generating action," involving situations or fields delineated by compositional rules, but leaving them open to the performers. (4)

Experimental music is uncompromisingly radical, and represents an ongoing influence on creative music, but has certainly not become any sort of popular movement.So for instance, while the early "minimalists" Young and Riley were arguably part of the experimental tendency, as were Reich's early phase patterns, (and hence are included here by Nyman), the later works of Reich, and especially Glass, are no longer open and experimental.And while Eno and recent techno/ambient artists have been influenced, their innovations have been more technical than conceptual by comparison.

My recommendation if this sounds intriguing -- check out anything by the English free-improv group AMM, which is nowadays constituted by Eddie Prevost on percussion, Keith Rowe on guitar and electronics, and John Tilbury on piano! ... Read more

Product Description
Available for the first time for solo piano, here are four fabulous arrangements from the motion-picture soundtrack of The Piano plus the two favourite themes from the award-winning film by Jane Campion. This is another wonderfully presented edition with stills from the film, an origianl manuscript sketch and note from Nyman to lead actress Holly Hunter, who performs the pieces herself in the film. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

It's what I was hoping for
This has some additional music from The Piano (some of my favorite themes from the soundtrack, although they don't translate as well on piano as the first book).

Additionally, the songs that are in both books are "cleaner" in this one: Big My Secret and The Heart Asks Pleasure First both feature easier to read (but identically played) notation.

The Piano is one of my favorite soundtracks and sounds difficult but isn't TOO Hard to play on the piano.It is very moving music and I really enjoy playing from both books.

But, Big My Secret and The Heart Asks Pleasure First are the most important pieces and they are in both books, so if that is all you like, no reason to buy this one too.

OH!One thing I was confused about is it is called a "pocket manual"I have NO idea why.This is a normal sized piano sheet music book.There is nothing "pocket" about it. ... Read more

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The music of Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Steve Reich and Philip Glass are dealt with in this book, and an ideological and historical background to minimal music is also provided. ... Read more

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Nyman's rise to international prominence during the last three decades has made him one of the world's most successful living composers. His music has nevertheless been criticized for its parasitic borrowing of other composers' ideas and for its relentless self-borrowing. In this first book-length study in English, Pwyll ap Sion places Nyman's writings within the general context of Anglo-American experimentalism, minimalism and post-minimalism, and provides a series of useful contexts from which controversial aspects of Nyman's musical language can be more clearly understood and appreciated. Drawing upon terms informed by intertextual theory in general, appropriation and borrowing are first introduced within the context of twentieth-century art music and theory. Intertextual concepts are explained and its terms defined before Nyman's musical language is considered in relation to a series of intertextual classifications and types. These types then form the basis of a more in-depth study of his works during the second half of the book, ranging from opera and chamber music to film.Rather than restricting style and technique, Nyman's intertextual approach, on the contrary, is shown to provide his music with an almost infinite amount of variety, flexibility and diversity, and this has been used to convey a wide range of aesthetic, expressive and illustrative forms. ... Read more

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A selection of pieces and arrangements by Michael Nyman of his best-known film music. Including music from The Draughtsman's Contract, Drowning By Numbers, Carrington and The Piano. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

I only bought it for the music of 'The Piano'
I was somewhat disappointed because I was only interseted in the music forthe film 'The Piano' by Michael Nyman and took a chance in buying a bookwith the best of all his music.The music for this film is quite differentfrom his usual style and unless you realy like all Michael Nyman's music,you'd be better off buying another book of him with more music from 'ThePiano'. ... Read more

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Chapters: Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Louis Andriessen, Luciano Berio, Michael Nyman, John Zorn, Arvo Pärt, La Monte Young, Bradley Joseph, Django Bates, Juan María Solare, Egberto Gismonti, William Susman, Frans Geysen, Meredith Monk, Rhys Chatham, Hans-Jürgen Von Bose, Wim Mertens, Henry Flynt, Anomie Belle, Joe Jones, John Mcguire, Gunther Schuller, Charlemagne Palestine, Craig First, Carlos Stella, Michael Harrison, Jacob Isaacson, Carlo Forlivesi, Scott Johnson, Andrew Poppy, Catherine Christer Hennix, Sylvie Courvoisier, Obsil, László Vidovszky, Ezequiel Viñao, Jocelyn Morlock, Helen Chadwick. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 272. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: John Zorn (born September 2, 1953 in New York City) is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn's recorded output is prolific with hundreds of album credits as a performer, composer, or producer. His work has touched on a wide range of musical genres, often within a single composition, but he is best-known for his avant-garde, jazz, improvised and contemporary classical music. Zorn has led the punk jazz band Naked City, the klezmer-influenced quartet Masada and composed the associated 'Masada Songbooks', written concert music for classical ensembles, and produced music for film and documentary. Zorn has stated that "I've got an incredibly short attention span. My music is jam-packed with information that is changing very fast... All the various styles are organically connected to one another. I'm an additive person - the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with the surface that they can't see the connections, but they are there." After releasing albums on several independent US and European labels,...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=86018 ... Read more

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This work was written in the aftermath of the 1988 earthquake in Armenia for a BBC television documentary.Scored for mixed voices, SATB with optional organ accompaniment.Duration 21 minutes.

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Música experimental. De John Cage en adelante fue escrito por Michael Nyman en 1974. Su brillante defensa de la música experimental y de sus principales autores (John Cage, Philip Glass, Morton Feldman, etc.) pronto se convirtió en un estandarte de este movimiento, que luchaba para hacerse un lugar al lado de la ortodoxia vanguardista encabezada por Pierre Boulez y Karlheinz Stockhausen. ... Read more

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Les achats comprennent une adhésion à l'essai gratuite au club de livres de l'éditeur, dans lequel vous pouvez choisir parmi plus d'un million d'ouvrages, sans frais. Le livre consiste d'articles Wikipedia sur : Arvo Pärt, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, John Coolidge Adams, Michael Nyman, Phasing, Renaud Gagneux, Wim Mertens, Ingram Marshall, Alan Licht, Stimmung, Gavin Bryars, Christopher Hobbs, Andrew Poppy, Dave Smith, Terry Jennings, Charlemagne Palestine, Scott Johnson, Michael Parsons, John White, Reich Remixed, the Dream Syndicate, David Behrman, Louis Andriessen, David Lang, San Francisco Tape Music Center, Jon Gibson, Henning Christiansen, Style Tintinnabulum. Non illustré. Mises à jour gratuites en ligne. Extrait : La musique minimaliste est un courant de musique contemporaine apparu dans les années 1960 aux États-Unis, qui représente une part importante de la musique classique de ce pays. En France, le courant est fréquemment appelé musique répétitive, et désigne plus spécifiquement l'ensemble des œuvres utilisant la répétition comme technique de composition. Les principaux compositeurs de musique minimaliste sont La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, et John Adams. L'œuvre considérée comme fondatrice du minimalisme est In C de Terry Riley, composée en 1964. La musique minimaliste est parfois désignée sous l'étiquette plus large de musique postmoderne. Plus qu'un retour à la tonalité, le courant est surtout caractérisé par l'utilisation d'une pulsation régulière et la répétition de courts motifs évoluant lentement. Au-delà d'un mouvement de réaction au sérialisme, alors dominant en Europe, la musique minimaliste marque l'émergence d'une musique américaine novatrice, déliée de ses attaches européennes. Les compositeurs minimalistes ont aussi opéré un retour vers plus d'émotivité musicale, au lieu de l'approche essentiellement intellectuelle de la musique sérielle, ou l'appro...http://booksllc.net/?l=fr ... Read more

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Chapters: Peter Gabriel, Ron Goodwin, Michael Nyman, William Walton, Clint Mansell, Mick Taylor, Ronnie Wood, John Barry, Malcolm Arnold, George Fenton, William Goodchild, Tristram Cary, Simon Boswell, John Ireland, Barry Adamson, Howard Blake, Simon May, Stanley Black, David Arnold, Harry Gregson-Williams, Edwin Astley, Dennis Berry, John Powell, Richard Harvey, Benjamin Frankel, Richard Rodney Bennett, Angela Morley, Rachel Portman, William Alwyn, Simon Webb, Anne Dudley, John Addison, Andrew Hewitt, Monty Norman, Eric Coates, Clifton Parker, Roy Budd, Clifford Gray, Paul Farrer, Anthony Collins, Pete Thomas, Timothy Williams, Jocelyn Pook, Simon Dobson, Basil Kirchin, John Scott, Eric Rogers, Richard Addinsell, Laurie Johnson, David Hewson, James Bernard, Edward Shearmur, Andy Roberts, Mark Slater, Ian Habgood, Alan Gill, John Wooldridge, Doreen Carwithen, Christopher Gunning, Patrick Gowers, Stanley Myers, Nicholas Hooper, Len Arran, Ken Howard, Debbie Wiseman, David Julyan, Richard Hartley, Dan Jones, Pierre Yves Lenik, Brian Easdale, John Murphy, Cyril J. Mockridge, Adrian Foley, 8th Baron Foley, Nick Glennie-Smith, Adolph Deutsch, Leonard Salzedo, Derek Wadsworth, Julian Nott, Daniel Giorgetti, Brian Fahey, Rolfe Kent, Warren Bennett, Neil Richardson, Gavin Greenaway, Halli Cauthery, Vivian Kubrick, Albert Elms, Louis Levy, David Buckley, Gary Yershon, Alastair King, Rob Lord, Paul Lewis, Rupert Gregson-Williams, Stephen Barton, Stephen Warbeck, Paul Ferris, Hubert Bath, David Lindup, Charlie Mole, James Tomalin, J. Peter Robinson, Leighton Lucas. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 426. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English singer, musician and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive r...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=55896 ... Read more

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Chapters: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Michael Nyman, Leo Fortune-West, Alexander Mcqueen, Sam Brown, Chris Hughton, David Webb, Gary Poole, Patrik Fitzgerald, Vanessa White, Bryan Forbes, Wally Bellett, William Wyse, Ernie Gregory, George Henry Stanton, Jim Barrett, Sr., Phil Brignull, Albert Barrett, George Edwards, Dawn Neesom, Stan Earle, Molly Cutpurse, Peter Grotier, John Mole, Jimmy Winston. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 114. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt:Senior club appearances and goalscounted for the domestic league only andcorrect as of 12:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC).* Appearances (Goals) Leopold Paul Osborne "Leo" Fortune-West (born 9 April 1971) is an English footballer who plays as a striker. Fortune-West started his career with Eastern Counties League side Tiptree United, and played for four more non-League sides before securing a move to the Football League with Gillingham for a fee of £5,000. He finished his first season with them as top scorer, and had several short stints with other League clubs before joining Cardiff City, where he played for three seasons. He played for the side as they achieved two promotions, but left on a free transfer. He spent three seasons with Doncaster Rovers, winning promotion in his first, but was released in 2006. He then moved back to non-League football with Rushden ... Read more

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Commentary (music and lyrics not included).Chapters: Enemy Zero, and Do They Do/zoo Caprices, Wonderland. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 20. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Enemy Zero (E0) is a video game for Sega Saturn, developed by the company WARP and directed by WARP founder Kenji Eno. After its Saturn release, it was ported to Microsoft Windows. It was the second game to star the digital actress Laura. In E0, gameplay sequences alternate between interactive FMV and real time exploration, both from a first person perspective. The interactive FMV component uses gameplay identical to an earlier Warp game, D. The real time component of E0 is unique. Enemies are invisible, and location is only possible through the use of sound, with notes of different pitch helping the player find the distance and direction of enemies. Additionally, every gun in the game must be charged up immediately before each shot, and charging a shot for too long will cause the charge to dissipate, after which the charging must start over. Since all available guns have very limited range, this makes timing crucial; beginning to charge the gun too late or too soon will allow the enemy to reach Laura, resulting in an immediate game over. The system, although daring and unconventional, was much more challenging than that of a typical Japanese video game, and the game was critically panned. Aboard the AKI space craft, a space station dedicated to biological research, Laura is in a deep cryogenic slumber. The jets of the chamber dissipate as the craft's emergency systems are activated. Laura is awoken by a large detonation on her deck. Outside a door marked with the letters E0, something of great strength is trying to break free. The door is thrown down and the hallway is filled with a bright incandescent light, fo...http://booksllc.net/?id=2117260 ... Read more

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Chapters: Michael Nyman, Robert Simpson, Hubert Parry, George Alexander Macfarren, William Waterhouse, Antony Beaumont, Paul Steinitz, Orlando Morgan, Christopher Hogwood, Christopher Fifield, Jack Westrup, John Stafford Smith, Donald Francis Tovey, Gervase Hughes, Edward Norman Hay, Ebenezer Prout, Henry Pleasants, Robert Orledge, Jane W Davidson, James Chater, George Grove, Joscelyn Godwin, Barry Cooper, Joseph Wheeler, Wilfrid Mellers, Richard Runciman Terry, Deryck Cooke, Bruno Turner, Harold Samuel, Herbert Hughes, William Henry Hadow, Mary Berry, Benton Fletcher, Rodney Milnes, Harry Ellis Wooldridge, Peter Douglas Kennedy, Denis Matthews, Albert Mccarthy, Gerald Abraham, John Caldwell, Winton Dean, J.b. Steane, David Fanshawe, Eric Gilder, Margaret Bent, Richard Middleton, Buxton Orr, Elizabeth Forbes, Hugh Macdonald, Brian Rust, Edward Joseph Dent, Alan Blyth, William Charles Smith, Arthur Hedley, Tom Perchard, David Fanning, Robert Donington, Francis William Galpin. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 193. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE (born 23 March 1944) is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano. His operas include The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Letters, Riddles and Writs, Noises, Sounds ... Read more

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Music for the film Wonderland<-i>, for solo piano.

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Chapters: Facing Goya, Noises, Sounds ... Read more