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. As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post–World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Donald Judd, John McCracken, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt, and Frank Stella. It is rooted in the reductive aspects of Modernism, and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract expressionism and a bridge to Postminimal art practices.

The terms have expanded to encompass a movement in music which features repetition and iteration, as in the compositions of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and John Adams. Minimalist compositions are sometimes known as systems music.The term "minimalist" is often applied colloquially to designate anything which is spare or stripped to its essentials. It has also been used to describe the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett, the films of Robert Bresson, the stories of Raymond Carver, and even the automobile designs of Colin Chapman. The word was first used in English in the early 20th century to describe the Mensheviks.^[1][vague]

Minimalist design[link]

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The reconstruction of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's German Pavilion in Barcelona

The term minimalism is also used to describe a trend in design and architecture where in the subject is reduced to its necessary elements. Minimalist design has been highly influenced by Japanese traditional design and architecture. In addition, the work of De Stijl artists is a major source of reference for this kind of work. De Stijl expanded the ideas that could be expressed by using basic elements such as lines and planes organized in very particular manners.

Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe adopted the motto "Less is more" to describe his aesthetic tactic of arranging the numerous necessary components of a building to create an impression of extreme simplicity, by enlisting every element and detail to serve multiple visual and functional purposes (such as designing a floor to also serve as the radiator, or a massive fireplace to also house the bathroom). Designer Buckminster Fuller adopted the engineer's goal of "Doing more with less", but his concerns were oriented towards technology and engineering rather than aesthetics. A similar sentiment was industrial designer Dieter Rams' motto, "Less but better" adapted from Mies. The structure uses relatively simple elegant designs; ornamentations are quality rather than quantity^{[dubious – discuss]}. The structure's beauty is also determined by playing with lighting, using the basic geometric shapes as outlines, using only a single shape or a small number of like shapes for components for design unity, using tasteful non-fussy bright color combinations, usually natural textures and colors, and clean and fine finishes. Using sometimes the beauty of natural patterns on stone cladding and real wood encapsulated within ordered simplified structures, and real metal producing a simplified but prestigious architecture and interior design. May use color brightness balance and contrast between surface colors to improve visual aesthetics. The structure would usually have industrial and space age style utilities (lamps, stoves, stairs, technology, etc.), neat and straight components (like walls or stairs) that appear to be machined with machines, flat or nearly flat roofs, pleasing negative spaces, and large windows to let in lots of sunlight. This and science fiction may have contributed to the late twentieth century futuristic architecture design, and modern home decor. Modern minimalist home architecture with its unnecessary internal walls removed probably have led to the popularity of the open plan kitchen and living room style.

Another modern master who exemplifies reductivist ideas is Luis Barragán. In minimalism, the architectural designers pay special attention to the connection between perfect planes, elegant lighting, and careful consideration of the void spaces left by the removal of three-dimensional shapes from an architectural design. The more attractive looking minimalist home designs are not truly minimalist, because these use more expensive building materials and finishes, and are relatively larger.

Contemporary architects working in this tradition include John Pawson, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Álvaro Siza Vieira, Tadao Ando, Alberto Campo Baeza, Yoshio Taniguchi, Peter Zumthor, Hugh Newell Jacobsen, Vincent Van Duysen, Claudio Silvestrin, Michael Gabellini, and Richard Gluckman.^[2]

Minimalist architecture and space[link]

The term ‘minimalism’ is a trend from early 19th century and gradually became an important movement in response to the over decorated design of the previous period. Minimalist architecture became popular in the late 1980s in London and New York,^[3] where architects and fashion designers worked together in the boutiques to achieve simplicity, using white elements, cold lighting, large space with minimum objects and furniture. Minimalist architecture simplifies living space to reveal the essential quality of buildings and conveys simplicity in attitudes toward life. It is highly inspired from the Japanese traditional design and the concept of Zen philosophy.

Concepts and design elements [link]

The concept of minimalist architecture is to strip everything down to its essential quality and achieve simplicity.^[4] The idea is not completely without ornamentation,^[5] but that all parts, details and joinery are considered as reduced to a stage where no one can remove anything further to improve the design.^[6]

The considerations for ‘essences’ are light, form, detail of material, space, place and human condition.^[7] Minimalist architects not only consider the physical qualities of the building. Moreover, they look deeply into the spiritual dimension and the invisible, by listening to the figure and paying attention to the details, people, space, nature and materials.^[8] Which reveals the abstract quality of something that is invisible and search for the essence from those invisible qualities. Such as natural light, sky, earth and air. In addition, they open up dialogue with the surrounding environment to decide the most essential materials for the construction and create relationships between buildings and sites.^[5]

In minimalist architecture, design elements convey the message of simplicity. The basic geometric forms, elements without decoration, simple materials and the repetitions of structures represent a sense of order and essential quality.^[9]The movement of natural light in buildings reveals simple and clean spaces.^[7] In late 19th century as the arts and crafts movement began popular in Britain, people values the attitude of ‘truth to materials’, which respect the profound and innate characteristic of materials.^[10] They manipulate humility attitude towards material by listen to it, which is ‘listen to figure’ and try to find out every essentiality from the identity of material. Therefore minimalist architects benefit from seeking the essence and simplicity by rediscovers the valuable qualities in the simple and common materials.^[8]

Influences from Japanese tradition [link]

The idea of simplicity appears in many cultures, especially the Japanese traditional culture of Zen Philosophy. Japanese manipulate the Zen culture into aesthetic and design elements for their buildings.^[11] This idea of architecture has influenced Western Society, especially in America since the mid 18th century.^[12] Moreover, it inspired the minimalist architecture in the 19th century.^[6]

Zen concepts of simplicity transmit the ideas of freedom and essence of living.^[6] Simplicity is not only aesthetic value, it has a moral perception that looks into the nature of truth and reveals the inner qualities of materials and objects for the essence.^[13] For example, the sand garden in Ryoanji temple demonstrates the concepts of simplicity and the essentiality from the considered setting of a few stones and a huge empty space.^[14]

The Japanese aesthetic principle of Ma refers to empty or open space. That removes all the unnecessary internal walls and opens up the space between interior and the exterior. Frank Lloyd Wright was influenced by the design element of Japanese sliding door that allows to bring the exterior to the interior.^[15] The emptiness of spatial arrangement is another idea that reduces everything down to the most essential quality.^[16]

The Japanese aesthetic of Wabi values the quality of simple and plain objects.^[17] It appreciates the absence of unnecessary features to view life in quietness and reveals the most innate character of materials.^[18] For example, the Japanese flora art, also known as Ikebana has the meaning of let flower express itself. People cut off the branches, leaves and blossoms from the plants and only retain the essential part from the plant. Which conveys the idea of essential quality and innate character in nature.^[19]

Minimalist architects and their works [link]

The Japanese minimalist architect, Tadao Ando conveys the Japanese traditional spirit and his own perception of nature in his works. His design concepts are materials, pure geometry and nature. He normally uses concrete or natural wood and basic structural form to achieve austerity and rays of light in space. He also sets up dialogue between the site and nature to create relationship and order with the buildings.^[20] Ando’s works and the translation of Japanese aesthetic principles are highly influential on Japanese architecture.^[21]

In Vitra Conference Pavilion, Weil am Rhein, 1993, the concepts are to bring together the relationships between building, human movement, site and nature. Which as one main point of minimalism ideology that establish dialogue between the building and site. The building uses the simple forms of circle and rectangle to contrast the filled and void space of the interior and nature. In the foyer, there is a large landscape window that looks out to the exterior. This achieves the simple and silence of architecture and enhances the light, wind, time and nature in space.^[22]

John Pawson is a British minimalist architect, his design concepts are soul, light and order. He believes that though reduced clutter and simplification of the interior to a point that gets beyond the idea of essential quality, there is a sense of clarity and richness of simplicity instead of emptiness. The materials in his design reveal the perception toward space, surface and volume. Moreover, he likes to use natural materials because of their aliveness, sense of depth and quality of individual. He is also attracted by the important influences from Japanese Zen Philosophy.^[23]

Calvin Klein Madison Avenue, New York, 1995-96, is a boutique that conveys Calvin Klein’s ideas of fashion. John Pawson’s interior design concepts for this project are to create simple, peaceful and orderly spatial arrangements. He used stone floors and white walls to achieve simplicity and harmony for space. He also emphasises reduction and eliminates the visual distortions, such as the air conditioning and lamps to achieve a sense of purity for interior.^[24]

Alberto Campo Baeza is a Spanish architect and describes his work as essential architecture. He values the concepts of light, idea and space. Light is essential and achieves the relationship between inhabitants and the building. Ideas are to meet the function and context of space, forms and construction. Space is shaped by the minimal geometric forms to avoid decoration that is not essential.^[25]

Gasper House, Zahora, 1992 is a residence that client requested to be independent. High walls create the enclosed space and the stone floors used in house and courtyard show the continuality of interior and exterior. The white colour of the walls reveals the simplicity and unity of the building. The feature of the structure make lines to form the continuously horizontal house, therefore natural light projects horizontally through the building.^[26]

Tony Smith, Free Ride, 1962, 6'8 x 6'8 x 6'8

Minimal art, minimalism in visual art[link]

Kazimir Malevich, Black Square, 1915, Oil on Canvas, State Russian Museum, St.Petersburg

Minimalism in visual art, generally referred to as "minimal art", literalist art ^[27] and ABC Art^[28] emerged in New York in the early 1960s. Initially minimal art appeared in New York in the 60s as new and older artists moved toward geometric abstraction; exploring via painting in the cases of Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland, Al Held, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Ryman and others; and sculpture in the works of various artists including David Smith, Anthony Caro, Tony Smith, Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd and others. Judd's sculpture was showcased in 1964 at the Green Gallery in Manhattan as were Flavin's first fluorescent light works, while other leading Manhattan galleries like the Leo Castelli Gallery and the Pace Gallery also began to showcase artists focused on geometric abstraction. In addition there were two seminal and influential museum exhibitions: Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculpture' shown from April 27 - June 12, 1966 at the Jewish Museum in New York, organized by the museum's Curator of Painting and Sculpture, Kynaston McShine ^{[29] [30]} and Systemic Painting, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum curated by Lawrence Alloway also in 1966 that showcased Geometric abstraction in the American art world via Shaped canvas, Color Field, and Hard-edge painting. ^{[31] [32]}In the wake of those exhibitions and a few others the art movement called minimal art emerged.

In a more broad and general sense, one finds European roots of minimalism in the geometric abstractions of painters associated with the Bauhaus, in the works of Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian and other artists associated with the De Stijl movement, and the Russian Constructivist movement, and in the work of the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi. ^{[33] [34]} Minimal art is also inspired in part by the paintings of Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Josef Albers, and the works of artists as diverse as Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio Morandi, and others. Minimalism was also a reaction against the painterly subjectivity of Abstract Expressionism that had been dominant in the New York School during the 1940s and 1950s. ^[35]

Artist and critic Thomas Lawson noted in his 1977 catalog essay Last Exit: Painting, minimalism did not reject Clement Greenberg's claims about modernist painting's ^[36] reduction to surface and materials so much as take his claims literally. According to Lawson minimalism was the result, even though the term "minimalism" was not generally embraced by the artists associated with it, and many practitioners of art designated minimalist by critics did not identify it as a movement as such. Also taking exception to this claim was Clement Greenberg himself; in his 1978 postscript to his essay Modernist Painting he disavowed this incorrect interpretation of what he said; Greenberg wrote:

There have been some further constructions of what I wrote that go over into preposterousness: That I regard flatness and the inclosing of flatness not just as the limiting conditions of pictorial art, but as criteria of aesthetic quality in pictorial art; that the further a work advances the self-definition of an art, the better that work is bound to be. The philosopher or art historian who can envision me -- or anyone at all -- arriving at aesthetic judgments in this way reads shockingly more into himself or herself than into my article. ^[36]

In contrast to the previous decade's more subjective Abstract Expressionists, with the exceptions of Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt; minimalists were also influenced by composers John Cage and LaMonte Young, poet William Carlos Williams, and the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. They very explicitly stated that their art was not about self-expression, unlike the previous decade's more subjective philosophy about art making theirs was 'objective'. In general, Minimalism's features included geometric, often cubic forms purged of much metaphor, equality of parts, repetition, neutral surfaces, and industrial materials.

Robert Morris, an influential theorist and artist, wrote a three part essay, "Notes on Sculpture 1-3", originally published across three issues of Artforum in 1966. In these essays, Morris attempted to define a conceptual framework and formal elements for himself and one that would embrace the practices of his contemporaries. These essays paid great attention to the idea of the gestalt - "parts... bound together in such a way that they create a maximum resistance to perceptual separation." Morris later described an art represented by a "marked lateral spread and no regularized units or symmetrical intervals..." in "Notes on Sculpture 4: Beyond Objects", originally published in Artforum, 1969, continuing to say that "indeterminacy of arrangement of parts is a literal aspect of the physical existence of the thing." The general shift in theory of which this essay is an expression suggests the transitions into what would later be referred to as postminimalism.

One of the first artists specifically associated with minimalism was the painter, Frank Stella, four of whose early "black paintings" were included in the 1959 show, 16 Americans, organized by Dorothy Miller at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The width of the stripes in Frank Stellas's black paintings were often determined by the dimensions of the lumber used for stretchers, visible as the depth of the painting when viewed from the side, used to construct the supportive chassis upon which the canvas was stretched. The decisions about structures on the front surface of the canvas were therefore not entirely subjective, but pre-conditioned by a "given" feature of the physical construction of the support. In the show catalog, Carl Andre noted, "Art excludes the unnecessary. Frank Stella has found it necessary to paint stripes. There is nothing else in his painting." These reductive works were in sharp contrast to the energy-filled and apparently highly subjective and emotionally-charged paintings of Willem de Kooning or Franz Kline and, in terms of precedent among the previous generation of abstract expressionists, leaned more toward the less gestural, often somber, color field paintings of Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. Although Stella received immediate attention from the MoMA show, artists including Kenneth Noland, Gene Davis, Robert Motherwell and Robert Ryman had also begun to explore stripes, monochromatic and Hard-edge formats from the late 50s through the 1960s.^[37]

Because of a tendency in minimal art to exclude the pictorial, illusionistic and fictive in favor of the literal, there was a movement away from painterly and toward sculptural concerns. Donald Judd had started as a painter, and ended as a creator of objects. His seminal essay, "Specific Objects" (published in Arts Yearbook 8, 1965), was a touchstone of theory for the formation of minimalist aesthetics. In this essay, Judd found a starting point for a new territory for American art, and a simultaneous rejection of residual inherited European artistic values. He pointed to evidence of this development in the works of an array of artists active in New York at the time, including Jasper Johns, Dan Flavin and Lee Bontecou. Of "preliminary" importance for Judd was the work of George Earl Ortman,^[38] who had concretized and distilled painting's forms into blunt, tough, philosophically charged geometries. These Specific Objects inhabited a space not then comfortably classifiable as either painting or sculpture. That the categorical identity of such objects was itself in question, and that they avoided easy association with well-worn and over-familiar conventions, was a part of their value for Judd.

This movement was heavily criticised by modernist formalist art critics and historians. Some critics thought minimal art represented a misunderstanding of the modern dialectic of painting and sculpture as defined by critic Clement Greenberg, arguably the dominant American critic of painting in the period leading up to the 1960s. The most notable critique of minimalism was produced by Michael Fried, a formalist critic, who objected to the work on the basis of its "theatricality". In Art and Objecthood (published in Artforum in June 1967) he declared that the minimal work of art, particularly minimal sculpture, was based on an engagement with the physicality of the spectator. He argued that work like Robert Morris's transformed the act of viewing into a type of spectacle, in which the artifice of the act observation and the viewer's participation in the work were unveiled. Fried saw this displacement of the viewer's experience from an aesthetic engagement within, to an event outside of the artwork as a failure of minimal art. Fried's essay was immediately challenged by postminimalist and earth artist Robert Smithson in a letter to the editor in the October issue of Artforum. Smithson stated the following: "What Fried fears most is the consciousness of what he is doing--namely being himself theatrical."

In addition to the already mentioned Robert Morris, Frank Stella, Carl Andre, Robert Ryman and Donald Judd other minimal artists include: Robert Mangold, Larry Bell, Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Jo Baer, John McCracken, Ad Reinhardt, Fred Sandback, Richard Serra, Tony Smith, Patricia Johanson, Blinky Palermo and Anne Truitt.

Ad Reinhardt, actually an artist of the Abstract Expressionist generation, but one whose reductive nearly all-black paintings seemed to anticipate minimalism, had this to say about the value of a reductive approach to art:

The more stuff in it, the busier the work of art, the worse it is. More is less. Less is more. The eye is a menace to clear sight. The laying bare of oneself is obscene. Art begins with the getting rid of nature.^[39]

Reinhardt's remark directly addresses and contradicts Hans Hofmann's regard for nature as the source of his own abstract expressionist paintings. In a famous exchange between Hofmann and Jackson Pollock as told by Lee Krasner in an interview with Dorothy Strickler (1964-11-02) for the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art. ^[40] In Krasner's words,

"When I brought Hofmann up to meet Pollock and see his work which was before we moved here, Hofmann’s reaction was — one of the questions he asked Jackson was, do you work from nature? There were no still lifes around or models around and Jackson’s answer was, I am nature. And Hofmann’s reply was, Ah, but if you work by heart, you will repeat yourself. To which Jackson did not reply at all." The meeting between Pollock and Hofmann took place in 1942. ^[40]

Literary minimalism[link]

Literary minimalism is characterized by an economy with words and a focus on surface description. Minimalist authors eschew adverbs and prefer allowing context to dictate meaning. Readers are expected to take an active role in the creation of a story, to "choose sides" based on oblique hints and innuendo, rather than reacting to directions from the author. The characters in minimalist stories and novels tend to be unexceptional.^{[citation needed]}

Some 1940s-era crime fiction of writers such as James M. Cain and Jim Thompson adopted a stripped-down, matter-of-fact prose style to considerable effect; some classify this prose style as minimalism.^{[weasel words]}

Another strand of literary minimalism arose in response to the Metafiction trend of the 1960s and early 1970s (John Barth, Robert Coover, and William H. Gass). These writers were also spare with prose and kept a psychological distance from their subject matter.^{[citation needed]}

Minimalist authors, or those who are identified with minimalism during certain periods of their writing careers, include the following: Raymond Carver, Ann Beattie, Bret Easton Ellis, Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway, K. J. Stevens, Amy Hempel, Bobbie Ann Mason, Tobias Wolff, Grace Paley, Sandra Cisneros, Mary Robison, Frederick Barthelme, Richard Ford, Patrick Holland and Alicia Erian.^{[citation needed]}

American poets such as Stephen Crane, William Carlos Williams, early Ezra Pound, Robert Creeley, Robert Grenier, and Aram Saroyan are sometimes identified with their minimalist style. The term "minimalism" is also sometimes associated with the briefest of poetic genres, haiku, which originated in Japan but has been domesticated in English literature by poets such as Nick Virgilio, Raymond Roseliep, and George Swede.^{[citation needed]}

The Irish author Samuel Beckett is also known for his minimalist plays and prose, as is the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse.^{[citation needed]}

In his novel The Easy Chain, author Evan Dara includes a 60-page section written in the style of musical minimalism, in particular inspired by composer Steve Reich. Intending to represent the psychological state (agitation) of the novel's main character, the section's successive lines of text are built on repetitive and developing phrases.^{[citation needed]}

Alexis Kochan with 'Paris to Kyiv' (Canada).

Minimal music[link]

Minimal music is an originally American genre of experimental or Downtown music named in the 1960s based mostly in consonant harmony, steady pulse (if not immobile drones), stasis or gradual transformation, and often reiteration of musical phrases or smaller units such as figures, motifs, and cells. It may include features such as additive process and phase shifting.^{[citation needed]}

Starting in the early 1960s as a scruffy underground scene in San Francisco alternative spaces and New York lofts, minimalism spread to become the most popular experimental music style of the late 20th century.^{[citation needed]}

The term "minimal music" was derived around 1970 by Michael Nyman from the concept of minimalism, which was earlier applied to the visual arts.^[41]

See also[link]

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

1. Asencio Cerver, Francisco (1997). The Architecture of Minimalism. New York: Arco; Hearst Books international. ISBN 0-8230-6149-3.

2. Bertoni, Franco (2002). Minimalist Architecture, edited by Franco Cantini, translated from the Italian by Lucinda Byatt and from the Spanish by Paul Hammond. Basel, Boston, and Berlin: Birkhäuser. ISBN 3-7643-6642-7.

3. Rossell, Quim (2005). Minimalist Interiors. New York: Collins Design. ISBN 0-68-817487-6 (cloth); ISBN 0-06-082990-7 (cloth).

4. Pawson, John (1996). Minimum. London: Phaidon Press Limited. ISBN 0-7148-3262-6.

5. Saito, Yuriko (Winter 2007). The Moral Dimension of Japanese Aesthetics. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol.65, no. 1, pp.85-97. Retrieved 2011-10-18.

6. Lancaster, Clay (September 1953). "Japanese Buildings in the United States before 1900: Their Influence upon American Domestic Architecture". The Art Bulletin, vol. 35, no. 3, pp.217-224.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Minimalism

• Article on Minimalist Art at the Dia Beacon Museum"Dia Beacon", Tiziano Thomas Dossena, Bridge Apulia USA N.9, 2003

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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.^[1] 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.

Life[link]

Born in Bern, Idaho, he moved with his family several times in childhood, while his father searched for work before settling in Los Angeles, California. He was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He graduated from John Marshall High School and studied at Los Angeles City College. 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 Indonesian 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.) ^[2] 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.^[3]

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)^{[citation needed]}. 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 ratios: 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.^[4] 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.^[5] 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.^[6] 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[link]

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 chord", 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.^[7]

Jazz is one of his main influences and until 1956 he planned to devote his career to it.^[8] 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.^[8] La Monte Young discovered Indian music in 1957 on the campus of 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.^[9][10]

La Monte Young discovered classical music rather late, thanks to his teachers at university. He cites Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Pérotin, Léonin, Claude Debussy and Organum musical style as important influences,^[9] but what made the biggest impact on his compositions was the serialism of Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern.^[9]

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".^[11] 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:

These tools can be used to your advantage if you're a master of [them]... If used wisely — the correct tool for the correct job — they can play an important role... It allows you to go within yourself and focus on certain frequency relationships and memory relationships in a very, very interesting way.^[12]

Reputation[link]

La Monte Young's use of long tones and exceptionally high volume has been extremely influential with Young's associates: Tony Conrad, 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."^[13]

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.^[14]

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.^{[15][page needed]} In 1963 Warhol, Young, and Walter De Maria briefly formulated a musical group, which included lyrics written by Jasper Johns.^[16]

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"^[17] among its "Specifications".

Drone rock pioneer Dylan Carlson has stated Young's work as being a major influence to him.

Quotes about Young[link]

• "If you were going across the prairie in a Conestoga wagon, 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 Name^{[18][page needed]}

List of works[link]

• 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 Kalyan (2002–present), voices, various instruments, tambura drone;
• Trio for Strings (1958) Just Intonation Version (1984-2001-2005), 2 cellos, 2 violins, 2 violas;

Discography[link]

• Inside the Dream Syndicate, Volume One: Day of Niagara with John Cale, Tony Conrad, Marian Zazeela, and Angus MacLise [Recorded 1965] (Table of the Elements, 2000. Bootleg recording of dubious title, credits, and quality Not authorized by La Monte Young)[1]
• 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[link]

• 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 Magazine #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 Flynt [included on Music in Germany 1950–2000: Experimental Music Theatre (Eurodisc 173675, 7-CD set, 2004)]

References[link]

• Duckworth, William. 1995. Talking Music: Conversations with John Cage, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and Five Generations of American Experimental Composers. New York: Schirmer Books; London: Prentice-Hall International. ISBN 0-02-870823-7 Reprinted 1999, New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80893-5
• Eno, Brian, and Russell Mills. 1986. More Dark than Shark. London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 0-571-13883-7
• Grimshaw, Jeremy. 2005. "Music of a 'More Exalted Sphere': Compositional Practice, Biography, and Cosmology in the Music of La Monte Young." Doctoral dissertation, Eastman School of Music. Ann Arbor: UMI/ProQuest.
• Herzfeld, Gregor. 2007. Zeit als Prozess und Epiphanie in der experimentellen amerikanischen Musik. Charles Ives bis La Monte Young. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 285-341. ISBN 978-3-515-09033-9
• Howard, Ed. 2003. "The Dream House". Stylus (online magazine, 17 November).
• Husslein, Uwe (ed.). 1990. Pop Goes Art: Andy Warhol & Velvet Underground: anläßlich der gleichnamigen Ausstellung in der Hamburger Kunsthalle, 30.11.1990–3.2. 1991. Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Popkultur 1. Wuppertal: Institut für Popkultur.
• LaBelle, Brandon. 2006. Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art. New York and London: Continuum International Publishing.
• Potter, Keith. 2000. Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass. Music in the Twentieth Century series. Cambridge, UK; New York, New York: Cambridge University Press. [2]
• Scherman, Tony, and David Dalton. 2009. POP: The Genius of Andy Warhol. New York: Harper Collins.
• Smith, Dave. 2004. "Following a Straight Line: La Monte Young." Journal of Experimental Music Studies (21 June). Updated reprint of Contact 18 (1977–78), 4-9.
• Solare, Juan María. 2006. "El Trío serial de La Monte Young". [About Young's Trio for Strings (1958)]. Doce Notas Preliminares, no. 17:112–42.
• Strickland, Edward. 2001. "Young, La Monte". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
• Watson, Steven. 2003. Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-679-42372-9
• Ghosn, Joseph. 2010. "La Monte Young". Marseilles, France : Le Mot Et Le Reste. (http://josephghosn.com/2010/01/23/mon-livre-sur-la-monte-young-est-la/)

Footnotes[link]

1. ↑ Strickland 2001.
2. ↑ LaBelle 2006, 69.
3. ↑ Duckworth 1995, 233.
4. ↑ LaBelle 2006, 74.
5. ↑ LaBelle 2006, 71.
6. ↑ LaBelle 2006, 73–74.
7. ↑ Potter (2000), p. 23-25
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} Potter (2000), p. 26-27
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1 9.2} Strickland (1991), p.58-59
10. ↑ Strickland (2000), Sound,^{[page needed]}
11. ↑ Potter (2000), p. 66
12. ↑ Potter (2000), p. 67
13. ↑ Quoted in Eno and Mills 1986, 42.
14. ↑ Eno and Mills 1986, 42–43.
15. ↑ Husslein 1990.
16. ↑ Scherman and Dalton 2009, 158–59.
17. ↑ Lou Reed, Metal Machine Music (1975), double vinyl LP, RCA Records (CPL2-1101), "Specifications": text copy, image copy (reissue).
18. ↑ Watson 2003,

External links[link]

• 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 Wire magazine
• Farley, William (Dir.). In Between the Notes: A Portrait of Pandit Pran Nath, Master Indian Musician. Video documentary produced by Other Minds.
• Gann, Kyle. “La Monte Young.”

(Ed.). “An Anthology of Chance Operations.” Something Else, 1963. (PDF version of the original publication on UbuWeb)

• Young, La Monte. “Notes on Continuous Periodic Composite Sound Waveform Environment Realizations.” Aspen 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 Magazine.
• 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[link]

• Golden, Barbara. “Conversation with La Monte Young.” eContact! 12.2 — Interviews (2) (April 2010). Montréal: CEC.
• 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. NewMusicBox — 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.