I always understood minimalism as a reaction against the extreme dissonance coming out of Europe after the war. And that music was a reaction against totalitarian music: Hitler loved Wagner, so Romanticism became the symbol of oppression. So it makes perfect sense that, after the war, composers would follow Schoenberg's path, seeing as he was eschewed by both Hitler and Stalin. Shostakovich was a sometimes favorite of Stalin and so no good; Gershwin too commercial. Schoenberg's was the only language left that hadn't been rendered moot by association.

And his music, and what came after, really did represent the immolation and absolute abstraction of the Classical-Romantic system. By then, we had done just about everything with music, so the only option was to explore the outer limits.

But then minimalism, the savior, arises out of the ashes. People like La Monte Young made drone music; Philip Glass created music out of arrangements of simple rhythmic patterns; Steve Reich wrote incredibly obstinate ostinatos.

If serial music was about creating the most abstract, inhuman music, then minimalism was about creating the most concrete. Having rediscovered what makes music work--patterns of sound in time--minimalist composers used those techniques to build mass structures, out of which growing John Adams and Nico Muhly--both of whom have quirky, witty blogs.

I don't see minimalism as a specific type of music; I see it as an attitude, one that all composers must embrace. These times that we're living in can provide us with an overwhelming flow of information--and in music that means genres and styles. Now that we can do everything, how can we do anything? I think the minimalist impulse is the first step: first each composer must determine what makes music work for them. Minimalists found a style and made it work. And it's a good style because it's big enough to hold several composers. But it's getting pretty close to being played out. Let's not all jump on the bandwagon, abandoning what's left of our creativity.

I had this experience this week. Maybe I finally got sick of being a romantic. I got to the point where I felt like I had done enough exploring, like I have enough to work with. Now I'm trying to do more with less, go through my own mini Classical phase, keeping each piece limited to a few ideas instead of trying to cram them all into each one.

It's been a good week. I'm ready socially to come back tomorrow, but musically I wish I had a few more days. Same story, different week.

Resonate on Saturday: I'm excited.