Systems music is music with sound continua which evolve gradually, often over very long periods of time. ^[1] Historically, the American minimalists Steve Reich , La Monte Young and Philip Glass are considered the principal proponents of this compositional approach. ^{[ citation needed ]} Works by this group of composers are often characterized by features such as stasis or repetitiveness.

A number of English experimental composers have also developed systems based music particularly Michael Parsons , Howard Skempton , John White , and Michael Nyman . ^[2]

In the realm of computer music , "systems music" refers to fractal -based, computer-assisted composition, and in particular iterated function systems music, in which a function "is applied repeatedly, each time taking as argument its value at the previous application", ^[3]

References [ edit ]

Sources

• Gogins, Michael (1991). "Iterated-Functions Systems Music". Computer Music Journal 15, no. 1 (Spring): 40?48.
• Sutherland, Roger (1994). New Perspectives in Music . London: Sun Tavern Fields. ISBN   0-9517012-6-6 .

Further reading [ edit ]

• Anderson, Virginia (2013a). "Systems and Other Minimalism in Britain". In The Ashgate Research Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music , edited by Keith Potter, Kyle Gann , and Pwyll ap Sion, 87?106. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN   978-1-4094-3549-5 .
• Anderson, Virginia (2013b). "Whatever Remains, However Improbable". In Experimental Systems: Future Knowledge in Artistic Research , edited by Michael Schwab, 55?67. Leuven: Leuven University Press. ISBN   9789058679734 .
• Dennis, Brian (1974). "Repetitive and Systemic Music". The Musical Times 115, no. 1582 (December), pp. 1036?1038.