What if I told you that the mid-20th century saw an innovative movement in Western classical music that was influenced by Indian Music? Well, this really did happen. The minimalism movement was started by a respected man in the music industry in the 20th century. His name is La Monte Young. The movement was not only an innovation, but it was also a rebellion against the stringent rules of Western classical movement at that time.
From his childhood years, La Monte Young was exposed to music. His father sang cowboy songs and taught him how to play saxophone. His aunt taught him how to play the guitar. He later scandalized his Mormon family by taking up Jazz, and he continued his music journey at the University of California, Berkeley in 1958. Due to being exposed to varied kinds of music and his ability to introspect about these genres, he had developed many ideas about the treatment of music. During these years, he first came across a piece of Indian classical music. It was the tape of Ali Akhbar Khan’s 1955 recording, and the drone-like tanpura playing in its introductory section woke exceptional excitement inside him. The ideas that were lying dormant in his mind were actually playing back through the record player.
Three years after hearing the tanpura play in 1955, he composed his first minimalist composition, “Trio for Strings” in 1958. Simultaneously, he went on to listen to more Hindustani music after that and came across the music of Pandit Pran Nath.
Let me give you a picture of who and how Nath was. Nath was an acclaimed musician in India whose musical life started in the year 1925 at the age of six. Nath left his wealthy home in Lahore to pursue music when he was a kid. He trained under well-respected musicians, including Ustad Abdul Wahid Khansahib, until he was 20 years old. During the same time, he stayed in a cave as a naked sadhu to practice his vocal training for many years. Throughout his journey, he formulated a harsh idea that the practice of music was a way of practicing devotion to God. His training methods were extreme. There are stories of him standing in the middle of a river and practicing his singing so that the current of the river hitting against his torso would make his abdomen strong and help him achieve a fuller voice.
In 1970, when Pran Nath was 52 years old, Young contacted him, asking him if he could be Nath’s disciple. Young was 35 when La Monte and the Pandit began their Gurukul-style learning system. The two of them entered the teacher-disciple relationship where Young and his wife Marian Zazeela spent more than two decades of their life serving Pran Nath till his death. They both learned from Nath, toured with him across the world. and also developed a personal familial relationship with him. This was a common dynamic between the teacher and their disciples in the Gurukul system. These two decades can be considered as the foundational structure of Young's career, where he could finally connect the musical, philosophical, and spiritual understandings that were scattered throughout his life to form a style of his own.
He had developed a definite structure of what minimalism music is. A musical piece not dependent on multiple notes. It did not need to have melody or rhythm. Just long repetitive tones could create just as beautiful music as any other form of music.
It’s true that La Monte Young was inspired by Ali Akhbar Khan’s record to build his idea of sustained notes, and that soon enough he had already begun to put together the style of minimalistic music, much before meeting Nath. However, it was only after meeting Pran Nath that Young could establish minimalism as a movement on its own. The Riyaz (practice) of ragas, understanding the microtones, importance of each note versus the melody, these ideas gave space to Young's style of music. He grew musically to understand the value of repetitive notes and the prominence of rests in between those notes. As he began to perform with Nath all over the world, his own minimalist compositions took the Western classical music by storm. What could stun the rigid classical music community more than another rigid classical music community’s ideas?
After Young began his apprenticeship with Nath, another well-known minimalist, a contemporary and follower of Young, also went on to learn music under Nath. This disciple’s name was Terry Riley. Personally, I love Riley’s composition more than Young’s, especially after I heard his composition in C performed by BoCoCelli. His compositions are more musical compared to Young’s six to eight-hour-long compositions. Although we have to admit that there would be no Riley without Young.
https://newmusicusa.org/nmbx/terry-rileys-in-c/: Terry Riley’s 1-page composition score sheet. This composition can last for anywhere between 15 minutes to several hours.
A group of about four to five pioneers of minimalistic music came together and shattered the concepts of Western classical music. Before this movement, Western classical music was about melodies, rhythm, progressive musical movements that had to have varying pace, complex melody, complex chords, and pages and pages of written music. This shift from having maximum notes to having minimum notes became the root of several musical styles that would blossom in the late 20th century. The minimalist musical perception would go on to birth ideas of looping, sampling, drone music, and pads used in horror and war movie scores.
Some of the top American classical music composers criticized the use of minimalism in Western classical pieces. Esteemed composer Elliot Carter, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1960, called minimalistic music a type of music that lacks depth and passion. He, along with a few other composers, believed that minimalism was incapable of expressing and invoking any sort of emotions, and the creativity was limited by the standardized regulation of minimalistic music.
Such criticism could not stop the trailblazing composers of minimalist music from spreading and evolving the hypnotic use of music to impact the world. The indirect effect of this movement can be found in contemporary pop music in songs like Somebody I Used to Know (Gotye ft. Kimbra, produced by Wally De Backer) and Young Folks (Peter Bjorn and John). Although the vocal phrasing of pop music avoids minimalism, the vocals of the verses in the song Mr. Brightside (The Killers) are also pretty much sung using one note, except for a few transition notes.
This cultural collaboration is one of the many great examples of how music is a universal form of expression created by the resonance and ripple effect of ideas. It is also a sharp indicator that creating a unique space is just as important as following the trend for success.
The Western pop music space of this decade is a great example of the collaboration of American and British artists with the South Asian music space. Be it the collaboration between Ed Sheeran and Arjit Singh or Jung Kook and Latto, the industry now understands and respects the importance of the intersectionality of cultures.
About the Author
Rhea Mahule is a sound engineer turned music journalist, driven by a relentless curiosity about what makes music matter. A serial music consumer and passionate writer, she thrives at the intersection of sound, storytelling, and social impact. Her work delves into the nuances of musicology, contemporary pop, and underground sounds, always looking to understand not just how music is made — but why. Whether she's dissecting lyrics or decoding sonic structures, Rhea’s guiding question remains: What drives art?
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