Students should have acquired a good sense of rhythm, being able to feel naturally the beginning of a bar and to be able to improvise and copy simple rhythms within such time frames. Instrumental skills are not a pre-requisite. This makes the project both excellent for introducing motor skills to beginners, just as much as it can lead to quite complex expression for intermediate and advanced students.
In the MINIDORO Project 1 the aims are to: (a) develop basic instrumental motor skills such that a simple rhythmic improvisation can be transferred into a melodic shape on an instrument; (b) develop skill in improvising on "white" notes; (c) improvise within a defined rhythmic and metric context; (d) gain a practical insight into composing in the Dorian mode.
As this project is largely improvisational there are no worksheets for students, only background information sheets on Minimalism (html format or pdf format) and Modes (html format with sound or pdf format. Html files are editable -simplify them, if you wish! Some teachers may want to adapt the lesson notes for teachers into worksheet form. Students working this project by themselves should follow the lesson notes, too.
The MINIDORO MIDI file (simple) provides the basis of the whole project. As you or your students improvise new ideas you can add them as extra or substitute tracks to this file to achieve more variety if you so wish. Technical Information (Music) will help you if you are not sure how to do this. The MINIDORO MIDI file (repeats) illustrates how the simple file would sound when you apply cycles and loops. See Technical Information (Music) again for further information.
In the unlikely event of you needing a notated version of the music of this project, print out the parts or score from the MIDI file (simple) once it you have imported it to your sequencer. Technical Information (Music) explains how to do this.
See Preparatory notes and the lesson notes for the teacher.
Information sheets on:
1. Minimalism (editable html format: non-editable pdf format)
2. Modes (editable html format with sound: non-editable pdf format)
Recordings of useful follow-up music:
T. Riley - In C - CBS/Sony MK7178
T.Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air - CBS/Sony MK7315
M. Nyman - The Essential Michael Nyman Band - ARGO 436 820-2
M. Nyman - The Piano - Virgin CDVE 919
Books useful for follow up:
K. Robert Schwarz, Minimalists, Phaidon: London, 1996 ISBN-0714833819
E. Sharma, Music Worldwide (pp47-56), CUP, Cambridge, 1998 ISBN-052137622 (CD also available)
Further follow-up material is presented in the MINIDORO II project
Project author and MIDI file compiler: John Mason
Source and composer: Valentin Schmitt, Minimal Model, Gustav Bosse Verlag, Regensburg, 1984