Introduction

La Monte Young was born into a Mormon family of Swiss origins at Bern, Idaho, in 1935. He has said that one of his earliest memories was the continuous whine of the wind going through the chinks in their log cabin, which he found beautiful and mysterious. As a child he learned the guitar and saxophone and, at the Los Angeles Conservatoire, the clarinet. He played with bands during the 1950s but also studied counterpoint with Leonard Stein, who had been a colleague of Schoenberg’s, and he became fascinated by Webern. But he soon carried this into his own territory and became obsessed with drones. A landmark in his development was the Trio for Strings (1958), later regarded as a classic of minimalism through its slow pace, long notes, and silences. This interest in the simplest materials was also reflected in concept pieces based on a single instruction such as Composition 1960, No. 10: “Draw a straight line and follow it.”

Young soon became involved with Indian music and musicians, studying seriously as a performer. His The Well-Tuned Piano is an extended work—over six hours—using just intonation. He was determined to “get inside a sound.” Some of his activities have been multimedia, especially drawing on the beautiful light-sculptures of his wife, Marian Zazeela. In 1963 Young and Jackson Mac Low edited An Anthology of the American avant-garde. Cage was represented by an excerpt from 45 for a Speaker (1954).

In 1973 Cage admired Young's involvement with Indian music and added: “I’m convinced that La Monte Young is a great musician… . The reason I value [him] so much is that he has changed my mind; he's one of the ones who has.” Much later Young himself said, “Zen meditation allows ideas to come and go as they will, which corresponds to Cage's music: he and I are like opposites which help define each other.”