What is minimalism (minimalist music)?
I don’t know any websites, but try researching Philip Glass and Steve Reich. They are two good minimalist composers. Some features of it are that it’s cyclic (as in there are short repetitive phrases); it uses phase shifting, which means the short phrase moves very slightly so it’s not quite in time; the piece develops very slowly, there will be very small changes throughout the piece. It might also help you to know that Gamelan music was quite important in influencing minimalism. There are a lot of similar features between them, like melody lines that seem to have no melodic connection but connect rhythmically and the use of ostinato patterns (constantly repeated ideas that change shape) Here is a video of a piece by Steve Reich http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egwXKQDYc… It usually helps to have something to listen to, then you can pick out some of the features.
