This collection of essays represents the first international survey of minimalism and postminimalist music from a wide variety of analytical and historical perspectives; its authors include the central scholars in this area. This chapter is the first comprehensive study of the wide variety of minimalist styles in Britain, from the sparse, ‘minimal minimalist’ One Note 1966 by Christopher Hobbs, to repetitive and durational processes that were at first developed experimentally, using random processes (John White’s Machine music) to numerical systems processes, derived from the work of the British Systems Art group. Although there are close ties between the British and American movements (perhaps strengthened by a shared language), the British movement is distinguished by its ties to British systems and op art, and to literature, as well as to the British folk practice of change-ringing. However, the most consistent trait in this music is a sense of play, and playfulness
