Music for Eighteen Musicians (MFEM) is a minimalist composition by Steve Reich written between 1974 and 1976. Although this piece is the culmination of previous minimalist work of Reich, it was also innovative in its elements of structure and harmony. Reich emphasizes this point by saying "there is more harmonic movement in the first five minutes of Music for Ten Eighteen Musicians than in any of my complete works to date." It was also his first attempt at composing for a large ensemble drawing on his frequent use of piano and pitched percussion with a violin, cello and two clarinets. The context that led to the composition of Music for Eighteen Musicians sheds light on why it was composed and, in a broader sense, why minimalism as a whole came to be. During the 1950s, music academies across America were heavily concerned with some form of composition. known as serialism. Serialism in its most basic and initial form can be characterized by rows of twelve tones, but it is a much broader term that covers "series" that can be designed for other musical aspects such as dynamics and rhythmic duration. The alternative to this cerebral music was indeterminate music, pioneered by John Cage in the 1950s. Minimalist music of the late 1950s and 1960s developed largely as a reaction against the complexities of serialism and indeterminate music. Minimal music was characterized by the music of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass. This brought back a strong sense of tonality and pulse, which contrasted greatly with the a-tonality and complex meter of serialism. The key element of minimalist music is its repetitive nature. Steve Reich was born in 1936 in New York. He began to seriously...... middle of paper ......iece.Music for Eighteen musicians, the harmony and structure are based around a cycle of eleven chords. These chords are constructed from a mode of seven pitches which have a key signature of three sharps. Individual chords are constructed from stacked fourths and fifths using these notes. The introduction to the piece gradually moves through each of these chords. The following eleven sections of Music for Eighteen Musicians are each based on one of eleven chords. The introduction can be seen as a template for the overall structure of the piece. The eleven sections conform to either an arc structure of ABCDCBA or the structure of a musical process. The conclusion returns to the progressive cycle of eleven chords. Two main rhythmic ideas are present in this piece. The first is the steady rhythmic pulse of pianos and mallet instruments.