1. An earlier form of this paper was read under the same title at the joint meeting of the American Musicological Society and the Society for Music Theory, Seattle, 2004. I would like to thank Tony Rohr at Hidden Agenda Records, Richie Hawtin and Clark Warner at m_nus inc. / plus8 records ltd., and Marc Leclair and Jon Berry at Regenerate Industries for generously granting permission for the recorded examples included in this paper.

2. Max Wechsler. "Wiederholung/Redundanz: Eine Kunstlerische Strategie Zwischen Verdeutlichung Und Verwirrung," in Walter Fähndrich (ed.), Improvisation III (Winterthur: Amadeus, 1998), 58.

3. Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." In Illuminations (London: Pimlico, 1999), 214.

4. Susan McClary, Rap, Minimalism, and the Structures of Time in Late Twentieth-Century Culture, Geske Lectures (Lincoln: College of Fine and Performing Arts, University of Nebraska, 1998), 14. It is worth noting that, although the drive for repetition has been pathologized in the form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the same cannot be said for the fear of or aversion to repetition.

5. Rousillon, René, Le plaisir et la répétition: Théorie du processus psychique (Paris: Dunod, 2001), viii.

6. Freud, Sigmund, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, trans. J. Strachey (New York: Liveright, 1950), 1. Original edition, 1920.

7. Ibid, 58.

8. Arnold Schoenberg, "Brahms Der Fortschrittliche," in Stil Und Gedanke: Aufs�tze Zur Musik (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1976), 37. I have preserved the gender-specificity of the abstract listening subject from Schoenberg's writings to make a contrast with Freud's concern with both male and female subjects.

9. Arnold Schoenberg and Rudolf Stephan, Die Grundlagen Der Musikalischen Komposition (Wien: Universal Edition, 1979), 20.

10. Andreas Jacob, "Arnold Schonbergs Theoretische Schriften Über Funktion Und Techniken Der Wiederholung," in Kathrin Eberl and Wolfgang Ruf (eds.), Musikkonzepte-Konzepte Der Musikwissenschaft: Bericht Über Den Internationalen Kongress Der Gesellschaft Für Musikforschung Halle (Saale) 1998, Bd 2: Freie Referate (Kassel/New York: Bärenreiter, 2000), 572.

11. This interpretation of Adorno's critique of repetition is indebted to Ingrid Monson and Bernard Gendron. Bernard Gendron, "Theodor Adorno Meets the Cadillacs," in Tania Modleski (ed.), Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), 20-21; Ingrid T. Monson, "Riffs, Repetition, and Theories of Globalization," Ethnomusicology 43 (1999): 31-65.

12. Adorno, Theodor W., "On Popular Music," in Susan H. Gillespie and Richard D. Leppert (eds.), Essays on Music: Theodor W. Adorno (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 452-3. Original publication, 1941.

13. Adorno, Theodor W., "Difficulties," in Essays on Music: Theodor W. Adorno, 667. Original publication, 1966.

14. Adorno, Theodor W., "Wagner's Relevance for Today," in Essays on Music: Theodor W. Adorno, 599. Original publication, 1963.

15. Adorno, Theodor W., Philosophy of Modern Music, trans. Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley G. Blomster (New York: Continuum, 2002), 135-191. Original publication, 1958.

16. Monson, 51.

17. Ibid, 51-52.

18. See: Rebecca Leydon, "Towards a Typology of Minimalist Tropes," Music Theory Online 8.4 (2002); Carlo Migliaccio, "Ripetizione E Cambiamento in Musica," De musica: Annuario in divenire 2 (1998); and Wechsler, 58-70.

19. Leydon, 1-14.

20. John Miller Chernoff, African Rhythm and African Sensibility: Aesthetics and Social Action in African Musical Idioms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 111-12.

21. Steven Feld and Charles Keil (eds.), Music Grooves: Essays and Dialogues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

22. Steven Feld, "Sound Structure as Social Structure," Ethnomusicology 28 (1984): 383-407.

23. Monson, 52.

24. Veit Erlmann, "Communities of Style: Musical Figures of Black Diasporic Identity," in Ingrid T. Monson (ed.), The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective (New York: Garland, 2000), 85-86.

25. Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

26. Erlmann, 86.

27. Paul Kiparski, "Oral Poetry: Some Linguistic and Typological Considerations," in Benjamin A. Stolz and Richard S. Shannon (eds.), Oral Literature and the Formula (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1976).

28. Richard Middleton, "'Play It Again Sam': Some Notes on the Productivity of Repetition in Popular Music," Popular Music 3 (1983): 239.

29. Mark J. Butler, "Unlocking the Groove: Rhythm, Meter, and Musical Design in Electronic Dance Music" (PhD, Indiana University, 2003), 69.

30. Middleton, 240.

31. Russell Potter, "Not the Same: Race, Repetition, and Difference in Hip-Hop and Dance Music," in Thomas Swiss, John Sloop and Andrew Herman (eds.), Mapping the Beat: Popular Music and Contemporary Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 31-46.

32. Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1994).

33. See McClary, 24. This is not to say that these views are to be discarded, but rather that further work must be done to reconcile their theories with musical practice. An example of a step towards this might be Wim Mertens's work on American minimalism: Mertens, Wim, American Minimal Music (London/New York: Kahn & Averill/Broude, 1983), 118-124.

34. Benjamin, 218.

35. Bühler, Karl, Die Krise der Psychologie, 3rd ed. (Stuttgart: G. Fischer, 1965). Original edition, 1927.

36. Ibid, 180-194.

37. One might even extend this to tasks that efface their products, e.g. the Zen Buddhist monastic practice of creating sand mandalas and then effacing them when they are completed.

38. Gould, Shirley and Heinz L. Ansbacher, "'Function Pleasure' in Adlerian Psychotherapy," Journal of Individual Psychology 31/2 (1974): 150-57.

39. One could productively "overstand" my terminology to question whether "doing" stands at a level of abstraction between or above "receiving" and "making;" as of yet, I am not prepared to take a stand on this issue.

40. Bühler, 194.

41. Williams, Linda, Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the "Frenzy of the Visible", Expanded Edition (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999). BDSM is shorthand for an overlapping collection of sexual behaviors, including Bondage, Discipline, Domination & Submission, and Sadism & Masochism (or Sadomasochism).

42. "Track" refers to a unit of music within EDM discourses in a manner similar to "cut" or "joint" in hip-hop. This is generally preferable to labels such as "song" more common in pop-rock discourses, which implies a song-structure and use of vocals that rarely applies to EDM.

43. The final example can also be considered form of "microhouse" (see [6.2n56]). For a very useful (and often opinionated) overview of EDM genres and sub-genres--including copious audio examples--see Ishkur, "Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music," in Digitally Imported FM, http://www.di.fm/edmguide/edmguide.html (accessed Apr 1, 2005).

44. Eugene Montague, "Moving to Music: A Theory of Sound and Physical Action," (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2001).

45. Mark Spicer, "(Ac)Cumulative Form in Pop-Rock Music," twentieth-century music 1 (2004): 33.

46. This term may seem to be reminiscent of the title to Amiri Baraka's (LeRoi Jones) essay, which seeks to build a history of black cultural (musical) forms that emphasizes the continuity of the "changing same." However, my intention here is rather to evoke the experience of listening to looping music: the sensation of motion that does not move in a linear direction to a new place, but returns to the same place--although that same place may have changed. c.f. Baraka, Imamu Amiri (a.k.a. LeRoi Jones). "1966--The Changing Same (R&B and New Black Music)," in Black Music (New York: W. Morrow, 1967), 180-211.

47. Butler, 103.

48. Ibid, 110.

49. Peter J. Burkholder, All Made of Tunes: Charles Ives and the Uses of Musical Borrowing (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995).

50. Spicer, 29.

51. Plastikman (a.k.a. Richie Hawtin), musik (NovaMute, 1994), CD.

52. Mark J. Butler, "Hearing Kaleidoscopes: Embedded Grouping Dissonance in Electronic Dance Music," presented at the Society for Music Theory, Madison, WI 2003.

53. Tony Rohr, "Baile Conmigo" (Tora! Tora! Tora!, [2002] 2004), 12" EP.

54. Butler "Unlocking the Groove," 70.

55. Akufen (a.k.a. Marc Leclair), My Way (Force Inc. Music Works, 2002), CD.

56. Although Akufen's precise compositional technique (i.e. sampled radio-play sliced into microsamples and reassembled into house music) is more or less unique, the more general practice of microsampling informs a number of genres that both precede and follow Akufen's work. For example, granular synthesis and "microsound" styles have had a long history in electronic "art" music and more recently in other electronic genres. Also, Akufen's 2002 release (see note 39) marks the approximate time of an emergent "microhouse" genre, of which his work is representative. Also related to this practice is the sample-heavy collage work of artists such as DAT Politics, People Like Us, Matmos, The Soft Pink Truth, MF Doom, DJ Danger Mouse, and Kid606.

57. Provided that these processes are not so challenging or surprising that they deny mastery.

58. Reich, Steve, "Music as a Gradual Process (1968)," in Paul Hillier (ed.), Writings on Music, 1965-2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 34-36.