If one movement in development of contemporary music tends to perpetual enrichment of expressive means, the second one follows the way of their reduction. This approach investigates the very basis of music. By means of discarding the cultural sediments, it tries to unveil a hidden core of music. By doing this the composers or improvisers descend to the most elementary components of music - rhythm, sound or special acoustic phenomena - to show us a new way of "different listening" and to experience an endless astonishment. The sound itself is a great mystery! The reduction of means does not necessarily imply an impoverishment - even in our life we can sometimes get more by giving up something ... Anyway, the both tendencies interweave and make up a unity: it is interesting to see which components of music are reduced and how the reduction of musical means affects the concept of music and how rich and colourful image it displays.