Product Description

Answering a need for critical attention towards experimental and avant-garde music, Arcana is a ground-breaking work -as far-ranging and dynamic as the current generation of musicians. Through manifestoes, scores, interviews, notes and critical papers, performer/composers address composing, playing, improvising, teaching, and thinking in and through music, Rather than an attempt to distill or define musicans' work, Arcana is a remarkable book-challenging and original-essential for composers, musicians, theorists and fans alike.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #143713 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-02
• Released on: 2000-01-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

About the Author
John Zorn is a central figure in New York's music community. Instrumental in developing venues for experimental music such as The Knitting Factory and Tonic, Zorn is a composer and performer credited with having widely expanded the audience for challenging, free-form music. His projects range from his own musical outfits, Masada, Cobra, and Naked City among others, to composing a piece for the New York Philharmonic and producing a Burt Bacharach tribute album.

Customer Reviews

Glimpses
Arcana is a book that you will go back to again and again.Whether it is to look at Fred Friths notes on composing and playing ( great fun for Frithophiles deciphering the music involved)or the fingering techniques of Bill Frissel this is a book that inspires the act of making music.All of the contributors have uncovered some real gems and John Zorn has done a great job editing this book.
This is not a how to book by any means, in fact Arcana offers far more than that.This is a what if book, a glimpse rather than a map.
If you are a musician I feel you will find lots of things in this book to inspire, and for music fans we have a history of sorts that I am sure will enrich your listening pleasure.
Highly reccomended.

We need more words! in the avant-garde not sounds.
largely this is a oblique promo book for Zorn & Company,and other CD labels Tzadik,Hat Art, RecRec, Avant,Atavista etc., as already noted in other reviews, well the avant-garde gotta survive, some do and some don't.
Some are erased from history,
Most of the contributors here play outta The NYC Big Apple,anyway,although writers were selected from all over.It'll be interesting now to see how the cultural scene in NYC develops in light of the World Trade Bombings,especially the free improvisors.
Zorn's a good editor,however, and books like this bring a sense of solidarity in what remains a asymmetrical culture, with no one knowing what each other does and responds to. The musical world is notorious for this social/cultural fragmentation.
I suppose George Lewis,who doesn't now live in Chicago represents the Midwest since his long time,'lontano' long ago association as a kid with Chicago's own AACM. Well that don't cut it.There are other in Chicago who contribute greatly to the scene as the CUBE Ensemble,and Chicago free improvisors. I guess we should get our own promo book.
Garland,Ochs,Rosenboom represents the West Coast, Yeah I guess!Bill Frisell offered renderings on different guitar fingerings was useful, although quite brief,like something he wrote on the bus on the way to the Gig.Likewise Guy Klucevek,Accordeonist/composer as well added some notes,real music notes,I never read anything he wrote,but again something on timbral poossibilities of the Squeeze Box for composers might have been incredibly useful. and,pianists S.Drury and Marilyn Crispell should of talked more about how they play,they play great!, and varied,I'd like to know in print what excites? them why they choose the music they do?, Yes we all know why they choose it, but a little explanation for us unwashed- dispossessed out here who pluck down our Bucks to buy the stuff would have been helpful, a little.

Larry Orchs of Rova Sax Quartet, gets into it, ya might think its pedantic to give licks, noodles and fragments of it, as he does but its a world of use,I sat down ans played all of it, loved it.
Some get into philosophy and the results are abysmal like David Rosenboom's shibboleths,too much science sometimes is a bad thing, and he's a great contributer to the electronic thinking of music,computer base pieces,But I'd rather read Kristeva,Derrida,Baudrillard,or Habermas on the Public Sphere if I wanted to read philosphy.But there was a practical side to his essay on the idea of propositional music.
A bit more useful was Miya Masaoka "Notes from a Trans-Cultural Diary". Since the real operative term is multi-culturalism not postmodernity, this was infinitely useful to read other persepctives, and means of performing and improvising with non-Western instruments.

The most political here was Pauline Oliveros's Questions answered by David Mahler, on how we all survive??, what our music is suppose to do???, how happy are we with the results??, who listens to our stuff?, all this throws quite directly the political question into the discursive/dialogue mix. Whom do we Serve? I believe Rzewski asked many many years ago.
There's also some neat goin exegetical excursions into the real sound timbre experience as Elliott Sharp's CARBONic History, Hey man whatever floats yer boat.
I know it's easy/facile playing 'Monday Morning Quarterback-Composer', But there was nothing on the Voice,Diamanda Galas,or Anna Homler,or Carol Genetti,should have written,scribbled something for this.
Peter Garland,the man of the Desert, is always interesting to read, another who has the guts of throwing the political question into the mix. Since Mickey Mouse and Bill Gates won the Revolution, he has some great stuff to say.
I think there should be more writing like this,no matter what the price, Again the greatest observations of Oliveros is that the avant-garde should serve itself first, we should all help each other work at each other's music,Yeah Right! Well not in this best of all possible Worlds.But it's a neat profound concept to contemplate
I think Charitable behemoths might loosen up on their tight purses for more writing emanating from improvisors,pianists,thinkers,composers,conceptualists, as those in 'Arcana' here,of course, ya all have to learn how to wryite, not like me,ee,Charitable people like to hold onto the objects they throw bucks at(not their's) than the music they will never hear, nor go to a conceert anyways,Music is toooo much part of the ether,rareified air,and it's all part of the hypocrisy we all live by and with.

The Classic Guide to Strategy
As John Zorn outlines in his introduction to the book, he assembled this project as a reaction to the lack of insightful critical writing about the generation of adventurous musicians he is a part of. This group of artists and their work is not easily defined, although critics have tried applying ambiguous terms like 'comprovisation,' 'postmodernism,' and 'totalism." Anyone familiar with the output of record labels like Tzadik, Avant, Atavistic, and Knitting Factory will recognize several names among the contributors. Unlike the usual music essay which dissects an artist's recordings, most of these are very informal and intriguing peeks into the thought processes and compositional practices of the musicians themselves. Bill Frisell provides an approach to guitar fingering, Marc Ribot talks about earplugs, Ikue Mori discusses how she works with drum machines, and Bob Ostertag details how he adapted the sounds of a queer riot for string quartet. There's a discussion on plunderphonics with John Oswald, an overview from Elliott Sharp on his group Carbon, and David Mahler expounds his responses to a set of nine questions posed by Pauline Oliveros. The writings range from brief 2 or 3 page entries (Mike Patton's "How We Eat Our Young," Marilyn Crispell's "Elements of Improvisation") to long and elaborate essays (Scott Johnson's "Counterpoint," David Rosenboom's "Propositional Music"). Some of the contributions are more unusual, such as Zorn's "Treatment for a Film in Fifteen Scenes," Fred Frith's notebook extracts, or Peter Garland's journal of his trip to Australia's Northern Territory. All of them provide for inspiring and thought-provoking reading, making this an invaluable book for both fans of these artists and aspiring musicians of the avant garde. An appendix of brief bios for each artist ends the book, along with short lists of recommended listenings.