John
Zorn Game Pieces Notes
Zorn’s in3luences for these: Kagel, Braxton, Cage, Leo Smith, Earle Brown, Cecil
Taylor, Stockhausen, Christian Wolff
LACROSSE
(youtube guitar quartet for cues)
“It is basically a collage of very short improvised bits called "Gems". These
gems are the material for the piece, and using those, there is a fixed form:
a chain of events that involve solos (each with different parameters) and
successions of duo and quartet gems. There are also a few fixed notated
bits.”
“Heads for solo concerts in Lacrosse: one for Eugene, one (same one) for
both Polly and LaDonna, one for zorn, one for davey and one for mark.
Also there is the pope cue soloists, the waltz and the tango.”
GEMS: (9 secs in duration)
PIVOT: let another’s short piece constantly change the direction of your
own improvisation or gem
DOMINO: a short piece interwoven into a longer improvisation, line or
phrase (then return where you left off)
PRIUS: a concise summary, containing only the essential elements of
another’s or your own improvisations
TILE: An introduction into something that does not exist (but sets a mood)
STATUE: a piece so complicated that it becomes almost visual (should be
followed by appropriate sound for it and ring)
(Continue throughout as a separate piece)
Introduction: The Gems
Soloist A, group controls solo by pivots, dominoes by soloist, the six duet
gems: AB, DC, AD, BC, DB, CA
Soloist B, 1 suite, 2 ballad, 3 POP CUE SOLO, dominoes by soloist, the
four quartet gems plus the waltz, D/C/Waltz/B/A
Soloist C, Gems within Gems, The Tango, dominoes by soloist, the six
duet gems, AC, BD, CB, DA, CD, BA
Soloist D, soloist controls entrances of pivots, dominoes by soloist,
CODA: The Gems”
“pop cue solos”
“…learning to play through the sequence of events that comprise the body
of the piece while maintaining a steady stream of gems (a menu of four of
zorn’s special musical gestures that each player juggled independent of
the group action) was particularly daunting.
HOCKEY
“you create 3ive events, then three others to use as backup, you cycle them freely,
there are downbeats called “pips,” some other kinds of improvised events: “statues,”
and a couple of others whose names escape me, and solos.”
POOL (quartet)
Uses a prompter to keep everything in order between in and out of “pool” and the
progression of SDTQ orderings. Has no control over the piece.
“Since there are only 15 SDTQ permutations with 4 players, I decided in POOL to
have each of them reappear several times, each time in a new context: either
followed and/or preceded by a different ordering. Completing all these possibilities
yielded a structure so lengthy (15 to the power of 2). That I settled on a way of
ordering them very different from my usual graph or serial box method; I worked
out four linear progressions of single players, with all the possible orderings and
certain necessary pretitions distributed evenly across them. I then cut them into
every possible SDTQ ordering, correcting a few undesired repetitions, and adding a
few intercuts. Instead of the more harmonically complex overlays and
superimpositions characteristic of Archery, for POOL the orderings were structed in
a more linear fasion, with each single order separated by silences of varying
durations, meant to make TIME alternately the MOST or LEAST important aspect of
the performance. In addition I composed and interjected the 3 Ringers, as systems
of relationships notated in time, the 3irst containing all the possible trios, the second
completing a set of the horizontal orderings and the third containing all the possible
duos. They can be heard around the middle of part one, near the beginning of part
two and opening part three respectively… In POOL, the SDTQ permutations became
the interpolated structures, with the Basis of the Form being a much looser concept,
more appropriate for a smaller group: the cued intercut and improvised
manipulation of modular systems or block forms. This idea gives each player a large
and equal measure of control over the whole music, a kind of veto or editing power.
Improvising here involves not only your own playing and relationship to the other
players, but also the direct playing with the PIECE, the improvisation of strutcutre
and form, both singly and as a group, according to the rules or equations delineated
in the score.”
“…I eliminated both the rotation of silences, and the ordering of players to cue them,
with any player free at any time to cue any silence, the composition/performer
relationship was no much more even.”
CURLING
“…had a complex structure similar to Lacrosse, but the improvisational language was
restricted only to long tones of varying lengths, focusing in on the micro differences
in vibrato and intonation.”
