Bora Yoon - Musical Perspective

John Zorn 

Well, Mr. John Zorn is certainly not a wallflower.  He definitely kept me entertained.  But also how do we score an invite to his private shows at the home of the Arpels of Van Cleef and Arpels in the west village?  Though his class - well, conversation - was rife with quotable phrases, I initially wasn’t really sure what to write about his music style, or about what he said, as it was a lot to follow the ping-pong conversation.   

His atonal and experimental material is definitely unique, and it was interesting to learn that he has sort of done his own thing and pushed himself to develop his own style rather than just writing to scripts and trying to fit himself into a certain style box.  Besides having developed his own style - multiple “own” styles, really - he’s a composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist, and multi-instrumentalist, and has produced jazz, rock, classical, surf, metal, ambient and improvised music.  

Apparently he’s even used duck calls in his music.  Though maybe not my style or styles, he certainly has focused on pushing boundaries and experimenting with anything he can think of.  While not everything he does is a hit, he sure has some critical acclaim online, so he’s doing something right for someone.  

He noted that he prefers writing for, performing and working with friends.  He is more focused on the performers than the audience, and said something along the lines of he wants to remain true to the idea behind the composition and focus on the performers and performance, rather than the audience, hence the private performances in his friends’ homes where he’s maybe not guaranteed a glowing reception, but perhaps a better chance at one.  

While maybe not all of us are lucky enough write for and perform and work with friends as we start out, it is certainly something to aspire to.  That’s kind of what the NYU community provides, a chance to establish not only connections with fellow composers, but songwriters, musicians, dancers, actors, screenwriters - this overall creative community.  

The world of entertainment is currently in flux, and more open than ever to creatives who push the creative boundaries, who create entire projects and not just pieces of them, and it gives people a platform who wouldn’t have had easy access to one before.  For example, I’m a songwriter, but wrote a “screenplay” a few months ago because it seems like you really have to create your own projects these days.  So my thought is, if I want to have the best chance of getting songs in a movie - write the movie.  Of course chances are slim that this thing I call a “screenplay” will ever be made, or even if it is, that my songs would be in it - but at least I tried! It seems like Zorn has a similar mentality, in that he doesn’t wait for someone to commission his work, but is constantly imagining and creating, coming up with ideas during conversations, walking etc. and runs with those ideas instead of putting them aside for a time when someone else pushes him forward.  I also associate with this mentality as a songwriter, since I mainly write songs when the ideas come, and not only when instructed to do so for school or requested to do so for a work project.  Anyway, here’s hoping that someday we can all have orchestras perform in our living rooms.