Response to Hayes paper on Zorn-Comment not posting


Reed Pryor, 5-5-2019
Comment based on Paper by Margy Hayes that Explores the Lecture of John Zorn

I agree with you that what a composer puts forth “might be vastly different from an audience’s perspective,” thus making it very important for every composer to have their own voice and to define that by their own terms. That brings me to this idea of the piece ‘belonging to everyone,’ which I think is an essentially stupid thing for Zorn to have stood by. I think that the audience member should take in the piece based on their own interpretation, but the creator should also not be principally concerned with creating a trend in reactions. It is more valuable, for instance, to have someone in the front row hate it and another in the back think of the work as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Get the argument to happen, make it impassioned, and do not expect any sort of cookie-cutter resolution. The overall problem with the art ‘community’ Zorn represents, in which he cannot call Nostrand Avenue by its correct pronunciation but nevertheless shamelessly promotes his studio in Crown Heights, is this repressive idea of ‘come in everybody, we’re all one.' Composers do not walk on water and they are not more special than the players who make their pieces happen-those who Zorn constantly refers to as those ‘lazy’ people he had to bring along. We fundamentally disagree on many things, from his inconsideration for the time in which he was supposed to be speaking, to the physical way he formatted the class as some sort of guru sitting in front of everyone. The piece does not belong to everyone in my opinion. As I have watched The Magnificent Ambersons over the past week, there are techniques of shot composition, dialogue and story arch that Orson Welles uses that I cling onto and have a personal reaction to. However, I never confuse myself to the point where I think his filmic accomplishments are in any way mine. Respect the art, but take space from it as an observer. Let it breathe without your objection as it plays out in front of you and don’t co-opt it.

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