AMERICAN MUSIC SERIES 338 a, b
Scott Johnson
With Jack Vees
New Haven, CT
April 2, 2004
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Side a pp. 1-24
Combining "serious" and popular music--playing guitar and in bands as a child--learning about harmony--exposure to jazz working with a local teacher in Madison, Wisconsin--Rite of Spring--evolution and music--book: Cultural Software--contemporary composition--interest in Miles Davis and John Coltrane--college interest in theory--popular and classical music--becoming a "rock music snob" in college--Jimi Hendrix--rhythm and syncopation in pop music--losing rubato but gaining an awareness of articulation in rock--gigs in Europe--using the Beavis and Butthead theme--decision between art and music as his focus--love of the "break" in pop music--evolution and music--discovering the writings of Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins--broad approach to interests--books that were influential--jazz.
Side b pp. 24-37
Evolution of ideas--sociobiology--modernist composing as a kind of "sacred music"--visual art vs. music--doing visual art in N.Y.--involvement with sound installations--influence of Laurie Anderson--Dance Theater Workshop--using tape loops in installation pieces--John Somebody--Natural Postures--U-79 [sp]--No Memory--The Kitchen--Rhys Chatham--Peter Gordon and The Love of Life Orchestra--Drastic Classicism--John Somebody--Steve Reich--Nonesuch label putting out Johnson's record--Philip Glass--John
Somebody's influence on Steve Reich--Bang On A Can--Michael Gordon's Yo, Shakespeare as an important piece of rock-influenced music--Value of People and Things--more on John Somebody--Reich's Three Tales and Different Trains--making skipping records--more about John Somebody--Five Movements for Guitar and Harmonizer--Steel Shower--first guitar piece in twenty-two years--piece where words of I. F. Stone are chopped up--some other more abstract pieces--writing an essay.
AMERICAN MUSIC SERIES 338 f-g
Scott Johnson
With Jack Vees
March 8, 2006
New York, N.Y.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Side f pp. 1-29
Instrumental pieces with rock-jazz band instrumentation—state of contemporary music—different styles of music—starting a band—jazz-rock fusion—Bitches Brew—In A Silent Way—He Loved Him Madly—piece dedicated to James Brown—Tower of Power—Before Winter—James Brown piece: Simple Engines—first string quartet for Kronos—The Pietist and the Hedonist—Romanticism, high modernism, new movements in music—isolation of contemporary music—Interrupt—rock-big band octet—Before Winter—string group he created—Americans—harmonic language—variations on musique concrète—piece based on an installation—his use of minimalist technique.
Side g pp. 29-55
Arrival in New York thinking he would be a visual artist—string quartet for Kronos—influence on him of R & B and ‘soul’ music—“Bird in the Domes” (first movement of his string quartet—influence on him of Bartók—Rock, Paper, Scissors—twelve-tone technique—his harmonic language—John Somebody—need to find his own harmonic language—Rock, Paper, Scissors—Convertible Debts—Americans—aspects of classical music inherited from the nineteenth century—novelty—downtown, uptown, and Hollywood—Western music as a hybrid of different impulses—development of harmony and notation in Western music—African music—his goal as an individual artist—music and culture—recent work—How It Happens—Bowery Haunt—influence of the Ramones on him—combining simplicity and complexity—Agatsuma and tsugaru style of playing the samisen—combination of jazz and Japanese traditional music—Ebony Concerto-piece for Gene Tock [sp[ clarinetist—lack of funding in nineties—young players—favorite bands.