Synopses & Reviews
and#147;
Source: Music of the Avant-garde, 1966-1973 brings its extraordinary, historical explorations and experimentations to a new audience of contemporary music devotees, researchers, composers, students, and educators. This welcome volume reproduces Source's original, provocative issues in an unparalleled repository of articles, scores, graphics, photos, editorials, and reviews, featuring contributions by some of the 20th centuryand#8217;s leading experimental and pioneering composers and performers. Larry Austin and Douglas Kahn have provided us with a true gem and an invaluable resource for future study.and#8221;
and#151;Elainie Lillios, Associate Professor of Composition at Bowling Green State University
and#147;Source was an audacious piece of new music entrepreneurship that could only have happened in the 1960s. I well recall discovering it in the stacks at the university library, flipping the pages and learning that you could just jump right off the edge of the known musical world. This was not a journal that provided information or mere perspectives on new music: it showed you the music itself. It brought you into direct contact with the excitement, provocation, beauty, audacity, ingenuity, and insight of the leading experimental musicians of the day. You might be offended, intrigued, inspired, amused, baffled, but the point was that you were right in there, seeing what was going on and deciding for yourself what you wanted to make out of it. How wonderful it is for this liberating historical moment to be reincarnated; who knows what musical adventures this re-publication will inspire.and#8221;
and#151;James Pritchett, author of The Music of John Cage
and#147;This long awaited reissue of important documents from the late 1960s, including graphic scores, essays, and articles, is an indispensable anthology of cross-disciplinary ideas about music and composition. This is a fascinating treasure trove of musical counterculture, absolutely relevant today.and#8221;
and#151;Christian Marclay, visual artist and composer
and#147;Source was an essential document of its time, a music magazine that made beautiful musicand#151;and beautiful art. This was one of the reasons why I was delighted to be able to reissue all the recordings on a three CD set on Pogus. This book now puts all the print issues in oneand#8217;s hand, bringing us as close to having Source again as we are ever likely to get."
and#151;Al Margolis, Pogus Productions (www.pogus.com)
and#147;There was a glorious moment at the cusp of the 1970s when all our musical road maps became obsolete overnight. Young composers relied instead on the accounts of voyageurs, many of which were printed in the pages of Source. Austin and Kahnand#8217;s meticulous compendium carries us back to that heady, pre-Web time when anything seemed possible.and#8221;
and#151;Nicolas Collins, Editor-in-Chief, Leonardo Music Journal
Review
“Many unexpected delights.” Gramophone
Review
and#8220;Source was there to document all the crazy changes in . . . art-music that we're always trying to one-up one another in our purported and#8216;vast knowledge ofand#8217; here in the TMT office. Score.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Fascinating. . . . A healthy collection of prose descriptions trying to account for what was going on at the time.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Remarkable. . . . The book is a delight to hold and view. . . . Highly recommended.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Many unexpected delights.and#8221;
Synopsis
Source: Music of the Avant Garde was and remains a seminal source for materials on the heyday of experimental music and arts. Published from 1967-1973, it included some of the most important composers and artists of the time: John Cage, Harry Partch, David Tudor, Morton Feldman, Robert Ashley, Pauline Oliveros, Dick Higgins, Alvin Lucier, Annea Lockwood, Anthony Braxton, Cornelius Cardew, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Nam June Paik, Steve Reich, Gordon Mumma, Max Neuhaus, Jerry Hunt and many others. Source documented crucial changes in performance practice and live electronics, computer music, notation and event scores, theatre and installations, intermedia and technology, politics and the social roles of composers and performers, and innovations in the sound of music. Source founding editor-composer Larry Austin and historian Douglas Kahn have revived this path-breaking publication to spotlight the period and allow it to inspire new generations of musicians and artists.
Synopsis
The journal Source: Music of the Avant-garde was and remains a seminal source for materials on the heyday of experimental music and arts. Conceived in 1966 and published to 1973, it included some of the most important composers and artists of the time: John Cage, Harry Partch, David Tudor, Morton Feldman, Robert Ashley, Pauline Oliveros, Dick Higgins, Nam June Paik, Steve Reich, and many others. A pathbreaking publication, Source documented crucial changes in performance practice and live electronics, computer music, notation and event scores, theater and installations, intermedia and technology, politics and the social roles of composers and performers, and innovations in the sound of music.
About the Author
Larry Austin was the founding editor of Source and is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of North Texas. Douglas Kahn is the author of Noise Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts, and a Research Professor at the National Institute for Experimental Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney.
Table of Contents
Preface: Source in the Cause of New Music, by Douglas Kahn
Introduction: Larry Austin on Source, from an interview by Douglas Kahn
ISSUE NO. 1
The Editors | Preface
Giuseppe Chiari | Quel che volete
Robert Ashley
and#149; in memoriam...Esteban Gand#243;mez (quartet)
and#149; in memoriam...John Smith (concerto)
and#149; in memoriam...Crazy Horse (symphony)
and#149; in memoriam...Kit Carson (opera)
plus Letter to the Editor
Earle Brown | Form in New Music
Harry Partch | Lecture
Harry Partch | And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma
Robert Ashley, Larry Austin, and Karlheinz Stockhausen | Conversation
ISSUE NO. 2
The Editors | Is the Composer Anonymous?
Toshi Ichiyanagi | Appearance, for 3 Instruments, 2 Oscillators, 2 Ring Modulators
Morton Feldman | Conversations Without Stravinsky
John Cage | 4'33"
plus correspondence and telephone conversation with the Editor
Gordon Mumma | Alvin Lucierand#8217;s Music for Solo Performer 1965
Jerry Hunt | Sur (Doctor) John Dee and Tabulatura Soyga
ISSUE NO. 3
Larry Austin, Stanley Lunetta, John Mizelle, and Arthur Woodbury | Groups Section
and#149; Gordon Mumma and Larry Austin | Sonic Arts Group
and#149; Robert Ashley | The ONCE Group
and#149; Musica Elettronica Viva | WORDS . . .
David Behrman | Wave Train
Will Johnson | First Festival of Live-Electronic Music 1967
John Mizelle | Radial Energy I
Frederic Rzewski | Plan for Spacecraft
Pauline Oliveros | Some Sound Observations
Robert Moran | Titus Number 1 for Amplified Automobile
The Editors | Comment
ISSUE NO. 4
Robert Ashley | The Wolfman
John Cage and Lejaren Hiller | HPSCHD, interview by Larry Austin
Larry Austin | Accidents
ISSUE NO. 5
Anna [Annea] Lockwood | Glass Concert 2
Christian Wolff | Edges
Dick Higgins | Boredom and Danger
Stanley Lunetta | Spider-Song
Max Neuhaus | A Max Sampler: Six sound oriented pieces for situations other than that of the concert hall
Larry Austin | Events/Comments
ISSUE NO. 6
Dick Higgins | The Thousand Symphonies
Philip Corner | Anti-personnel Bomb
Editors and Respondents | Events/Comments: Is new music being used for political or social ends?
Jani Christou | Enantiodromia
Frederic Rzewski | Street Music and Symphony
ISSUE NO. 7
John Cage and Calvin Sumsion | Plexigram IV: Not Wanting to Say Anything about Marcel
and#149; Barbara Rose | Not Wanting to Say Anything about Marcel
John Dinwiddie | MEWANTEMOOSEICDAY: John Cage in Davis, 1969
Dick Higgins | Towards the and#8217;70s
Arthur Woodbury | Velox
Pauline Oliveros | The Indefinite Integral of Psi Star Psi d Tau Equals One
Mark Riener | Phlegethon
Alvin Lucier | I Am Sitting In A Room and Vespers
Ben Johnston | How to Cook an Albatross
Jocy de Oliveira | Polinteraand#231;and#245;es
ISSUE NO. 8
Sven Hansell and Harvey Matusow | Fylkingen 1970
and#149; and#197;ke Hodell, Mr. Smith in Rhodesia
and#149; Bob Cobbing, Chamber Music
and#149; Ferdinand Kriwet, Rundscheibe XIII
Lowell Cross | Audio/Video/Laser
Morton Feldman | Boola Boola
Larry Austin | Caritas and Transmission One
Stanley Lunetta | Moosack Machine
Peter Garland | and#147;Sea Feverand#8221;
Larry Austin | Editorial
ISSUE NO. 9
David Rosenboom | Noise Abatement Resolution
Anna [Annea] Lockwood | Piano Burning and Tiger Balm
Nelson Howe | Fur Music
Nicolas Slonimsky, Mand#246;bius Strip-Tease
Stanley Lunetta | Events/Comments
and#149; Donald Buchla | On the Desirability of Distinguishing between Sound and Structure
The Editors | International Carnival of Experimental Sound
ISSUE NO. 10
Alvin Lucier | Gentle Fire and Queen of the South
and#147;Naked Softwareand#8221;
and#149; Harvey Matusow | Naked Software: 12-Cassette Spatial Sound System
and#149; Anna [Annea] Lockwood: River Archive
and#149; John Lifton | Project: International Concert of Public Noise
and#149; John Lifton | Interface 3A
Stuart Marshall | and#147;Exhibition on 3 Hillsand#8221;
Steve Reich | and#147;Music as a Gradual Processand#8221; and Pendulum Music
Anthony Braxton | 8KN-(J-6)
1
R10
Cornelius Cardew | The Great Learning
Cornelius Cardew | The Scratch Orchestra: Draft Constitution
George Brecht | Land Mass Translocation
Christopher Hobbs | The Friesian Cow
a.d.r. | Portsmouth Sinfonia
Gavin Bryars | Verbal Pieces
Pauline Oliveros | Sonic Meditations
ISSUE NO. 11
Ken Friedman and Stanley Lunetta | Editorial
and#149; Ken Friedman | International Sources: Notes on the Exhibition
Ken Friedman | NYCS Weekly Breeder
Max Neuhaus | Water Whistle
Robert Filliou | Telepathic Music
Image Bank | New York Corres-Sponge Dance School of Vancouver
Nam June Paik | and#147;My Symphoniesand#8221; and and#147;Postmusicand#8221;
Charles Amirkhanian | and#147;xvurtand#8221; and and#147;bcuhlaand#8221;
John Paul Rhinehart and Stanley Marsh 3 | Chromatic Tree Harp
Appendix: Complete Contents of Source
Credits