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" One thing that I do ask myself when I'm in the creative process is, 'Does the world need this?' "
John Zorn
Myself
Process
Need
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" You know, when we were kids, we had to go to a theater to see a movie. And then television came in and you had to wait until midnight to see the one you wanted to see. Now, all you've got to do is go to a store and buy it and you can watch it whenever you want! "
John Zorn
Wait
Watch
You
" And I try to be as diplomatic as I can, but it always ends up being a psychodrama up there on stage. "
John Zorn
I Can
Always
Up
" As soon as you get a certain amount of attention, then everybody kinda wants to start taking pot shots at you. All your old friends that supported you don't support you any more. "
John Zorn
Old Friends
Support
Start
" It's a blast to watch. It's a lot more interesting live than it is on record. I mean, it really is a theatrical event. It's a sporting event! Cause you never know what's gonna happen. "
John Zorn
Live
Interesting
Know
" It breaks even. We lose ten, twenty grand every year. But then the people who are working say, Look, I'll kick this back in, I don't need to take this profit share. It's very cooperative. "
John Zorn
Lose
Need
People
" I run around, I listen to a lot of music, go to a lot of concerts. And when I see someone that gases me, I try to go out of my way to involve them somehow in what I'm doing or get involved in what they're doing. "
John Zorn
Doing
Run
Someone
" That was my challenge as a composer. Like with anything, to keep yourself interested in doing what you do, you set yourself challenges. So I said, Okay, I'll try to write a hundred tunes in a year. "
John Zorn
Challenge
You
Yourself
" That is a lot of the reason I do what I do, to really spread the word and spread information and turn people onto different things they may not be, y'know, aware of. That is what Naked City is certainly about. "
John Zorn
City
People
Reason
" Well, in Japan, I have got a group of musicians that I have worked with a lot, that concentrate just on the hardcore stuff, say, that Naked City has been working on. We have like a repertoire of sixty songs now. "
John Zorn
Now
City
Say
" I put together the influences of my life in as clear a way as I possibly can, in the same way that Beethoven or Schoenberg or Bach put their influences together. "
John Zorn
My Life
Bach
Together
" Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance. "
John Zorn
Preparation
Performance
Good
" Anything that gets in the way of my focus to create gets cut out of my life. It's not easy. Sometimes it's family. Sometimes it's friends. Sometimes it's the ability to have a relationship. "
John Zorn
Relationship
Family
Easy
" My solo music - I get up onstage, I improvise and it's my improvisation. When I get up onstage with Fred Frith and Mike Patton, then we're improvising together. Then it's not my music; it's our music. "
John Zorn
Improvisation
Music
Solo
" I have about two or three people, we don't have an office, we don't even have a dedicated phone line. We do it out of our own homes, and we make it work. "
John Zorn
Office
Own
Three
" People sometimes have a very hard time accepting change. "
John Zorn
Hard
Time
Change
" You can't sit down and write 300 compositions in a three-month period and think that you're doing it all by yourself. Obviously, there's something going on here. And whether you want to call it channeling or being connected to a creative force or knowing your history and knowing where you belong, that's, you know, maybe a personal thing. "
John Zorn
History
Yourself
Creative
" You can't be idealistic in this world and not be crazy. "
John Zorn
Crazy
World
You
" If someone is a straight jazzhead, or a straight metalhead, or straight classical, they have a very narrow range of what they allow into their lives. But the people who listen to what we put out into the world have to be open-minded. Because we're so pluralist. "
John Zorn
Listen
World
People
" That's where I began to ask questions that maybe don't have one specific answer. And the more people you get answers from, the richer the environment becomes. "
John Zorn
Questions
You
Environment
" What happens when you get to the age of 60 is that you have no more doubts. I know why I'm here on this planet. I know what I need to do. I know what is a distraction and what isn't. "
John Zorn
Know
Need
Distraction
" For about seven years. I really like it there. There are a lot of great musicians. The scene is very open. A lot of stuff going on. People's ears are really open, they are not closed. A lot of scenes here, people just get tunnel vision and are into one thing. "
John Zorn
Musicians
People
Tunnel
" It's a matter of keeping people on a spontaneous edge. "
John Zorn
Spontaneous
Matter
Edge
" I don't control it at all. It's all up to the musicians in the group. They control it. They make all the cues, and they tell me what they want, and then I act like a mirroring device so that everyone can see what the cues are. "
John Zorn
See
Musicians
Me
" I don't ascribe to the idea of the ivory tower composer who sits alone in a room composing his masterpieces and then comes down from Mount Sinai with the tablets. It doesn't work like that. The job of a composer is putting something down on a piece of paper that will inspire the person who's playing. "
John Zorn
Down
Work
Person
" Each record in the 'Book of Angels' series is meant to be unique in terms of the compositions. "
John Zorn
Meant To Be
Angels
Book
" I used to look at composing music as problem solving. But as I get older, it's not about problem solving anymore. There are no solutions, because there are no problems. You just turn the tap and it flows out. "
John Zorn
Problems
Music
Look
" I'm constantly tortured, and that's why I say happiness is irrelevant. Happiness is for children and yuppies. "
John Zorn
Why
Children
Tortured
" Music is about people for me. It's not about sounds. It's about people; it's about putting people into challenging situations. And for me, challenges are opportunities. "
John Zorn
Music
Challenges
People
" I have wit in my work and a sense of humor, but I do not use irony in any way. "
John Zorn
Irony
Humor
Sense Of Humor
" When I'm writing, sometimes it gets to that place where I feel like the piece is writing itself and I'm trying not to get in the way. "
John Zorn
Trying
Sometimes
Place