''Cobra'' is an unpublished but recorded and frequently performed
musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called ...
by
John Zorn
John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jaz ...
. ''Cobra'' was conceived as a system with very detailed rules but with no pre-conceived sequence of events (a "
game piece") for a group of musical
improvisors and a prompter. Zorn completed ''Cobra'' on October 9, 1984. The composition consists of a set of cues notated on cards, and rules corresponding to the cues that direct the players what to do in response to the cards. The number of players, instrumentation, and length of the piece is indeterminate, but a "prompter" is essential to the piece, holding the cards at his or her discretion and issuing other cues. Because there is no traditional
musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation fo ...
and the players improvise, the piece may sound radically different from performance to performance. The title was inspired by a table-top war game published by
TSR.
As was commented upon in some length in a 2004 interview, Zorn has, with his own words, "deliberately chosen not to publish (or even write down) the rules" to his
game pieces, being concerned with the importance of personal instruction. Despite this, photocopies circulate among musicians internationally, and there is even a clean printing of all the cue categories in a CD booklet (see recordings). A card marked "XP", for example, orders the musicians to "sub crossfade" (i.e., those who are playing must stop, while those who were not playing must begin).
[Bracket, 2010] Other cards can order players to form sub-groupings, to mimic or elaborate on what another musician was improvising, and so forth. Players can make requests of the prompter via hand gestures or wearing headgear, including forming "guerrilla units" that are temporarily allowed to ignore the prompter and have options unavailable to other musicians (e.g., forming an "Ivesiean Trio" that plays in recognizable genres that overlap and contrast in the style of composer
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed f ...
).
The BBC documentary series ''On the Edge: Improvisation in Music'' (1992) includes a short segment of Zorn explaining and conducting two versions of ''Cobra''. His goal with ''Cobra'', Zorn said, was to "harness" the creative developments in improvisation and
extended technique
In music, extended technique is unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional methods of singing or of playing musical instruments employed to obtain unusual sounds or timbres.Burtner, Matthew (2005).Making Noise: Extended Techniques after Expe ...
s by New York City's
downtown scene
Downtown music is a subdivision of American music, closely related to experimental music, which developed in downtown Manhattan in the 1960s.
History
The scene the term describes began in 1960, when Yoko Ono, one of the early Fluxus artists, op ...
musicians in a semi-structured way, but "without hindering" their performances; he was interested in telling the musicians when to play, and with whom, but without telling them ''what'' to play. ''
Plus-Minus'' (1963, 1974) by German composer
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...
was a key inspiration for Zorn, inspiring him to develop methods play with or against each other and in response to his cues but without dictating specific notes, sounds, or other formal structures. Though ''Cobra'' can be performed by any number of musicians plus a prompter who handles the cards, Zorn has stated that at least ten musicians are ideal, with care taken in selecting the musicians based on their improvisational skills and personalities.
''Cobra'' was first performed at the original TriBeCa location of
Roulette Intermedium
Roulette Intermedium is a performing arts and new music venue located in Brooklyn, New York City. Founded in 1978, it has been located in the neighborhoods of Tribeca and SoHo in Manhattan, and now resides in a renovated theater in downtown Brookly ...
in 1984.
[(retrieved May 6, 2016)]
Sources
2 photocopied pages with cue categories and explanation of form. First page signed John Zorn (C) Oct 9 NYC. Second page titled "IMPROVISATION. John Zorn - "COBRA", annotated by SB".
Notes
Recordings
*Radio City Studios, NYC (1986) and
WRPI
WRPI (91.5 FM) is a non-commercial free-format college radio station run entirely by students attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and staffed by community members and students. WRPI broadcasts 365 days a year with an effective radiated pow ...
(1985), released as a double CD entitled "John Zorn - Cobra" on the Hatology Label of Basel, Switzerland (2nd ed, 2002)
*''
Cobra'' (1987)- includes a large table of the cues in color.
*''
John Zorn's Cobra: Live at the Knitting Factory'' (1992)
*''
John Zorn's Cobra: Tokyo Operations '94'' (1994)
*''
Cobra: John Zorn's Game Pieces Volume 2'' (2002) — includes a copy of the cues
External links
Article by David Slusser quoting Cobra in its entirety. With additional links.(Broken link
*
{{Authority control
Improvisation
Free improvisation
Experimental music compositions