The Alvin Curran Fakebook

The alvin curran fakebook is an anthology of more than 200 compositions, musical fragments, and instruction pieces by a well-known experimental contemporary composer. It is intended as a resource and a source of joy for adventurous musicians - composers, performers, improvisers, sound artists - as well as for scholars, teachers, fans, bloggers, buskers, art book lovers, and terminal avant-garde-ists. Richly illustrated with photos, drawings, and drafts of scores, peppered with Curran's punchy writings, the volume is a sounding autobiography, a compendium of 50 years of the thought and practice of a maverick composer in the Western classical lineage. The content is very varied and allows for a broad and personal approach to use by musicians. Sheet music formats range from conventional Western scoring in equal temperament to jazz Fake Book notation (chord symbols, etc.), verbal instructions, and graphic notation. Possibilities of layering, remixing, instrumentation, improvisation, spatialization, and staging are limited only by the user's imagination.