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When it comes to the theory aspect of Zappa's music I don't really know what is going on, I just know I like the music a lot and it is very technical stuff far beyond my comprehension. Would some of you please explain to me some of the more technical aspects of the music with examples so I can further my knowledge of Zappa?

try this page
http://www.zappa-analysis.com/
whether you like his rock, jazz, classical, synclavier, whatever stuff, this site should help you

Check out the list of inspirations listed on the back of the Freak Out album! That gives you an idea of what he was trying to blend. For me I always thought of his music as brilliant funky blues tunes which are interrupted every so often by bursts of Stravinsky.

Listening to Rite of Spring by Stravinsky followed by a best of album by Johnny "Guitar" Watson and you will be on your way

Thanks!

Hi,

All in all, if you know, or have studied music history a little, you will find that it is overly structured by people that compiled information after the fact and the moment ... in other words, by the time the music was defined, the composers were already gone.

So, speed to the 20th century and music history now shows Jazz and Rock as two more idioms that are throwing music definitions for a loop. Basically, "music" has no definition today at all ... and probably should stay that way for a while until we learn to determine some proper definitions and work.

I have a simplistic way to look at it ... some say it is idiosyncratic, and some say that it is inspired by this and that ... but in the end it looks like this:

Look at a score for a rock song ... 4 lines!

Look at a score for an orchestra symphony ... 40 lines or so, sometimes more when you have an opera!

When you have ... let's say 40 instruments running ... you do not have the capability to listen to it and discern the totality of the music as well as you do rock and jazz, because of their simplified formats. Ohh, well, we know and have heard Beethoven and Verdi, and Puccini, or Mahler ... but remember those scores had 30 to 40 lines of instruments coming together to say something.

Now, here comes Frank.

I think that he knew that ... and thought that jazz and rock were not exactly hard ... and mostly were just simplistic notions about notes and chords ... which is very true when you compare to the pace in a lot of classical music. So Frank wanted to do something that was different, but he could not do so within the confines of today's standard music ... you can not have a band and survive with it, specially in those days, doing what everyone else was already doing ... so you make a choice!

So I like to say that a lot of Frank's music has more than 4 lines on the score ... just for fun. Others, here, think that he is idiosincratic, because he mixed this pop music bit with something else underneath it in order to make it weird and out of place, and yet ... it sounds fine when you and I hear it!

If you want to learn about "music", you have to let go ... any definition for it. Let what is there ... show you what is there ... and then you have something to work with.

The thing about "Varese" and "Stravinsky" is a bit over rated, if not strange, because if there is one thing you will find is ... that maybe one or two people, ONLY, in this board, have ever heard Varese, and have any idea what his music is about! ... so when someone writes that about music and Frank, it is rather like saying ... Frank is not interested in rock'n'roll ... but that doesn't mean he is not going to make fun of it for a few seconds in the middle of his piece!

Not quite sure what your point is....

Varese was more about pitch and vertical structure than linear things...

If you look at Zappa's scores he really doesn't do much counterpoint and is mostly about sub-divisions of the rhythm.
(he was WAY BEYOND Stravinsky in this!)

Music, as far as I can tell, is an "esoteric language."
Much more "spiritual,if you will, than any other artistic discipline.

Artists like ZAPPA, MILES, SUN RA, ZORN all encompase their own "universe."
It's certainly fruitless talking about genres in regards to any of them.

To Frank all sound was raw material.
Therefore what is there to discuss.
It resenates with some but not all.

I think he thought all his "rock" oriented material (4 line scores) were just as valid as any 40 line scores he would write.
It was all the same to him.

This attitude destroys all pretentiousness.


FRANK was sooo cool!

Turn back now before it's too late!
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Miasma!

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Literally graduates of the Phi Zappa Krappa school of appliantology. Where's my depends nurse! Nurse? Opel you hot little bitch! Where's my waitress,er,I mean nurse?

No,no go baaaack! This is real Cheepnis here.

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My non-educated take is that listening to a lot of Zappa leads me to believe that he was always a drummer at heart. All of his experimental/classical pieces seem to be based around rhythms. the P/O version of Freak Out has a numerous tracks showing this as well, so even at the beginning he was a rhythm guy. The Varese I listened to was mostly rhythm based as well, with the melody coming out of that rhythm. This would differentiate Zappa from the more popular composers where the rhythm serves the melodies, and the melodies intertwine instead of the rhythm driving the music. Add in Zappa's use of free form jazz type improv and what not and you have something completely individualistic than what everyone else was doing.

Then smother it all in the blues and doo wop and you got Frank.

First of all, it's too late to turn back. Second, I turn 30 in a few months and I'm engaged so I'm prepared to go all in!

as the zappa forums motto goes: for the love of god if you havent had sex yet DO NOT come here or itll absolutely never ever happen