sleeping in a jar wrote:
mutronboy wrote:
The Cap'n really did invent a whole new style of music with Trout Mask...
but if it wasn't for Bill Harkleroad he couldn't have done it
Apparently Don would come up with doodles and piano plonks and leave Bill to arrange it into something
So thanks to the Cap'n for wielding the stick...but it's really 75% Zoot Horn Rollo
according to wikipedia it was john french:
Van Vliet used a piano—an instrument he had never played before—as his main compositional tool. Since he had no experience with the piano and no conventional musical knowledge at all, he was able to experiment with no preconceived ideas of musical form or structure. Beefheart sat at the piano until he found a rhythmic or melodic pattern that he liked. Mike Barnes compared this approach to John Cage's "maverick irreverence toward classical tradition".[12] John French then transcribed this pattern, typically only a measure or two long, into musical notation. After Beefheart was finished French would then piece these fragments together into compositions, reminiscent of the splicing together of disparate source material on Marker's tape. French decided which part would be played on which instrument and taught each player their part, although Van Vliet had final say over the ultimate shape of the product.i haven't yet been able to find another source to confirm it.
Thanks sleepinginajar, I stand corrected,
I always remembered it as Zoot Horn, but I remembered wrong
I still think Zoot Horn's manic styling contributed a lot to that album tho', heh