Frank Zappa Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This thesis tries to elucidate and exemplify possible intersections between experimental rock of the late 60s and early 70s and the field of electroacoustic music, focusing mostly on production/compositional techniques and aesthetic... more

This thesis tries to elucidate and exemplify possible intersections between experimental rock of the late 60s and early 70s and the field of electroacoustic music, focusing mostly on production/compositional techniques and aesthetic approaches. A historical overview of the context which experimental rock emerged from is attempted, exploring why and how certain production techniques were used at that period in rock music and investigating into whether the aesthetic outcome of these techniques relates to experiments in the field of electroacoustic music. Musical examples from the field of classical, jazz and rock styles (including artists like Glenn Gould, Lennie Tristano, Miles Davis, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Fred Frith (Henry Cow) and Frank Zappa) are addressed for the sake of exploring different experimental studio practices. Moreover, a part of this research deals with the creative exploration of the production techniques discussed in order to develop my personal compositional work and eventually to create a framework where a discussion about composing electroacoustic music from the perspective of rock production (and vice-versa!) could emerge.

This article offers an introduction to a little-known compositional system devised by Frank Zappa for his orchestral music: the Chord Bible. Through a close study of the orchestral works featuring Chord Bible harmony, I will attempt a... more

This article offers an introduction to a little-known compositional system devised by Frank Zappa for his orchestral music: the Chord Bible. Through a close study of the orchestral works featuring Chord Bible harmony, I will attempt a partial recreation of its contents, focusing on seven- and eight-note chords. This will reveal a hybrid system with important pitch and pitch-class components. Regarding pitch, each chord manifests a precise intervallic spacing (or ‘density’, to use Zappa's term). Conversely, chords are conceived in a scalar harmonic universe derived from diatonic, minor Lydian and octatonic pitch-class collections. These aspects will be described as a merging of features derived from the music of Edgard Varèse and from the scalar procedures characteristic of Zappa's popular output. I will demonstrate how different chord types within the Chord Bible are generated from a combination of scalar and intervallic transformations. The study concludes with an overview of the musical employment of Chord Bible harmony in three pieces. This analysis will reveal a progressive sophistication in technique that is directly related to the increased importance of the Chord Bible in Zappa's compositional process.

Frank Zappa's concept album and film manuscript Uncle Meat from 1969 can in many ways be seen as a key to understanding his art, his view on society and understanding of life. Already the title seems to cover up a simultaneously... more

n its critical reception, and continued worldwide sales, Hot Rats easily counts among the most acclaimed albums of Frank Zappa's output. But how do these tracks figure in the larger context of Zappa's career? Here, I consider this... more

n its critical reception, and continued worldwide sales, Hot Rats easily counts among the most acclaimed albums of Frank Zappa's output. But how do these tracks figure in the larger context of Zappa's career? Here, I consider this question by identifying and analyzing some of the key compositional techniques encountered throughout the album, techniques that Frank would use in almost all of his subsequent music. At its core, Hot Rats is also a touchstone example of Zappa's attempts to blur the lines between improvisation and composition. Therefore, besides examining techniques he applied "on paper," I also intend to analyze improvisational aspects and the role of studio overdubbing in creating the finished compositional product.

This book is not another critical biography, but an interpretive essay investigating what we feel is the cultural and historical importance of Zappa and Beefheart in the context of a wide-ranging network of references that run from... more

This book is not another critical biography, but an interpretive essay investigating what we feel is the cultural and historical importance of Zappa and Beefheart in the context of a wide-ranging network of references that run from Michelangelo and Arcimboldo to William Burroughs and Vaclav Havel. Readers who are only vaguely familiar with their music will be introduced to a projected pantheon of maximalist artists and “moments” which will in turn give rise to poetic-associational readings designed to encourage them to explore the processes of art production, consumption and rejection in their expanding totality and to consider the body as the fluctuating constant against which all composition (addition and subtraction of parts) is attempted. In many ways, this book is also intended as a maximalist alternative to the cultural studies take on the study of popular music, which generally neglects aesthetics in favor of the merely semiotic and sociological and is reluctant to investigate the relationships and coincidences of mass, underground and “elitist” culture. In what follows, we will propose an (anti-)method, a conspiracy theory of the mind that seeks to foster a promotional application of “paranoid” criticism risking its very credibility (and sanity) to abandon itself to the energizing virtues of connectivitis and coordinology.

This article aims to demonstrate the importance of the Lydian scale in Frank Zappa's modal diatonic music by introducing the concept of a "Lydian system," loosely adapted from George Russell's seminal jazz theory known as the "Lydian... more

This article aims to demonstrate the importance of the Lydian scale in Frank Zappa's modal diatonic music by introducing the concept of a "Lydian system," loosely adapted from George Russell's seminal jazz theory known as the "Lydian chromatic concept." A Lydian system contains a limited series of diatonic modes linked through the Lydian scale. Through analysis of representative passages in Zappa's music, I examine different ways that the modes of the Lydian system reveal their indebtedness to Lydian, first in their musical realization as static "blocks" and later in the form of pedal substitutions, chord progressions, and modulations between different systems.

This dissertation explores the role of music within the politics of liberation in the United States in the period of the late 1950s and the 1960s. Its focus is on the two dominant, but very different (and, it is argued, interconnected)... more

Frank Zappa, Germany, 1968. A transatlantic paradox and an accusation of cultural provincialism. (Frank Zappa e il '68 tedesco. Un paradosso transatlantico e un'accusa di provincialismo culturale). Besides his autobiography, the rock... more

Frank Zappa, Germany, 1968. A transatlantic paradox and an accusation of cultural provincialism. (Frank Zappa e il '68 tedesco. Un paradosso transatlantico e un'accusa di provincialismo culturale). Besides his autobiography, the rock guitarist and contemporary composer Frank Zappa (1940-1993) has disseminated his thinking through hundreds of highly articulate and seldom repetitive interviews. Published around the world by the international press since 1965, for almost thirty years, his statements, reflections, and analyses display a musicological, sociological, even semiotic and political approach not only to the arts, but to reality in the wider sense. Part of a broader research on his thinking, this paper aims to retrace Zappa's position towards the protest movement in late Sixties, not only in the USA but also in Europe. A key moment in the development of such position came when he played in West Berlin in 1968 with his band The Mothers of Invention. That concert provides a very good example of a cultural clash between the highly politicized German audience, with its believes and principles, and Zappa's personal visions for society and the way to improve it. That night the musician realized that ideas and actions implemented by the student protest in Europe, and above all in Germany, were the byproduct of a 'cultural periphery' in the worst sense: a sort of provincial extension of the USA which had been culturally colonized by the American model of the 'youth revolt', with local distortions and worsening. The crucial evolution of politics in the late Sixties both in Germany and in the USA, the social theories on youth developed during the Fifties and the Sixties, the influence and impact of Zappa's songs and lyrics during the late Sixties, and the reaction of European media to his statements, are here examined contextually to the unfortunate concert in Berlin and the evolution of Zappa's sociological and political theories developed after that controversial episode.

Kasper Sloots has written a critique of my research and posted it on his website zappa-analysis.com. This document, which includes Sloots original commentary, offers a detailed response to the various claims made by Sloots.

Conceptual continuity has always been one of the central issues of Zappology. Here's an analysis of the aesthetical consequences of a political interpretation of the dialectics between continuity and leap in Zappa's ouvre.

"“Make a Sex Noise Here”: Frank Zappa, Sex and Popular Music Paul Carr Throughout his controversial career, Frank Zappa (1940-93) was often associated with his right to indoctrinate his First Amendment rights into both his music... more

This collection of essays on twentieth-century poetry and poetics is written from a wide-ranging perspective, working analytically and comparatively with literature, music, video, film, architecture and performance art. Bringing together... more

This collection of essays on twentieth-century poetry and poetics is written from a wide-ranging perspective, working analytically and comparatively with literature, music, video, film, architecture and performance art.
Bringing together readings of Virgil Thomson, Gertrude Stein, Max Jacob, Louis Feuillade, Rosmarie Waldrop, Frank Zappa, Bill Viola and Pierre Alechinsky, this book attempts to delineate the possibility of a truly transversal poetics, one which creates a space for a reconsideration of contemporary poetics while navigating the complex interactions between the theory and practice.

La pornographie, lieu s’il en est de performance « du » genre, était condamnée autrefois comme un dispositif aliénant. Aujourd’hui, elle est devenue l’outil d’une libération pour certaines féministes radicales. En effet, dénonçant... more

La pornographie, lieu s’il en est de performance « du » genre, était condamnée autrefois comme un dispositif aliénant. Aujourd’hui, elle est devenue l’outil d’une libération pour certaines féministes radicales. En effet, dénonçant l’essentialisme et le naturalisme auxquels ont concouru effectivement les luttes des féminismes américains traditionnels, des mouvements dissidents, avec les mouvements queer, revendiquent la performance d’un genre réapproprié et toujours nouveau par le moyen de la pornographie : non plus un sexe, mais n-sexe, non plus l’être, mais la multitude ! Dans les faits, la pornographie queer est bien loin de tenir son programme deleuzien d’une issue vitaliste à la loi « du » genre. Les performances queer d’une sexualité jamais finie concourent tout au renouvellement perpétuel d’un communautarisme sur fond identitaire fort éloigné du minoritaire conceptualisé par Deleuze et Guattari . L’œuvre du compositeur américain Frank Zappa offre un autre modèle d’une pornographie déterritorialisante. Le nomadisme esthétique de ses agencements musicaux, sur fond de textes pornographiques, agit efficacement la libération des devenirs si chère à Gilles Deleuze. Il s’agira pour moi d’éclairer comment, en s’ancrant dans les représentations les plus sexistes, Zappa réussit à les faire fuir et les résorbant toutes, dans la durée multiple de sa musique.

La popular music – espressione che abbraccia il vasto territorio comprendente rock, pop, folk, hip hop e altri fenomeni musicali ancora – da ormai molti decenni ha pervaso l’universo culturale del global village, influenzando in maniera... more

La popular music – espressione che abbraccia il vasto territorio comprendente rock, pop, folk, hip hop e altri fenomeni musicali ancora – da ormai molti decenni ha pervaso l’universo culturale del global village, influenzando in maniera determinante le consuetudini, gli atteggiamenti, le idee morali, politiche e religiose, oltre che le concezioni estetiche di svariate generazioni. Da questo punto di vista – per citare il curatore del volume U2 and Philosophy – “la domanda interessante non è perché scriviamo sulla popular music, bensì perché la popular music abbia attirato così poca attenzione filosofica”. Riflettere sulle sperimentazioni zappiane o sul progressive rock, sulle vite ‘eccessive’ di Morrison e Joplin o sulla E-scene di fine anni Ottanta, sul kitsch apollineo dei Beach Boys o sulla passionalità di U2 e Joy Division, alla luce dei grandi temi della tradizione filosofica, può regalarci punti di vista inediti e preziosi per comprendere meglio le nostre società e noi stessi.

"Since the death of Frank Zappa in 1993, there has been an ongoing legal battle between the Zappa Family Trust (ZFT) and the so called ‘tribute bands’ that are determined to continue translating his music through live and recorded... more

"Since the death of Frank Zappa in 1993, there has been an ongoing legal battle between
the Zappa Family Trust (ZFT) and the so called ‘tribute bands’ that are determined to
continue translating his music through live and recorded mediums. It could be argued that
these ensembles effectively not only pay direct homage to Zappa’s legacy by interpreting
his music in numerous innovative ways, but also keep his memory alive by interfacing
with both his long standing audience, and with a younger generation who may not be
aware of his music. The most famous of the rock based ensembles is entitled Zappa Plays
Zappa and has the unusual credit of being ‘legally’ sanctified to perform his music live.
This legality is no coincidence, as the band is headed by Zappa's eldest son Dweezil and
features the 'Vault Master' responsible for compiling the legal recordings heralding from
the ZFT - Joe Travers on drums. After outlining the means through which Zappa consistently translated and adapted his own and other composers’ work over his 27 years
in the public eye, this paper will explore how and why such a diverse range of bands and ensembles are so intent on continuing to experiment with his music, despite the legalchallenges outlined above. This paper will subsequently examine the various philosophical, legal and industrial factors behind why the ZFT, an organization who have
contributed so much to Zappa’s legacy over the last 15 years, seem intent on selectively prohibiting recorded and in particular live performance of his music, followed by a conclusory discussion of the cultural impact of this stance in the light of the supreme irony that Zappa was himself someone who ‘borrowed heavily’ from his diverse influences such as Surf Music, Do Wop and Chicago Blues, in addition to ‘serious’ composers such as Stravinsky, Stockhausen and his childhood hero - Edgard Varèse."

Frank Zappa, músico norte-americano do século 20, tornou-se conhecido pela sátira contundente às instituições oficiais e aos setores conservadores da sociedade, principalmente de seu país. No aspecto musical, Zappa foi um grande... more

Frank Zappa, músico norte-americano do século
20, tornou-se conhecido pela sátira contundente
às instituições oficiais e aos setores conservadores
da sociedade, principalmente de seu país. No
aspecto musical, Zappa foi um grande inovador,
mesclando música popular, clássica e jazz sobre
um fundo composto de elementos da cultura popular
norte-americana do século 20. Suas paródias
e sátiras revitalizam essas formas por meio da
cultura de massa, que consequentemente também
se renova. Pode-se dizer que sua obra se inscreve
no âmbito da carnavalização, conforme proposta
por Mikhail Bakhtin, que seria uma forma de
subverter o discurso oficial por meio de elementos
cômicos e populares. Muitos desses aspectos
podem ser encontrados na peça “Welcome to the
United States”, uma musicalização do formulário
de entrada utilizado nas alfândegas dos Estados
Unidos. À seriedade e rigidez do formulário-letra,
é sobreposta uma música cheia de ruídos e sons
estranhos, que provoca uma desautorização do
discurso oficial.

Review, Ben Watson, Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play, Quartet Books, London, 1994. xxxiii + 597, pp., £25.00 hb., 0 7043 7066 2.

Il saggio tenta di offrire diverse prospettive di analisi del romanzo meno considerato dello scrittore italiano americano John Fante, My Dog Stupid (1986). Questo romanzo autobiografico è l’unico della produzione di Fante a essere... more

Il saggio tenta di offrire diverse prospettive di analisi del romanzo meno considerato dello scrittore italiano americano John Fante, My Dog Stupid (1986). Questo romanzo autobiografico è l’unico della produzione di Fante a essere ambientato nello stesso periodo in cui è stato scritto, la Los Angeles degli anni Sessanta. Dopo una breve ricognizione del processo creativo e editoriale del romanzo, che è stato pubblicato postumo, viene offerta un’analisi intertestuale con altri romanzi di Fante in cui si manifestano tratti etnici nelle relazioni padre-figlio. Di seguito, il saggio fornisce una panoramica del contesto sociale e culturale degli anni Sessanta nei sobborghi di Los Angeles, con riferimento ai Watts Riots e alla nascente scena rock di Los Angeles, e di come questo contesto sia riflesso nel romanzo. Infine, verrà tentata una sintesi fra due interpretazioni critiche del romanzo, quella di Richard Collins, basata su una lettura etnica-nostagica, e quella di Emanuele Pettener, basata invece sull’umorismo. Viene quindi riscontrato quanto l’umorismo, la satira e l’ironia siano tratti fondamentali nell’opera di Fante.

This paper discusses the iconicity of the microphone both as a physical object but also as a transducer and shaper of a distinctive mediatized sound. Different facets of iconicity are examined in order to tease out the multiple meanings... more

This paper discusses the iconicity of the microphone both as a physical object but also as a transducer and shaper of a distinctive mediatized sound. Different facets of iconicity are examined in order to tease out the multiple meanings and usages of this ubiquitous artifact. In addition to the physical object, whether hidden or highlighted, used as a prop or as a crutch, common microphone usage since the early days of radio have resulted in an iconic mediatized sound, which has realigned the way we experience the spoken word and the musical voice.

Atonal Music / Frank Zappa style

There is a pattern of circular logic built into discussions of ‘Czech’ and ‘Slovak’ music. On the one hand, scholars are long familiar with processes of nationalist invention; indeed, the task of defining and even determining the sounds... more

There is a pattern of circular logic built into discussions of ‘Czech’ and ‘Slovak’ music. On the one hand, scholars are long familiar with processes of nationalist invention; indeed, the task of defining and even determining the sounds of the Czech and Slovak nations – in many ways, the task of Czech and Slovak music criticism – arose with their nationalist movements during the nineteenth century. On another, as Oskár Elschek points out in his introduction to a History of Slovak Music (2003), the field of musicology hinges on its own nationalist myths: it favours the study of European art music in which notions of a stable, in some ways timeless, ‘Europe’ are generally left uninterrogated, or at least recognised as a given assumption.

Papoušek, Vladimír – Skalický, David (eds.): Fenomén Zappa. Praha: Akropolis, 2016, 272 s. ISBN 978-80-7470-143-6. RESUMÉ: Kniha Fenomén Zappa si klade za cíl prozkoumat a z různých perspektiv analyzovat specifický kulturní fenomén,... more

The idea of this research is to explore the elements of jazz that might have influenced Frank Zappa in a good or bad way, and at the same time identify pieces of the composer that could possibly be integrated on the jazz standards... more

The idea of this research is to explore the elements of jazz that might have influenced Frank Zappa in a good or bad way, and at the same time identify pieces of the composer that could possibly be integrated on the jazz standards repertoire. For this, it will be necessary to develop some kind of formula identification through research of key elements of the style and what it has come to embrace. The work will be divided in two parts: first, the research itself and identification of the repertoire; second, a small amount of transcribed pieces, in the molds of the many jazz fake books, that can later be amplified to a Frank Zappa Fake Book project.

The history of rock in Communist Europe has been viewed by a number of domestic and foreign authors as a series of events with a dominant political content, either in the form of a general youth revolt or directly in the spirit of... more

The history of rock in Communist Europe has been viewed by a number of domestic and foreign authors as a series of events with a dominant political content, either in the form of a general youth revolt or directly in the spirit of anti-communist opposition. In this regard, the present study extends the current simplifying concept with an emphasis on the reception history, including relevant issues related to the typology of listeners and aesthetics. The primary subject of this paper is the reception of two of the most influential representatives of Anglo-American popular music in Communist Czechoslovakia, these being the Beatles and Frank Zappa. The reception of both artistic subjects is reflected in the specific space of the Brno scene of the 1980s, within the framework of the artist fan clubs which had no parallel anywhere else in the country. The study demonstrates the specifics of American and British rock fandom in the given time and space and challenges the long-held narrative about the supremacy of the political functions of rock behind the Iron Curtain.

À travers l’exploration croisée de la réception polémique dont Zappa fait l’objet et des éléments pertinents de son oeuvre, l’auteur propose qu’on en déduise l’ébauche d’une nouvelle problématisation de son art. Le recours à la... more

À travers l’exploration croisée de la réception polémique dont Zappa fait l’objet et des éléments pertinents de son oeuvre, l’auteur propose qu’on en déduise l’ébauche d’une nouvelle problématisation de son art. Le recours à la philosophie de Deleuze contribue à tracer les contours d’une esthétique « nomade », qui concourt à excéder toutes les catégories traditionnelles de pensée et instituer ainsi l’autorité du style singulier de Zappa.

"Frank Zappa is an outstanding figure in Western musical, cultural and even political life of the twentieth century, with a musical production of extraordinary stylistic breadth and complexity. His musical universe comprises an... more

"Frank Zappa is an outstanding figure in Western musical, cultural and even political life of the twentieth century, with a musical production of extraordinary stylistic breadth and complexity. His musical universe comprises an abundance of styles and genres across historical, artistic and musical boundaries, yet still constitutes an intellectual whole, a cohesive musical oeuvre that can rightfully be acknowledged as Modern. Modern not just in its everyday sense, but also ideologically, it contests tradition, resists norms, neutralises the morally good and functionally useful, and insists on staging the dialectic continuum between secrecy and scandal. Taking the collage-composition ‘Brown Shoes Don’t Make It’ as an exemplar, this article weaves a mosaic of analyses, ranging from strictly structural, to purely discursive and hypertextual, constructing the case that Zappa’s work, rather than being a wild profusion of styles, is instead a highly coherent and stringently complex work of meaning. It is an oeuvre in which subtle correspondences between music styles, titles, lyrics, texts and more, critically reflect central aspects of modern culture and human life in a psychological, sociological as well as philosophical exposition. In addition to a close reading of the primary text and citations of other artists’ work, the article includes references to much of Zappa’s discography and aims to point out how the musical coding in Zappa’s work take on a decisive modernistic role in an almost Adornian sense, expressing the historical necessity of complexity and opposition."

Saggio sulla produzione musicale satirica dagli anni Sessanta del Novecento nella musica americana, inglese e italiana, all'interno di un volume che analizza le esperienze satiriche nella poesia dalla latinità classica al Novecento.

Comment définiriez-vous votre musique ? Est-ce de la musique contemporaine, électronique, informatique… ? C'est une question que se posent beaucoup de mes confrères dans la même situation. Nous sommes des compositeurs indépendants, non... more

Comment définiriez-vous votre musique ? Est-ce de la musique contemporaine, électronique, informatique… ? C'est une question que se posent beaucoup de mes confrères dans la même situation. Nous sommes des compositeurs indépendants, non soutenus par les aides d'état, nous sommes très peu joués, mais nous diffusons nos oeuvres dans le monde entier, et surtout, nous jouissons d'une liberté quasi totale. Et dans ce cas, il est très courant de glisser d'un genre à l'autre, au fil de l'inspiration, mais aussi de la pratique.