I'm surprised anyone disliked this video. I wonder if they watched the whole thing? I don't fully understand the terms, but I love seeing the sheet music, complete with effective visual accompaniments. Thanks!
They're philistines! To be fair, I think some people just don't find my format accessible, but I'm glad you were able to. Very pleased to hear you enjoyed it, thanks for taking the time comment!
Zappa gets a lot of hate from stupid people that think they know better. It just goes over their head and they refuse to take it seriously. It is what it is 🤷♂️
The sax parts in the transcription excerpts are ALL IN Bb - I forgot to transpose them to concert pitch, which I'll do in future. Having also discovered a scan of FZ's original keyboard score, I have learnt that he notated the 12/8 sections in 3/4 - this doesn't invalidate any of the analysis here, but it offers insight in that it indicates that Zappa thought of each beat as a bar unto itself.
I am right now transcribing this tune (YCDTOSA 2) version). Asides from the ludicrous vibes at the beginning, the other thing causing me to pull my hair out is how he thinks of the meter. I found the keyboard score you mentioned, but when he counts it in he's feeling the beat as if its in 4/4. Then it switches to 3 for the main melody.
As I wrote this i happened to have paused right on the 'vibraphone flourishes' - your transcription is virtually the same as mine! But I'm certain I can hear quite a few double notes in the actual part (as in the same note twice in succession)
@@benvizemusic for that version, I think he’s actually counting a fast 3/4 - “1(23)1(23)1(23)1(23)”, etc. when it switches to the melody, he adopts a whole bar of fast 3/4 as one quarter note in the new slow 3/4, so “1(23)1(23)1(23)” becomes “1(and a)2(and a)3(and a)”. If that makes sense! As for the vibes flourishes, I’d have to listen again, but if memory serves, I suspect Ruth is just not getting the line robotically perfect every time due to the ludicrous tempo. Some of those repeated notes you’re hearing aren’t always the same across versions I think, so I listened to a few and tried to write a version of the line I thought made sense (since I thought it was supposed to be a big multi-octave arpeggio, I avoided repeated notes assuming them to be little accidents)
nice work my man...as a zappa enthusiast...and not being a musician its good to understand what zappa is doing and at the same time gain a lesson in composition...TY
Please just do as much on Zappa as you can! I've been looking for a channel like this for half of this year, this is awesome! Do other songs like 'eat that question' and 'easy meat' or even 'apostrophe'. Would be great, keep up the good work :)
Thanks very much for the great feedback - you'll be glad to hear I'm currently editing a new FZ analysis and have plenty more on the cards (there's such a shortage of good FZ-related analysis on UA-cam, so I'll be trying my best to plug the gap as often as possible).
@@SamuelRHoward I'm trying to learn more about music theory and composition. So having you analyse Zappa really helps. Not many people go into musical themes and genre conventions of Jazz, blues and rock. Thanks for the videos :)
Excellent analysis - though I am still unfamiliar with and don't fully understand terms such as myxalodian and dorian. My favourite version is that on Studio Tan, though as with many studio based pieces is likely a joining of separately recorded sections. In particular I would like to see a breakdown of the piano section which turns into a jazz orientated interlude with appegiated piano with punctuated chords. My interest in this part is driven much by the piano being my first instrument. Great overall analysis nonetheless.
Thanks for the words of encouragement. I definitely have some more stuff like that planned too - my next non-analysis project will be tackling novel approaches to designing musical form
Thank you for the kind words. I would be curious to see just how much Zappa disagreed with what I get from the piece! I have a feeling he might be sceptical of this sort of line of enquiry more generally
Nice analysis. It would have been nice to also include the 80s versions, like the '82 live version on YCDTOSA Vol. 5 (there's another great 1982 version on UA-cam as well)
Thanks - you might like my video "How Did Zappa Write Melodies", since I go into the main melody in more depth there. I still only used the '74 version as my reference (as there are small differences between that and the '80s version of the melody), though, so the changes that happened to the piece over time still go unacknowledged, but this is something I might rectify in the future.
@@nicktardifbass7 Thanks a lot - and yeah, that version's great, the whole Stockholm concert is one of the best (Duke's solo is on fire, and Ralph's snare/kick placement during it is perfect - such a shame Tom very slightly fluffs the bass-line on the exit out of that section!)
3:45 I just wanted to ask, did you edit ruth’s part from You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore at a higher speed atop the Roxy by Proxy version? Or is there a version without Bruce Fowlers solo where it is performed in 16th notes instead of 8ths? Thanks for the great video.
Yeah he’s pretty cool! :) I saw that your video was mentioned at www.idiotbastard.com! Cool! We are slowly working on it.. One song might come pretty soon!
You sir rule You transcribed the drum parts ?? Im sorely lacking in those skills I was looking at how they were written though as if.. Now that I see what alto is for middle c it would be fun to transcribe the trombone parts to see what that other fowler brother is doing.. and try to learn the bass parts ... This is very helpful to those who want to learn to read.. thank you.
Thanks a lot! I love transcribing kit parts - it's interesting to see how different drummers approach a situation. I love Ralph on this tune, he's a great big band drummer and really breathes life into the music.
From some rehearsals in Sydney (ua-cam.com/video/IIxuBz4MY0A/v-deo.html). It's the last part of the "Farther Oblivion" medley, there are good recordings of it on "Imaginary Diseases" and "Road Tapes #2"
In my music theory class, my teacher told us that for our transcription project, no one do anything Zappa... I immediately thought of doing something Zappa
A lot of listening and rewinding! I focused on one particular version, mainly the recording featured on "Roxy By Proxy", but referred to other arrangements from the same period, like the drum set recording in "The Lost Episodes", as I didn't see the point in writing out both Ralph and Chester's parts (on the Lost Episodes version, there is only Ralph). Worth noting that my transcription differs from Zappa's own score, which he notated in fast 3/4. I still think it is totally valid to feel this tune as a compound 12/8 time, though. In terms of process, first thing I did was determine the rhyhmic structure, by taking down the bass, then filling in the melody after. For simpler tunes, I do the melody first, then the bass, but often I find Zappa's rhythm section spells out the actual meters a bit less ambiguously than his lead parts usually do. Last thing was detail - harmony, marimba runs, etc.
@@bazingacurta2567 found it one day while googling. It was on this site, but I think I found a slightly higher res copy. Still, this one I just found is at least slightly legible… www.zappa-analysis.com/studio-tan.htm
This is great. I like this approach to analysis of FZ. It's really terse (to my tiny noggin) but focused more on the compositional questions. Worth watching over and over until it makes complete sense. Any chance of Pekka Pohjola being analyzed? ☺
Thanks for this feedback - I think the theory of FZ's music is fairly accessible since it rarely (if ever) depends on typical functional harmony, so despite its surface complexity, once you get a sense of how to look at it, it's not too challenging ot grasp, so I'm glad you're finding these videos useful entrances to FZ's music theory. I think I've actually only heard about 20 minutes of Pekka's music, but I wouldn't totally rule it out, because I remember enjoying it quite a bit - I'll have to delve back into that musical universe and get reacquainted first though!
@@SamuelRHoward Wow, so you are familiar with Pekka, at least. His first album, Pihkasilmä Kaarnakorva, has a lot of Zappa qualities to it (according to my ear).
That's all fine and dandy, but most important of all, what does the name of the song mean? Anyone who gets it right, gets a free tank of gas, now valued at $2,000
I remember Dweezil explaining it at a concert years back - a portmanteau regarding a close family member of FZ's and their tendency to repeat themselves. The spelling "Redunzel" provides more of a hint - I wonder if someone else can get it?
Yes, ballpark. I spoke to someone (I think Gail) about 18 years ago on the 818-PUMPKIN line. During the conversation I asked “what does R-D-N-Z-L stand for?” She said "It’s Redunzel" which is a nickname Frank used for her. (I think he was still around at the time). Redunzel, Redunzel, lay down your golden hair.
Sounds pretty much what Dweezil relayed too - "redunzel" supposedly being a pun on "redundant"/"rapunzel", apparently relating to Gail's tendency to repeat herself a little bit!
Excellent video! I've always wanted to see RDNZL analysed like this.
Thanks, have begun work on the next, so I'll be going into the melody in more depth very soon
I'm surprised anyone disliked this video. I wonder if they watched the whole thing? I don't fully understand the terms, but I love seeing the sheet music, complete with effective visual accompaniments. Thanks!
They're philistines! To be fair, I think some people just don't find my format accessible, but I'm glad you were able to. Very pleased to hear you enjoyed it, thanks for taking the time comment!
Zappa gets a lot of hate from stupid people that think they know better. It just goes over their head and they refuse to take it seriously. It is what it is 🤷♂️
I think this is terrific. Grateful for your hard work and explanatiins
this is a phenomenal analysis, please keep up the great work! subscribed!
Incredible work! Thanks a lot! I'll be waiting for the next episode.
Good job!
I love Zappa, and I always try to understand what he was up to!
Thanks! My favourite composer to analyse, for the simple fact he's got his own language
The sax parts in the transcription excerpts are ALL IN Bb - I forgot to transpose them to concert pitch, which I'll do in future.
Having also discovered a scan of FZ's original keyboard score, I have learnt that he notated the 12/8 sections in 3/4 - this doesn't invalidate any of the analysis here, but it offers insight in that it indicates that Zappa thought of each beat as a bar unto itself.
I am right now transcribing this tune (YCDTOSA 2) version). Asides from the ludicrous vibes at the beginning, the other thing causing me to pull my hair out is how he thinks of the meter. I found the keyboard score you mentioned, but when he counts it in he's feeling the beat as if its in 4/4. Then it switches to 3 for the main melody.
As I wrote this i happened to have paused right on the 'vibraphone flourishes' - your transcription is virtually the same as mine! But I'm certain I can hear quite a few double notes in the actual part (as in the same note twice in succession)
@@benvizemusic for that version, I think he’s actually counting a fast 3/4 - “1(23)1(23)1(23)1(23)”, etc. when it switches to the melody, he adopts a whole bar of fast 3/4 as one quarter note in the new slow 3/4, so “1(23)1(23)1(23)” becomes “1(and a)2(and a)3(and a)”. If that makes sense!
As for the vibes flourishes, I’d have to listen again, but if memory serves, I suspect Ruth is just not getting the line robotically perfect every time due to the ludicrous tempo. Some of those repeated notes you’re hearing aren’t always the same across versions I think, so I listened to a few and tried to write a version of the line I thought made sense (since I thought it was supposed to be a big multi-octave arpeggio, I avoided repeated notes assuming them to be little accidents)
Really astounding work. Nice job!
Thank you for going through this piece with us. Worth multiple plays. Cheers.
And thank you for going through the video!
nice work my man...as a zappa enthusiast...and not being a musician its good to understand what zappa is doing and at the same time gain a lesson in composition...TY
Music is my religion and Frank Zappa is my God.
I see this pop up from time to time, excellent quote. Couldn’t state it better myself
Don't worship false idols.
- FZ (probably)
Bravo! Zappa plus mixolydian equals GOD
Please just do as much on Zappa as you can! I've been looking for a channel like this for half of this year, this is awesome! Do other songs like 'eat that question' and 'easy meat' or even 'apostrophe'.
Would be great, keep up the good work :)
Thanks very much for the great feedback - you'll be glad to hear I'm currently editing a new FZ analysis and have plenty more on the cards (there's such a shortage of good FZ-related analysis on UA-cam, so I'll be trying my best to plug the gap as often as possible).
@@SamuelRHoward I'm trying to learn more about music theory and composition. So having you analyse Zappa really helps. Not many people go into musical themes and genre conventions of Jazz, blues and rock. Thanks for the videos :)
Great job! I'll look for more episodes in the future.
On Ruth!
Excellent analysis - though I am still unfamiliar with and don't fully understand terms such as myxalodian and dorian. My favourite version is that on Studio Tan, though as with many studio based pieces is likely a joining of separately recorded sections. In particular I would like to see a breakdown of the piano section which turns into a jazz orientated interlude with appegiated piano with punctuated chords. My interest in this part is driven much by the piano being my first instrument. Great overall analysis nonetheless.
Well done! Looking forward to more
Waaaay over my head ( like all Zappa stuff) but I doooo love it/him
Fantastic! Awesome video! And what a great voice you have 👍
Thank you very much! And I'm inclined to agree, I find it to be a highly seductive Yorkshire drawl...
This is great please continue. Good you do some more ethnomusicological videos as well
Thanks for the words of encouragement. I definitely have some more stuff like that planned too - my next non-analysis project will be tackling novel approaches to designing musical form
Brilliant work, thank you!
Enjoyed ever so much. Very nice work.
Jesus Christ, hombre! Your work is amazi g and woul have heen appreciated by Frank 4 sure!!!
Thank you very much!
Thanks for this - very interesting indeed.
Absolutely fantastic
Fantastic analysis, I'd love to hear Frank's thoughts on it.
Thank you for the kind words. I would be curious to see just how much Zappa disagreed with what I get from the piece! I have a feeling he might be sceptical of this sort of line of enquiry more generally
Very good analysis! Thanks a million.
Nice analysis. It would have been nice to also include the 80s versions, like the '82 live version on YCDTOSA Vol. 5 (there's another great 1982 version on UA-cam as well)
Thanks - you might like my video "How Did Zappa Write Melodies", since I go into the main melody in more depth there. I still only used the '74 version as my reference (as there are small differences between that and the '80s version of the melody), though, so the changes that happened to the piece over time still go unacknowledged, but this is something I might rectify in the future.
Much appreciated, brother!
As are you! Thanks for taking the time for watch.
Heya Sam \o/ Nice job! looking forward to the next ones. ;)
Cheers Martin - I dare say they'll be the highlight of your year.
@@SamuelRHoward Haha! we'll see ;P
Awesome stuff man! Keep it up
Well done. Thank you
Cheers! Thanks for watching
this video is great
I understood some of those words.
"A lot of this went over my head" -- carlos santana. Rzzzzzzz!
Hope you found some of it interesting regardless -- thanks for watching!
Digging this channel, man.
P.S.- Piquantique version of this is my personal favorite!
@@nicktardifbass7 Thanks a lot - and yeah, that version's great, the whole Stockholm concert is one of the best (Duke's solo is on fire, and Ralph's snare/kick placement during it is perfect - such a shame Tom very slightly fluffs the bass-line on the exit out of that section!)
3:45 I just wanted to ask, did you edit ruth’s part from You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore at a higher speed atop the Roxy by Proxy version? Or is there a version without Bruce Fowlers solo where it is performed in 16th notes instead of 8ths?
Thanks for the great video.
No edit! That is from this version: ua-cam.com/video/wpYN4FSFYF8/v-deo.html
And thanks for taking the time to watch!
awesome, thank you.
Filip Fjellström brought me here... Cool video man!
Thanks. Fjellstrom is the man! Looking forward to the next Kronan EP, I liked the first one a lot.
Yeah he’s pretty cool! :) I saw that your video was mentioned at www.idiotbastard.com!
Cool! We are slowly working on it.. One song might come pretty soon!
Andrew is clearly a man of good taste! And fantastic, I'll be anticipating it
Very interesting
Top notch .
You sir rule You transcribed the drum parts ?? Im sorely lacking in those skills I was looking at how they were written though as if..
Now that I see what alto is for middle c it would be fun to transcribe the trombone parts to see what that other fowler brother is doing..
and try to learn the bass parts ... This is very helpful to those who want to learn to read.. thank you.
Thanks a lot! I love transcribing kit parts - it's interesting to see how different drummers approach a situation. I love Ralph on this tune, he's a great big band drummer and really breathes life into the music.
7th in the bass!
What is that version of Cucamonga at the beginning? Sounds like an instrumental version, but I’ve never heard it before. Looked for it on UA-cam.
From some rehearsals in Sydney (ua-cam.com/video/IIxuBz4MY0A/v-deo.html). It's the last part of the "Farther Oblivion" medley, there are good recordings of it on "Imaginary Diseases" and "Road Tapes #2"
In my music theory class, my teacher told us that for our transcription project, no one do anything Zappa...
I immediately thought of doing something Zappa
I'm sorry to say that I have to diagnose your teacher as a philistine.
Excellent. How did you transcribe this?
A lot of listening and rewinding! I focused on one particular version, mainly the recording featured on "Roxy By Proxy", but referred to other arrangements from the same period, like the drum set recording in "The Lost Episodes", as I didn't see the point in writing out both Ralph and Chester's parts (on the Lost Episodes version, there is only Ralph). Worth noting that my transcription differs from Zappa's own score, which he notated in fast 3/4. I still think it is totally valid to feel this tune as a compound 12/8 time, though.
In terms of process, first thing I did was determine the rhyhmic structure, by taking down the bass, then filling in the melody after. For simpler tunes, I do the melody first, then the bass, but often I find Zappa's rhythm section spells out the actual meters a bit less ambiguously than his lead parts usually do. Last thing was detail - harmony, marimba runs, etc.
@@SamuelRHoward Thank you! You mentioned Zappa's own score; where can I find it?
@@bazingacurta2567 found it one day while googling. It was on this site, but I think I found a slightly higher res copy. Still, this one I just found is at least slightly legible… www.zappa-analysis.com/studio-tan.htm
This is great. I like this approach to analysis of FZ.
It's really terse (to my tiny noggin) but focused more on the compositional questions. Worth watching over and over until it makes complete sense.
Any chance of Pekka Pohjola being analyzed? ☺
Thanks for this feedback - I think the theory of FZ's music is fairly accessible since it rarely (if ever) depends on typical functional harmony, so despite its surface complexity, once you get a sense of how to look at it, it's not too challenging ot grasp, so I'm glad you're finding these videos useful entrances to FZ's music theory.
I think I've actually only heard about 20 minutes of Pekka's music, but I wouldn't totally rule it out, because I remember enjoying it quite a bit - I'll have to delve back into that musical universe and get reacquainted first though!
@@SamuelRHoward Wow, so you are familiar with Pekka, at least. His first album, Pihkasilmä Kaarnakorva, has a lot of Zappa qualities to it (according to my ear).
@@heckler73 I look forwards to listening to that album, thank you very much for reminding me he exists!
The stars ain't shining cause the sky is too tight
It's not quite Billy the Mountain.
But what is? "Billy" is the "Iliad" of the 20th Century.
@11:39 What's a marimber?
An idiophone percussion instrument made from wood - similar to a xylophone, but with a larger range, about 4 or 5 octaves depending on the instrument.
@@SamuelRHoward Thought that was called a Marimba. The more you know.
@@Astromyxin It is. I said "marimba run".
There's nothing anyone loves more than a pedant, by the way.
@@SamuelRHoward I was just making fun of your accent, meant no harm.
@@Astromyxin To be fair, I'm flattered it took you nearly 12 minutes to find something worth making fun of
OMG, you sound like Frank Zappa
Maybe if he was from deepest Yorkshire!
That's all fine and dandy, but most important of all, what does the name of the song mean? Anyone who gets it right, gets a free tank of gas, now valued at $2,000
I remember Dweezil explaining it at a concert years back - a portmanteau regarding a close family member of FZ's and their tendency to repeat themselves. The spelling "Redunzel" provides more of a hint - I wonder if someone else can get it?
Yes, ballpark. I spoke to someone (I think Gail) about 18 years ago on the 818-PUMPKIN line. During the conversation I asked “what does R-D-N-Z-L stand for?” She said "It’s Redunzel" which is a nickname Frank used for her. (I think he was still around at the time). Redunzel, Redunzel, lay down your golden hair.
Sounds pretty much what Dweezil relayed too - "redunzel" supposedly being a pun on "redundant"/"rapunzel", apparently relating to Gail's tendency to repeat herself a little bit!
Tobacco Enthusiast? Nah, Vegetable Connoisseur
What?