Was Frank Zappa Any Good at Counterpoint? (Rollo Analysis)
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- Опубліковано 14 бер 2020
- A whistle-stop tour of the mind of Frank Zappa at a very specific moment in 1972, when he wrote the closing section of Rollo. Here I look at whether Rollo is Zappa's contrapuntal magnum opus, and if not, what else is going on in the piece.
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Sorry about the video quality at the end - my actual camera is not doing too well, so I deployed my emergency webcam. Not ideal, but you're probably better off seeing my face in low-res anyway.
Zappa was a genius considering he was a self-taught composer and musician. Thx for transcribing and analysing his work!
And thanks for taking the time to comment!
that's is great😀 Zappa is my favorite artist ever!
Thank you very much, and I thoroughly concur - you can't mistake Zappa for anyone else!
"The climax is a comical bastion of composity" - never forget that humor does belong in music
Any analysis of Zappa’s compositions is appreciated.
Just Wow, great analysis!
That's loads of work. Thanks for sharing.
Any analysis of Zappa's compositions is greatly appreciated! I've been a huge fan since 1972 and compose myself but not to the degree of complexity to break down his more challenging pieces. This is a treat. :)
Terrific work here mate.
Cheers!
Thanks to all this new material here on the tube, it won't be long before the great symphonies of the world feature this great music. Bach looks down in confusion.
great work , love to see more zappa breakdowns
Thanks a lot - there'll be more in the future, the hardest part is choosing which to look at first!
@@SamuelRHoward , I suggest start with what you like listening to. I know it takes some time to transpose audio to dots on paper, and will most likely take even more if Frank was behind the audio! (avoid Black page lol)
Hello! Great work, been following since the last zappa video. I was wondering how one could take a look at the Mo and Herb's Vacation score you show here, it looks very interesting. Good day!
Thanks for your sustained interest! It used to be distributed by the ZFT - I managed to get a physical copy, but I don't think it's currently in print, which I think is a tragedy. It's a great piece, my favourite of FZ's orchestral work, and I'll probably look at its structure and a few key points over a couple of future videos.
@@SamuelRHoward Truly a shame. I'll be looking out for your videos then!
@@333RoCkSkAtE333 I'll try not to take too long with them!
Thank you for this video, Samuel, Rollo is one of my favorite FZ pieces. I always wanted to transcribe it; you beat me to it. Have you heard the version from the Orchestral Favorites boxed set? There is uber-comical timpani at the ending "fanfare".
Have you used Persichetti's book to analyze FZ's harmonic content?
Just was curious.
Anyway, thanks!
I love Rollo, and there weren't many ways to listen (legitimately at least) to the older arrangements until a few years back! I listened to bootlegs of the '75 Royce Hall concerts, so it was great to finally hear that version of the tune in full fidelity on the box set.
I've had Persichetti's book for a number of years, and I tend to think the way Persichetti examines 20th century techniques is a bit more useful for looking at Zappa than more traditional analytical techniques (no doubt because Zappa clearly stated that he was almost exclusively interested in 20th C classical music, with little interest in music pre-dating that). I don't really have the book open while I analyse the pieces, but I return to it on occasion
Your voice is fantastic for narration!
Thanks! I charge just £500 for personalised bedtime stories.
Great work! Rollo is one of my favorite pieces- props for transcribing it! Wish Zappa made more money off this group so he could keep writing for it
Thanks! I feel the same - the stuff with both Grand Wazoo and Petit Wazoo was great, but the repertoire for both groups was unfortunately small. I love the two great '73 bands that followed, but I wish this period could have gone on a little longer.
Whats Rollo
@@jasonmillion5970 pretty much the song that turned into the middle marimba part in st Alphonsos pancake breakfast. Theres a previously unreleased version thats orchestrated for brass you can find on UA-cam
@@bradleydoyle6752 Rollo ? The middle part of Frank Zappas st Alphonso pancake breakfast ? Rollo is only on his live album right ?
Do you think Frank Zappas music sounds anything like Edgar Varese ?? I guess theyre talking about 200 Motels and Lumpy Gravy right ? He said Lumpy Gravy was influenced from John Cage. I don't see that either even. I have John Cages stuff also
Wow. That’s an amazingly thoughtful analysis. I learned a lot and I have a lot to learn still. I am grateful to you for expanding my musical comprehension. I really enjoy a lot of Zappa’s music. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I find his harmonic style(s) very recognisable... I will look forward to reading the chord bible,,, thanks again Samuel.
Thanks for your feedback! I love Zappa's harmonic language - there's something very accessible about it, very modal. A lot of Zappa's music is very diatonic, but he still had a very personal vocabulary.
Samuel R. Howard I agree. I find it sits nicely at my personal ability to comprehend enough of it to make me want to understand the stuff I can’t. It seems that, to begin with at least, FZ had a strong “eye” for written music (cf. the anecdote about him getting a surprise when his first written pieces actually got played). I’ve wondered about the extent to which he could hear the more harmonically complex music that he produced, and I wonder how that inner ear (is it called “audiality”?) developed.
I'm also interested in how Zappa heard his music internally before writing it. I heard an anecdote that Zappa would write stuff on the plane and basically knew what it would sound like. There's also an interview with Art Tripp circulating where Tripp says that earlier in his career, the Mothers were rehearsing some chamber stuff - Buzz Gardner was playing his C trumpet instead of his Bb trumpet and Zappa didn't actually notice! I suppose we all have to learn!
@@SamuelRHoward ...and the story that he wrote the RDNZL theme for Ruth Underwood at a rehearsal... that, I can believe... I still think it is amazing, but I can believe it
His composition was as unique as his guitar playing. Very idiosyncratic.
Really fine work here; your knowledge of theory is ... like an avalanche - in a good way. (Are there good avalanches?) I hadn't thought about Frank and counterpoint before. I kind of assumed that Frank would approach any of the classical staple techniques with his brand of mischief ... in any case you reward many of us who are curious about composition but lack your thoroughness and insight - thanks!
Thank you very much for your kind words, I'm glad you got something out of the video and appreciate you taking the time to watch it!
civilization phase III. that’s all
The best!
Please could you make a video about _Jazz From Hell_ (1986)?
On my radar! I've got quite a backlog at the moment (I think with one or two more surprising or obscure choices after I've done a couple of the more popular ones), but never say never
Superb stuff - can you please share the score with a composition uni student please! I also traveled to zappanle from canada in 2014 so that must give me some cred?
Thanks, very much appreciated - I would actually quite like to make all my transcriptions freely available, but I'm not completely confident about the legal implications (I'm probably already on quite thin ice with the videos as they are), so I'm being careful not to tread on any toes at the moment.
Could have sworn I left a comment but then again half of them get deleted lately. Good work. I think all I said was the answer appears to be "No".
I saw it in my notifications, but then it vanished! Yeah, counterpoint doesn't seem to crop up too often in Zappa's stuff, or at least that I've noticed so far
@@SamuelRHoward thanks! Very true. And it's probably the UA-cam algorithm which deletes offensive comments gone awry. Appreciate the reply.
Wowie Zowie.
Zappa as he’s writing this piece: “wait till some nerd tries to analyze this!” Zappa admitted he knows nothing about counterpoint, wasn’t interested. His creations stand alone.
And the beauty is that whether he'd like it or not, you can still crack his music wide open and steal the parts you like! Unique as it is, it's still penetrable from a certain angle
In fact FZ was talking about Ruth Crawford's "atonal counterpoint" in his letter to Varese when he was 15 or 16, and this was an abiding interest then and culminates in many works following. I would tend to agree more that FZ did many things a trained composer would perhaps avoid and some of it is hard to suss the intent of (the sort of quasi-tonal gestures all throughout this which Mr Howard describes variously, eg., 'decorative' or "aesthetic" surface elements. And things like a V-I juncture here and there which seem sarcastic if anything.).
This was somebody who loved Charles Ives piling up different time signatures and did it quite a bit himself. Of course he had some interest in Counterpoint even if it wasnt academically driven.
FRANK ZAPPA'S THE GREATEST !!!!!
I'm not familiar with this work ..