When Zappa says he's "tone deaf" he just means that he didn't have perfect pitch. Tone deafness normally refers to people who can't discern differences in pitch, which is something Zappa clearly could do. His "sneaking around on the guitar" method is an example - if he was truly tone deaf he wouldn't have been able to do that.
Of course you're right, however I'm merely extrapolating the idea and using it as an amusing yardstick by which to measure his ability to hear and his prowess as a composer.
@@ChananHanspal Also, Frank was in that obsessed mad man group of famous artists and rather looking at his music in music theory terms he probably tossed out all theory for it getting in the way of the creative process. The wheels in his head were spinning all the way to the end.
@@ChananHanspal Actually I don't agree. Zappa also once said 'straight up and down playing is as impossible as shit for me', so it wasn't at all just a question of not having perfect pitch. In fact the video suggests that having perfect pitch will give you the ability to hear music in your head and write it down, which is just not true. Zappa obviously wasn't 'tone deaf' in the sense czgibson is talking about, but then hardly anybody is. That is a kind of disability, and even people who say they are tone deaf usually aren't: they just have a really low level of musical awareness. What Zappa meant is that he couldn't hear tonality. That's why he wrote so few songs with simple diatonic chord progressions. He could noodle around on the guitar to find the approximate harmonic context, but probably couldn't play 'Happy Birthday' without working it out first. He had to work everything out on instruments, so that when he said he knew how it sounded, it was because he had heard it before. I don't know how good his musical memory was. Tonal music is much easier to remember, because it is logical. I was very impressed to see Stockhausen at a rehearsal, and he could remember the notes in his highly atonal and even dysfunctional music. I suppose that Zappa must have developed an ability like that over the years.
@@jonathanpark7245 I think it is extremely rare. In Chinese and many other languages, pitch is phonemic so if you were tone deaf you wouldn't be able to speak the language correctly. I have never heard of this happening. As I said, it is a question of never having developed any musical awareness.
Signed in to comment that you might enjoy a 2016 doctoral dissertation I read on Zappa's chord bible and compositional approach. It's incredibly well-researched. I found the hard drive and the document I wanted to reference. You wrote it. Staggering work, man - and thank you.
Perfect pitch does not automatically make you a composer and there are plenty of examples. Just like with literature. You can hear and understand all the words of a language in your head, but to develop as a creative writer is another thing entirely. I'm a composer without perfect pitch and I have worked very hard to develop relative pitch and compose using my instruments. I went through a similar agony as yours early on being intimidated by exaggerated myths.
@@scubadiva666 LOL You wish. How so? How does singing in pitch or playing guitar in tune affect creativity? That sounds like a pathetic excuse for being tone deaf. If you can't discern pitch you better not sing or play an instrument because that is the FIRST thing that marks a BAD musician - being out of tune. 🎸
@@mrkremko1 It's not rocket science - most people can tell a sour note - only about 2% of people are actually medically tone deaf - the rest are just lazy bad musicians that don't want to learn. And no, most all music recorded is perfect - because it's the easiest thing to do - being in tune; and of course vocalists cheat today with auto-tune so no - most people have perfect pitch and will never hear an out of tune commercial record. Subsequently Of COURSE the majority will notice and cringe at out of tune idiots, it's the difference between acceptable and not. 🎬
I think Zappa was a guy obsessed with sound. He became a composer so that he could illustrate with sound, his “vision” for a composition led to him developing his strong inner ear (as Steve Vai called it). Beyond the basics, he wasn’t a conventional composer, he approached composition as a collector of sounds and melodies that he decorated on a music bar and problem solved clever solutions to bridge these ideas. A lot of Zappa’s compositions were experiments, and he would borrow phrases from old songs he had written (sometimes from old classical pieces) and would swap them around until they found their “correct” place. This is why I love Yellow Shark, it feels like the end of the journey for some of the songs. Zappa experimented so much and created his own studio and label to do so, that’s why he made so many albums. He sculpted sound like an obsessive visionary.
Coming back here to comment. Your video led me to watch "Tim's Vermeer", which was one of the most brilliant and inspiring pieces of media I have come across. So thank you.
In an interview from the 1980s, Zappa said that he wrote much of his music straight onto manuscript paper (often he would do this while waiting at airports) then "test the harmonies on the piano" at a later date.
Maybe some of that was just intellectual fascination with the mathematical patterns, like Schillinger, without concern at those moments about how it might sound.
Once you have a good understanding of music theory you can hear the intervals that’s being written down on the page, and making inversions is a lot easier
I remember being amazed when I saw a tv programme where he was on the tour bus, talking to an interviewer while composing what looked like very intricate pieces on to manuscript.
He's one of those that will not be easily forgotten, and in a few centuries I can see some music teacher introducing their students to his music, just like they do now with Mozart and Bach. I believe that he is a frequent subject at Berkley college, and it's not surprising.
It's quite a different thing to hear an idea in your head and know what the notes are, versus having George play some obscure jazz chords in a different key and instantly knowing what they are. I don't think most of Zappa's bandmates had perfect pitch (it is quite rare); I suspect they just had significant ear training (solfeggio) that allowed them to hear the interval between the key they were playing in and the chord George had gone to. I also expect there are lots of things Zappa created that he could hear in his head, but like most of us, there were limits to what he could do in this regard. And he was always interested in pushing beyond boundaries, even his own, hence the "speculative" compositions.
6:26 I had similar disappointment. As a kid, I thought when a band wanted to record an album, they just set up a single mic in the middle of a room and then improvised the entire thing right there on the spot. I also thought when bands played live, they were improvising the entire show, every time 😂
@@juliussw9153 Unlikely that there's any music which is entirely improvised. The nature of learning an instrument, especially one like guitar, implies a lot of coordination and muscle memory is developed and it needs to be to be able to play e.g most of us start on guitar learning a standard set of chords, open E, G, C, D, A and we struggle at first to get our fingers into these new shapes and to switch smoothly between them. We may learn how to change these voicing to get minor chords or 7ths, but it's unlikely anyone armed with that basic set of chords is going to randomly play a G9#11 chord because it's another period of struggling getting the fingers to adapt to learn all the more 'jazzy' chords. And if you have a reasonable way of comping with these you'll maybe come across Ted Greene's book or Holdsworth and have another set of finger bending chords and techniques to play them that take more time to accommodate. At which point if you start using them can you really say you're improvising? You've spent hundreds or thousands of hours practising before this supposed 'improvisation' Maybe you hope that for single note runs you have a better chance to play off the cuff yet we know Jazz music is full of licks, riffs and runs, arpeggios et al. All learnt, practised before this supposed "improvisation" - there's even a long standing joke lick that everyone plays - well that's not improvised is it? I'm reasonably sure that if you take the body of work from any guitarist who supposedly improvises over changes you'd soon be able to spot repeated patterns and motifs, licks, riffs that they've not only played before but that they regularly play. It's a part of why when we hear some music we recognise the musician (there are obviously others that wouldn't preclude improvisation, like their tone and aspects of their technique that come out in their playing, but undoubtedly a lot of musicians who think they just "improvised" a solo we recognise them from their note choices as well. We also know that some of the most likely people to be able to imagine music in their head and then play it on their instrument - they have perfect pitch and a great understanding of harmony and reasonable chops on their instrument will often talk in interviews of their frustration that they can't play all the music that they imagine. Which suggests that there's far more reliance on existing learnt material in "improvisation" than there is on creating something entirely new. Especially when the people claiming they do this are demonstrably less skilled. Really they just abandon other structure, i.e if you don't play in time and randomly get louder and quieter and ignore what other musicians are doing you can kid yourself that you're "free" - the only real problem with this is - you sound exactly like people who can't play an instrument would - it belies the notion that a group of musicians are improvising a piece of music on the spot as shamiacvisions suggested - he, I'm sure, meant in terms of the structure of the piece and how the individual parts worked together to create a piece of music. Free jazz is just creating random noise collectively - and, as we've discussed, it's not even each individual is actually improvising something entirely new - and it doesn't really require any skill to do. It's like modern art if you just squirt paint at a canvas - an elephant could do it with its trunk.
Thank you so much. This was one of the most freeing and inspiring moments I have had as a composer/instrumentalist. It is amazing how we can earnestly gatekeep ourselves instead of getting into the task at hand by every and any means necessary.
I fell in love with Zappa's music from the very first time I heard it in the late 70's, and man did that open up a can of worms! There were already so many albums to process then, and he just kept piling them on! I had like over 50 Zappa albums when He died, and didn't have them all. I am a guitar builder/repairman, and I have perfect relative pitch, and sometimes but not always perfect pitch. Its sort of fleeting. I often tune instruments just by ear on the fly in seconds and many of my clients ask how the F I do it, some even check with their tuner and are even more surprised when it's right on the money. I think it's because when working on instruments the perfect notes linger, but when I listen to music, and especially classic rock and progressive stuff from decades ago when not every tune was in perfect A440, then however it is off pitch lingers and then so am I.
Zappa is a mystery only in the sense that he knew more about what he was doing than anyone ever will. Other composers like Mozart had a mission and an end goal that we understand, unlike Zappa whose art was more alive because the purpose was more personal. Zappa was constantly playing with sound, which is why he was innovative. He didn’t “break boundaries” or “break the rules” like jazz, he just wanted to play with sound which is why he was always so far ahead on the technology side before literally anyone else. Zappa is incorrectly lumped into rock, jazz fusion, etc but he was one of the few musicians who saw sound for what it is, and didn’t try to become what was expected of him unless he had to pay the bills. His true love and passion was taking the most challenging ideas that he heard in his mind and bringing them into the world by conducting/producing the best musicians he was capable of finding to do it. Most of them did not understand what he was doing, but he was able to push them to play as though they did. Steve Vai was one of the few guys to understand Zappa, as well as a handful of his other bandmates. They understood Zappa on an artistic level, and they had the musical capabilities to adapt.
FZ was truly organized and was not influenced by bad information. He thought for himself, a very good template for how most of us humans should / could operate.
Very interesting video, it's amazing the power we ascribe to the mystery of creation as if the quality of the end project is somehow based on the how convoluted and removed the process is. I'm guilty of falling for the romantic ideals of composition, from Keith Richards composing in his sleep to Steve Vai fasting for weeks for inspiration. There is just something too grounded in imagining our heroes clumsily hitting keys and trying every fret until they find the right notes and then rubbing out previous attempts on manuscript.
i heard julian lage say the same thing during a clinic, said he doesnt hear what he plays he just gets a feel of what chord voicings/ melodic shapes will work when the time comes in improv, lines of thought like “ive used some closed voicings a bunch, some more open ones would be nice now… oh maybe now ill alternate between them quickly for this part..” etc
Great video. This same issue plagues artists of almost all genres of music. The more fundamental concept seems to be a struggle of nearly any artist even, I've known many visual artists who grappled with how much an artist sees their piece in their mind clearly and are merely rendering an image directly from their minds eye. I love the abstract nature of creativity despite the frustration it can bring about at times.
This was quite an interesting watch not only as a fan of Zappa but also as a musician/someone interested into looking more at the composition side of his music! The man seemingly mastered dissonance to a fine point and learning that he personally believed that he thought he had a sense of tone was quite a perplexing thing to hear.
Another topic is that me and others have been wandering if Zappa had synesthesia. It is a variation in perception that makes you mix senses, let's say. For example, some people see colours in music, or in letters, or feel smells when they see something. Not in an artistic way, but really see or smell that. I thought about Zappa having this because of his unconventional way of composing (although he had unconventional influences) and because there has been some times that he said things like "make that music more orange" or something like that. And also, because many people who has this don't find out until they're grown ups, or maybe they never do. Such could be the case with Zappa. There's a video from Adam Neely (a musician youbuer) explaining how he found out he had this and what it's like. He always thought that music had colours before that.
Zappa did once describe his own guitar playing as creating aural sculptures. I think a lot of musicians would understand the orange quote as its neither yellow or red but a bit hotter than beige.
@@Guitar6ty That sounds pretty much like synesthesia to me hahaha. Why the music notes would be red or yellow in the first place? Or BEIGE? I can IMAGINE colours in music, but in an artistic way, not really see them. And not something you would say to other bandmembers, because the other person it's not gonna understand you. It's something abstract. Also, you sound very specific about it. Do YOU see colours in music? Maybe you do have it.
Fascinating. I've often wondered about this sort of thing. I think it's important to recognize that Zappa WAS almost certainly deliberate in the rhythmic content of his more "speculative" material, as well as the orchestrational elements.
@@Yew2b1 My point is aimed at the discussion of the significance of having a perfect ear for pitch - it doesn't guarantee a good sense of rhythm or a good sense of orchestration. I spend much more time in the composition process on the placing of pitches and sounds in time and orchestration than I do on determining the pitches, as I imagine most composers would.
@@Yew2b1 Fruitless? Look at a piano. It has 88 pitches. For every unique combination of pitches that you can choose there are a multitude of rhythm combinations that you can apply to get a multitude of different effects.
I am a recent subscriber, and I love your content- likely my favorite music related channel on YT. To this subject: In my life, I have met quite a few folk with perfect pitch- it shifts as they get older, usually by half step. Not a single one that I know from my school days has ever produced much by way of original work. I also know composition majors who ended up getting out of music having never written much. Frank was neither of these, obviously-
One of the main problems going on in this comment thread on this video is that a lot of people don't have a good grasp of what it means to have perfect pitch and relative pitch. Relative pitch is by far the most common. Most musicians have relative pitch. The normal number estimated n the population for perfect pitch is about 1 or 2 in 10000. In fact many great composers did not have perfect pitch. Wagner didn't. Not did Tchaikovsky but that does not mean they are tone-deaf that is quite a different thing they will have had as most of us do relative pitch and you can train the relative pitch to a very high degree. Obviously if Frank Zappa did not have perfect pitch then he certainly will have had relative pitch.
Well done, again. I really enjoy your analyses. Frank seemed to be using "tone deaf" in the same absurdly exaggerated sense that he described people who were rhythmically-challenged: "I swear, they just can't count".
methinks FZ meant by saying that he was 'Tone Deaf' is much akin to his quote 'Jazz isnt dead, IT just smells funny'. meaning, he isnt going to appeal to the 'TONE non-DEAF'
Applying relative pitch onto a score is more tha enough to solve your riddle. It fullfills the idea of "he could hear everything in his head" and the fact he had no perfect pitch.
But if someone has great relative pitch, they can write out their symphony without relying on an instrument. They might write it in C major and then listen to it and think, "darn it, I wanted it to be in A-flat." So they transpose it down a major 3rd and they're done. To avoid that problem, they could carry a pitch pipe tuner in their pocket and never get it wrong.
The absolute pitch is, at best, a secondary consideration. When writing it on paper, the primary consideration is what pitch best accommodates the ranges of the instruments, and I say that as a person convinced of the affective qualities of keys.
Whenever I make compositions I do hear a lot of in my head but not completely and whoever I start working on it I come up with new stuff along with it and discover things I didn’t even know I was thinking about, I think this is what frank zappa does.
Thank you Chanan. That was a delight from start to finish, and I confess to having thought exactly the same. I’d be really interested to know what you think about Zappa’s facility for rhythmic transcription? I know he began as a percussionist, but that he was also a fan of “eye music“… as you say, he liked to spend hours putting dots and beams down on manuscript. Rhythm in some respects is harder to discern accurately than melody: at least with melody, you can match pitches, whereas rhythm exists only as moments in time from which we have to infer some kind of metric relationship. What are your thoughts on ability to think of and then notate rhythm? Or indeed his ability to read it? (I ask this is someone who reads music like a confused snail.)
Hi David, thanks for your kind comment! I think Zappa had a highly developed appreciation for rhythm, in fact some of his compositions started out as just written rhythms where notes were added later, "The Black Page" is a good example. The way he used rhythm was intriguing; that sort of friction that’s attained through interchange between deceleration and acceleration superimposed over a steady pulse. This was important for Zappa because he wanted the listener to hear the rhythmic dissonance and how he was being creative with it, although in order for this to happen he ensured there was an underlying steady pulse so that the rhythmic irregularity was conspicuous, otherwise, without the underlying pulse, it could make the rhythmic dissonance less salient.
@@CC-oi9mc I'd be curious, CC, if you maybe have a citation or link for Zappa stating that he sometimes riffs off speech patterns. Currently researching connections between language and music. A Zappa quote would be great.
@@stephenhardy4158 I think it may have been particularly related to his style of improvising but I don’t readily have a quote in mind. It’s come up fairly often in analysis I’ve read and seen of his guitar playing technique and overall composition.
Oh how wonderful, wonderful is always appreciating your content and positivity. Perhaps sometime in the future you can make a video that amalgamate some of the other and deeper correspondences you've had with alumni members and it may shed more light on Zappa's compositions.
@@ChananHanspal oh I have Sir ! And from what I can tell on the channel you've had substantial correspondences was ample alumni. So what I'm saying is why not put together a video which focuses its attention on some of the Intriguing things that they've said, perhaps content that may not fit into the chord bible or pitch class analysis etc ? Either way thank you great energy, attitude and insights. Ps. Have you gone to zappanale ?
Excellent video. I've always wondered about composers and audiation. As for FZ being "tone deaf", I must admit I've always found his use of dissonance to be more chaotic than say, Schönberg, or Ligeti, whose work is much more refined and thematic. It just didn't sound like FZ could hear the same level of dissonant splendor, which resulted in less pleasing phrases. It's a shame he passed, as Jazz from Hell was the start of an interesting direction in his oeuvre. Imagine what his "straight to manuscript" approach would've yielded as technology progressed passed the synclavier.
Black napkins et al makes up for any trial by error composition - he had creative magic. BTW, if you are performing live with or without others, the rooms’ acoustics can totally collapse your notion of what key someone’s playing in...I got a reminder of this rolling down the highway with the sun roof open and the driver window cracked: a popular song (remaining nameless) sounded totally off-key until I closed both windows.
That pitch shift is quite believable due to the doppler effect of the moving air compressing or expanding the period and therefore (in reverse sense) the frequency of the perceived notes.
People still have very romatic views about artistic creation and human creativity in general. So, it's very nice to see this kind of reflection. Thank you!
Thanks for this video. As a fan of Zappa and composers in general I found it fascinating. I wonder how perfect pitch would enable anyone to decide on tonal colour choices, ultimately - especially in more harmonically impressionistic music like some of Zapp’s orchestral work, for instance.
I ised to play the alto sax. When I played and improvised with other musicians, I had to use the same technique Zappa describes to find the key. I would sort of poke around a couple of notes until I found the ones that didn't clash. I always envied those who could recognize a note they heard and play it or instantly or know which scale to use.
I think what Frank really meant was, he knew what he liked. It's not a matter of retaining all that information in one's head before it's committed to paper, but rather a work in progress, so to speak.
I don’t have an opinion as to whether Zappa did or didn’t have perfect pitch. But when it comes to composition I’d like to cite an altogether different sort of example. The song “It Must Be a Camel” from the “Hot Rats” album has always been one of my favorites if not my all time favorite FZ song. I first heard it in high school after I bought the album. Many years later after the 50th year anniversary box set was issued I found out that he didn’t write it out as a complete composition beforehand and instead pieced together and utilized segments of studio improvisation (aka jamming) that eventually formed the finished product. I know a lot of fans will point to it as just one more example of Zappa’s ingenious talent, and I don’t necessarily disagree, but I was still disappointed. It’s such a perfect piece of music to my ears and one that for many years I assumed he must have written with pen and paper before presenting it to the studio musicians. If I’m not mistaken it appears that he abandoned that approach as the years progressed.
Are guitars ever perfect pitch everywhere on the neck? That would drive the perfect pictchers mad. Zappa liked the “gritty distortion “, as well as the beauty of music. Arf, arf , arf.
I have a friend that is an amazing musician. Oberlin degree, played with Stevie, Beyonce'. We were talking about this one day, and she said she would NOT want to have perfect pitch. Relative pitch is the goal.
@@reynoldsparrow834 Maybe read my comment again? I wasn't talking about Beyonce'. I was talking about my uber talented friend that got the Beyonce' gig. She was also in the house band for the relaunch of the Arsenio Hall Show as well as playing with Stevie Wonder for 7 years prior to that.
So many recordings from the analogue era were mixed and/or mastered in Varispeed, sometimes sped up to give the recording a little extra punch. Would a person with perfect pitch not be able to listen to the song without hearing it’s a quarter-tone out of tune?
Obviously Beethoven, being deaf, or very close to it, was able to hear music in his head, however, I think it's even deeper in that Beethoven was able to see music the way Neo and Morpheus was able to see the code for The Matrix.
@@dickrichard626 Ok you are an absolute fool to think his 9th symphony is worse, which is considered one of the greatest human achievements, and then after, his late string quartets is worse, when all serious musicians rate them as some of the finest string orchestrations of all time. You are not to be taken seriously.
A bit off topic but I think dacron in the title refers to the polyester clothing. You said it like it's a place?? Don't mean to be rude, just seems like something FZ would say. 5:52
From an Unfathomable Genius to a Fathomable Genius... I think that FZ would be pleased by that turn of phrase. Composition is hard work, and the composers who do it professionally (just like professional authors) do it every day, whether the inspiration has hit them or not. (Utilitarian compositional devices, such as serialism, make this possible.) Two thoughts: Two fine composers, Peter Hazzard and Michael Gibbs, both taught their students (of which I was one, at the Hogwarts of Music, in Boston) that serious composers didn't write at an instrument, they wrote at a desk, and tried out what they wrote on an instrument after the fact, to see if they liked what they'd come up with, after which aesthetics took over, retaining what was liked, excising what was not. (and) "Perfect Pitch" aka "Absolute Pitch" is a curse, which no one should want. What should be desired, and can be developed, is "Relative Pitch," referred to among Jazz/Pop Musicians as "Great Ears." Much more useful and valuable.
I was also worried about those things when i was 17 years old. Obsessing about stuff like that hindered me for years. Just try to do your best. A lot of my favorite musicians dont have perfect pitch. Come to think about it i dont think any of them do.
I hear music in my head, then I hunt for it on the instrument. I know when the instrument matches the sound in my head, but it can take awhile. I think most composers, including Zappa, are similar to me in their approach. I’m sure perfect pitch would speed things up significantly, but perfect pitch and creativity are not usually found in the same person.
I usually hate playing with musicians who have perfect pitch. They are thankfully rare but they tend to be really anxious in situations where the pitch may not be what they are used to, and I find generally they are stiffer in several ways. People with strong relative pitch are the best. I will agree, though, that one of Frank's legs was shorter than the other, and both of his feets too long, and, of course now, right along with them, he got no natural rhythm.
BTW I've heard it claimed that perfect pitch isn't real. It is real, but it ain't real good. Every musician I've worked with who claimed to have perfect pitch was too anxious to play well. It's a curse. I don't care if you know this is an A or an A flat or an elephant. Can you make it sound good?
I have / had NO problem with how well peoples' ears are trained, perfect pitch or NOT. Music involves integrative behavior. That's what's important. FZ seemed to have it, in spades.
I absolutely love the way music looks in manuscript paper. I only understand the basics of what I'm looking at but nonetheless it is great to gaze upon. Some bright spark transposed Jimi Hendrix's 'Star Spangled Banner' from Woodstock , it's like a piece of art to look at.
A few minutes in, I started thinking about camera obscura. Then you hit on it! Humans are so easily convinced something is magic or pure inspiration. No matter your craft, there are tricks of the trade. When combined with steadfastness, the results can be striking! And who would really think Vermeer freehanded his paintings off the top of his head? Even if it where true, it would require insane amounts of preparation, sketches, honing technique, and having outside references.. Free soloists, whether in jazz or rock climbing sure make it look easy though!
Yes he was tone deaf. But somehow lead amazing bands for decades and made 100 albums many of which he produced. He improvised numerous intricate guitar solos and also somehow wrote for symphony orchestra despite the fact that he was 'tone deaf". This is why he was regarded as a genius. A tone deaf musical genius.
He wasn't tone deaf though... he was very self-deprecating. If he was tone deaf, he wouldn't have been able to tell when he was in the right key, and clearly he could.
3:25 more longitudinal studies tracking individuals with perfect pitch over extended periods would be needed to better understand the stability of this capacity. Investigating potential interventions or training methods to maintain or enhance perfect pitch could shed further light on its variability over time. One may have it, lose it, have it again, I suppose.
The point is that Zappa was never musically trained - his family moved around, in his formative years he was in Lancaster close to the Mohave desert , where there was no formal training available, his teenage chum was Captain Beefheart who was also wrote incredibly complex music with no formal training on instruments he could not actually play. Zappa was working full time as a musician in his late teens playing R&B and writing R&B songs - which he continued for most of his life. His orchestral writings and notation were self taught. His company run by Dweezil is still putting out new original albums 29 years after his death.
I can hear it all in my head and rearrange it remix it etc but IDK how to get it out like how to translate what I hear it as and then when i try to get it out it just doesn't sound right these user interface aren't up to the task yet but there's new tech i just haven't been able to afford till soon lol
WITHOUT watching the video, I would say...NO. He likely was trying to express that he didn't have PERFECT PITCH, in an exaggerated way. But: he was extremely aware of INTERVALS, which is a large portion of what makes up music (besides dynamics & rhythm of course). AFTER watching the video, it (more or less) confirms my thoughts.
Zappa says in his book that he "was glued to the chair for weeks and months on end , writing music. I thought it was fun, because I could hear everything in my head . . ." (p. 142) But we don't have to assume from this that he's claiming he had perfect pitch.
To assimilate tone into perfect vocal replica of the 7 scale range doesn't mean perfect tonality either. In fact, replicating is all we do until we bring creative choice, whether hygenically pleasing or encompassing dissonance intentionally is modality of human creativity as microcosm or transistor of larger scale undifferentiated bodies of color, tone, quality etc
In the book "Freak Out! My Life with Frank Zappa", the author Pauline Butcher writes about her time when she worked for Frank Zappa as a secretary between 1969 and 1972, I believe. She said Zappa would work all day, writing music on paper, and then he would rely on ian Underwood at the end of the day to play all voices together for him on piano. Zappa would only plunk a few notes here and there on the piano while composing, Pauline Butcher remembers (or words to that effect) in her book. Thank you for this video.
I remember seeing a video of him on piano composing from 60s and he was playing REALLY slow and almost sounded childish. It was pretty inspiring to see that you can compose and barely know how to play piano
@@bryanlee5522 Yeah, I was doing the same thing with my DAW, and it was surprising to find out that FZ composed that way also. It's a shame FZ is not around to compose using today's technology.
If you know the intervals in your head you could always just write down everything straight to paper in C major (or any other key). Without perfect pitch it's likely you'd be in the wrong absolute key of course, but if your intervals are written accurately it's a simple matter of transposition, if you happen to care about the key. Anybody in theory could be trained to do this most likely.
Another corker Chanan. Dweezil also said in an interview that he (himself) was tone deaf but that didn't stop him from learning all his dad's guitar parts by ear as he doesn't read music. I really enjoy your insights into music and composition, keep em coming :) Do you like Tigran Hamasyan? ruclips.net/video/5R-mEdk1D40/видео.html
You may not have achieved what you set out to achieve, but maybe that's beside the point. I like to believe that Zappa did achieve what he set out to achieve, in that by deliberately contradicting himself in the claim of being 'tone deaf' and also claiming to be able to hear everything in his head he found a way to 'confront you' (from the grave on this occasion) and as a result you arrived at a new, unexpected conclusion. A conceptual xenochrony perhaps? In my own Zappa research I have found numerous examples of this throughout his ourve which, as he stated on multiple occasions, is comprised of everything he ever did from potty humor songs written in minutes, to interviews, to album covers, to epic guitar solos, to orchestral works and everything in between. There are these kinds of contradictions everywhere in his 'project/object', be they musical, verbal, visual, or otherwise. I believe he was quite conscientious of this, partly relying on his and anyone else's tendency to be 'full of contradictions'. It's a remarkable kind of high-concept approach to turning anything into 'material', which you know he loved to do. There's a lot more Cage influence in his work than I think he lets on which, in my opinion, is expressed with his AAAFNRAA concept. Of course this is all just the speculation of an aging buffoon. Great video.
He probably was bothered by not having perfect pitch - like he could hear intervals and recognize them right away but not necessarily specific notes by ear.
When Zappa says he's "tone deaf" he just means that he didn't have perfect pitch. Tone deafness normally refers to people who can't discern differences in pitch, which is something Zappa clearly could do. His "sneaking around on the guitar" method is an example - if he was truly tone deaf he wouldn't have been able to do that.
Of course you're right, however I'm merely extrapolating the idea and using it as an amusing yardstick by which to measure his ability to hear and his prowess as a composer.
@@ChananHanspal Also, Frank was in that obsessed mad man group of famous artists and rather looking at his music in music theory terms he probably tossed out all theory for it getting in the way of the creative process. The wheels in his head were spinning all the way to the end.
@@ChananHanspal Actually I don't agree. Zappa also once said 'straight up and down playing is as impossible as shit for me', so it wasn't at all just a question of not having perfect pitch. In fact the video suggests that having perfect pitch will give you the ability to hear music in your head and write it down, which is just not true. Zappa obviously wasn't 'tone deaf' in the sense czgibson is talking about, but then hardly anybody is. That is a kind of disability, and even people who say they are tone deaf usually aren't: they just have a really low level of musical awareness. What Zappa meant is that he couldn't hear tonality. That's why he wrote so few songs with simple diatonic chord progressions. He could noodle around on the guitar to find the approximate harmonic context, but probably couldn't play 'Happy Birthday' without working it out first. He had to work everything out on instruments, so that when he said he knew how it sounded, it was because he had heard it before. I don't know how good his musical memory was. Tonal music is much easier to remember, because it is logical. I was very impressed to see Stockhausen at a rehearsal, and he could remember the notes in his highly atonal and even dysfunctional music. I suppose that Zappa must have developed an ability like that over the years.
Was about to write this. Some people are actually tone deaf and could probably never be a musician
@@jonathanpark7245 I think it is extremely rare. In Chinese and many other languages, pitch is phonemic so if you were tone deaf you wouldn't be able to speak the language correctly. I have never heard of this happening. As I said, it is a question of never having developed any musical awareness.
Signed in to comment that you might enjoy a 2016 doctoral dissertation I read on Zappa's chord bible and compositional approach. It's incredibly well-researched. I found the hard drive and the document I wanted to reference. You wrote it. Staggering work, man - and thank you.
You're welcome and thank you!
Haha that's so cool
😂
Perfect pitch does not automatically make you a composer and there are plenty of examples. Just like with literature. You can hear and understand all the words of a language in your head, but to develop as a creative writer is another thing entirely. I'm a composer without perfect pitch and I have worked very hard to develop relative pitch and compose using my instruments. I went through a similar agony as yours early on being intimidated by exaggerated myths.
I've even heard that perfect can be a hindrance to the creative process!
@@scubadiva666 I’ve heard that everything sounds out of tune for people with perfect pitch.
@@scubadiva666 LOL You wish. How so? How does singing in pitch or playing guitar in tune affect creativity? That sounds like a pathetic excuse for being tone deaf. If you can't discern pitch you better not sing or play an instrument because that is the FIRST thing that marks a BAD musician - being out of tune. 🎸
@@mrkremko1 It's not rocket science - most people can tell a sour note - only about 2% of people are actually medically tone deaf - the rest are just lazy bad musicians that don't want to learn. And no, most all music recorded is perfect - because it's the easiest thing to do - being in tune; and of course vocalists cheat today with auto-tune so no - most people have perfect pitch and will never hear an out of tune commercial record. Subsequently Of COURSE the majority will notice and cringe at out of tune idiots, it's the difference between acceptable and not. 🎬
This is very true
I think Zappa was a guy obsessed with sound. He became a composer so that he could illustrate with sound, his “vision” for a composition led to him developing his strong inner ear (as Steve Vai called it). Beyond the basics, he wasn’t a conventional composer, he approached composition as a collector of sounds and melodies that he decorated on a music bar and problem solved clever solutions to bridge these ideas.
A lot of Zappa’s compositions were experiments, and he would borrow phrases from old songs he had written (sometimes from old classical pieces) and would swap them around until they found their “correct” place. This is why I love Yellow Shark, it feels like the end of the journey for some of the songs.
Zappa experimented so much and created his own studio and label to do so, that’s why he made so many albums. He sculpted sound like an obsessive visionary.
I GET it. I, too am OBSESSED with SOUND...
Thank you Chanan that was beautiful. I especially loved how you asked for permission to read stuff to us!
You're welcome and many thanks
Coming back here to comment. Your video led me to watch "Tim's Vermeer", which was one of the most brilliant and inspiring pieces of media I have come across. So thank you.
In an interview from the 1980s, Zappa said that he wrote much of his music straight onto manuscript paper (often he would do this while waiting at airports) then "test the harmonies on the piano" at a later date.
Maybe some of that was just intellectual fascination with the mathematical patterns, like Schillinger, without concern at those moments about how it might sound.
that’s what any capable composer does
@@Gabe-qd4gz That would make Stravinsky incapable then.
Once you have a good understanding of music theory you can hear the intervals that’s being written down on the page, and making inversions is a lot easier
I remember being amazed when I saw a tv programme where he was on the tour bus, talking to an interviewer while composing what looked like very intricate pieces on to manuscript.
I’m just glad that people still remember him. 👍😊
He's one of those that will not be easily forgotten, and in a few centuries I can see some music teacher introducing their students to his music, just like they do now with Mozart and Bach. I believe that he is a frequent subject at Berkley college, and it's not surprising.
His music will withstand the test of time.
It's quite a different thing to hear an idea in your head and know what the notes are, versus having George play some obscure jazz chords in a different key and instantly knowing what they are. I don't think most of Zappa's bandmates had perfect pitch (it is quite rare); I suspect they just had significant ear training (solfeggio) that allowed them to hear the interval between the key they were playing in and the chord George had gone to. I also expect there are lots of things Zappa created that he could hear in his head, but like most of us, there were limits to what he could do in this regard. And he was always interested in pushing beyond boundaries, even his own, hence the "speculative" compositions.
6:26 I had similar disappointment. As a kid, I thought when a band wanted to record an album, they just set up a single mic in the middle of a room and then improvised the entire thing right there on the spot. I also thought when bands played live, they were improvising the entire show, every time 😂
well, if its free jazz, then you're completely right
@@juliussw9153 Unlikely that there's any music which is entirely improvised. The nature of learning an instrument, especially one like guitar, implies a lot of coordination and muscle memory is developed and it needs to be to be able to play e.g most of us start on guitar learning a standard set of chords, open E, G, C, D, A and we struggle at first to get our fingers into these new shapes and to switch smoothly between them. We may learn how to change these voicing to get minor chords or 7ths, but it's unlikely anyone armed with that basic set of chords is going to randomly play a G9#11 chord because it's another period of struggling getting the fingers to adapt to learn all the more 'jazzy' chords. And if you have a reasonable way of comping with these you'll maybe come across Ted Greene's book or Holdsworth and have another set of finger bending chords and techniques to play them that take more time to accommodate. At which point if you start using them can you really say you're improvising? You've spent hundreds or thousands of hours practising before this supposed 'improvisation'
Maybe you hope that for single note runs you have a better chance to play off the cuff yet we know Jazz music is full of licks, riffs and runs, arpeggios et al. All learnt, practised before this supposed "improvisation" - there's even a long standing joke lick that everyone plays - well that's not improvised is it? I'm reasonably sure that if you take the body of work from any guitarist who supposedly improvises over changes you'd soon be able to spot repeated patterns and motifs, licks, riffs that they've not only played before but that they regularly play. It's a part of why when we hear some music we recognise the musician (there are obviously others that wouldn't preclude improvisation, like their tone and aspects of their technique that come out in their playing, but undoubtedly a lot of musicians who think they just "improvised" a solo we recognise them from their note choices as well.
We also know that some of the most likely people to be able to imagine music in their head and then play it on their instrument - they have perfect pitch and a great understanding of harmony and reasonable chops on their instrument will often talk in interviews of their frustration that they can't play all the music that they imagine. Which suggests that there's far more reliance on existing learnt material in "improvisation" than there is on creating something entirely new. Especially when the people claiming they do this are demonstrably less skilled.
Really they just abandon other structure, i.e if you don't play in time and randomly get louder and quieter and ignore what other musicians are doing you can kid yourself that you're "free" - the only real problem with this is - you sound exactly like people who can't play an instrument would - it belies the notion that a group of musicians are improvising a piece of music on the spot as shamiacvisions suggested - he, I'm sure, meant in terms of the structure of the piece and how the individual parts worked together to create a piece of music. Free jazz is just creating random noise collectively - and, as we've discussed, it's not even each individual is actually improvising something entirely new - and it doesn't really require any skill to do. It's like modern art if you just squirt paint at a canvas - an elephant could do it with its trunk.
I'm here for any and all Zappa-related videos on RUclips.
Thank you so much. This was one of the most freeing and inspiring moments I have had as a composer/instrumentalist. It is amazing how we can earnestly gatekeep ourselves instead of getting into the task at hand by every and any means necessary.
You're welcome Scott. Best wishes
Great video, a rare blessing of the suggestions tab.
I fell in love with Zappa's music from the very first time I heard it in the late 70's, and man did that open up a can of worms! There were already so many albums to process then, and he just kept piling them on! I had like over 50 Zappa albums when He died, and didn't have them all.
I am a guitar builder/repairman, and I have perfect relative pitch, and sometimes but not always perfect pitch. Its sort of fleeting. I often tune instruments just by ear on the fly in seconds and many of my clients ask how the F I do it, some even check with their tuner and are even more surprised when it's right on the money. I think it's because when working on instruments the perfect notes linger, but when I listen to music, and especially classic rock and progressive stuff from decades ago when not every tune was in perfect A440, then however it is off pitch lingers and then so am I.
I really like your videos on Zappa. Eagerly waiting for more…👍
Thank you Jonas
Zappa is a mystery only in the sense that he knew more about what he was doing than anyone ever will. Other composers like Mozart had a mission and an end goal that we understand, unlike Zappa whose art was more alive because the purpose was more personal. Zappa was constantly playing with sound, which is why he was innovative. He didn’t “break boundaries” or “break the rules” like jazz, he just wanted to play with sound which is why he was always so far ahead on the technology side before literally anyone else.
Zappa is incorrectly lumped into rock, jazz fusion, etc but he was one of the few musicians who saw sound for what it is, and didn’t try to become what was expected of him unless he had to pay the bills. His true love and passion was taking the most challenging ideas that he heard in his mind and bringing them into the world by conducting/producing the best musicians he was capable of finding to do it. Most of them did not understand what he was doing, but he was able to push them to play as though they did.
Steve Vai was one of the few guys to understand Zappa, as well as a handful of his other bandmates. They understood Zappa on an artistic level, and they had the musical capabilities to adapt.
Finally. The Equation: Zappa= Sound. He is the basis of my Research & Work. & as him, I'm building my Vault.
FZ was truly organized and was not influenced by bad information. He thought for himself, a very good template for how most of us humans should / could operate.
Very interesting video, it's amazing the power we ascribe to the mystery of creation as if the quality of the end project is somehow based on the how convoluted and removed the process is. I'm guilty of falling for the romantic ideals of composition, from Keith Richards composing in his sleep to Steve Vai fasting for weeks for inspiration. There is just something too grounded in imagining our heroes clumsily hitting keys and trying every fret until they find the right notes and then rubbing out previous attempts on manuscript.
i heard julian lage say the same thing during a clinic, said he doesnt hear what he plays he just gets a feel of what chord voicings/ melodic shapes will work when the time comes in improv, lines of thought like “ive used some closed voicings a bunch, some more open ones would be nice now… oh maybe now ill alternate between them quickly for this part..” etc
just found your channel and LOVING it
cant see robert craft and stravinsky without thinking of zevon.
Great video. This same issue plagues artists of almost all genres of music. The more fundamental concept seems to be a struggle of nearly any artist even, I've known many visual artists who grappled with how much an artist sees their piece in their mind clearly and are merely rendering an image directly from their minds eye. I love the abstract nature of creativity despite the frustration it can bring about at times.
That was fascinating! Great video.
Many thanks.
This was quite an interesting watch not only as a fan of Zappa but also as a musician/someone interested into looking more at the composition side of his music! The man seemingly mastered dissonance to a fine point and learning that he personally believed that he thought he had a sense of tone was quite a perplexing thing to hear.
Another topic is that me and others have been wandering if Zappa had synesthesia. It is a variation in perception that makes you mix senses, let's say. For example, some people see colours in music, or in letters, or feel smells when they see something. Not in an artistic way, but really see or smell that. I thought about Zappa having this because of his unconventional way of composing (although he had unconventional influences) and because there has been some times that he said things like "make that music more orange" or something like that. And also, because many people who has this don't find out until they're grown ups, or maybe they never do. Such could be the case with Zappa.
There's a video from Adam Neely (a musician youbuer) explaining how he found out he had this and what it's like. He always thought that music had colours before that.
Zappa did once describe his own guitar playing as creating aural sculptures. I think a lot of musicians would understand the orange quote as its neither yellow or red but a bit hotter than beige.
@@Guitar6ty That sounds pretty much like synesthesia to me hahaha. Why the music notes would be red or yellow in the first place? Or BEIGE? I can IMAGINE colours in music, but in an artistic way, not really see them. And not something you would say to other bandmembers, because the other person it's not gonna understand you. It's something abstract.
Also, you sound very specific about it. Do YOU see colours in music? Maybe you do have it.
My theory is that everybody has synesthesia. And it's not restricted to colours. For instance in my case it's much more shapes and patterns.
Short answer: No. Long answer: Noooooooooo.
Fascinating. I've often wondered about this sort of thing. I think it's important to recognize that Zappa WAS almost certainly deliberate in the rhythmic content of his more "speculative" material, as well as the orchestrational elements.
This is a key point in understanding music composition. Obviously, pitch is important, but composition is much more about rhythm than it is pitch.
@@TurbulatorRhythm more important than pitch? I could never make such a blanket statement.
@@Yew2b1 My point is aimed at the discussion of the significance of having a perfect ear for pitch - it doesn't guarantee a good sense of rhythm or a good sense of orchestration. I spend much more time in the composition process on the placing of pitches and sounds in time and orchestration than I do on determining the pitches, as I imagine most composers would.
@@Turbulator Not me. It seems fruitless to compare the importance of these interrelated elements.
@@Yew2b1 Fruitless? Look at a piano. It has 88 pitches. For every unique combination of pitches that you can choose there are a multitude of rhythm combinations that you can apply to get a multitude of different effects.
He wasn't tone deaf. He was glib.
Thank you for this. I remain convinced that Zappa was the only musical genius in the last 50 odd years
@BYRRD Zappa truthers are an intense bunch 😂
Stop it 😂
Pat Metheny
I am a recent subscriber, and I love your content- likely my favorite music related channel on YT.
To this subject: In my life, I have met quite a few folk with perfect pitch- it shifts as they get older, usually by half step.
Not a single one that I know from my school days has ever produced much by way of original work.
I also know composition majors who ended up getting out of music having never written much.
Frank was neither of these, obviously-
Thank you very much!
One of the main problems going on in this comment thread on this video is that a lot of people don't have a good grasp of what it means to have perfect pitch and relative pitch. Relative pitch is by far the most common. Most musicians have relative pitch. The normal number estimated n the population for perfect pitch is about 1 or 2 in 10000. In fact many great composers did not have perfect pitch. Wagner didn't. Not did Tchaikovsky but that does not mean they are tone-deaf that is quite a different thing they will have had as most of us do relative pitch and you can train the relative pitch to a very high degree.
Obviously if Frank Zappa did not have perfect pitch then he certainly will have had relative pitch.
Well done, again. I really enjoy your analyses. Frank seemed to be using "tone deaf" in the same absurdly exaggerated sense that he described people who were rhythmically-challenged: "I swear, they just can't count".
methinks FZ meant by saying that he was 'Tone Deaf' is much akin to his quote 'Jazz isnt dead, IT just smells funny'.
meaning, he isnt going to appeal to the 'TONE non-DEAF'
also, one of the very best guitar tones ever.
immaculate hearing, and able to think outside the box.
Applying relative pitch onto a score is more tha enough to solve your riddle. It fullfills the idea of "he could hear everything in his head" and the fact he had no perfect pitch.
I'm glad I found this channel. Really like the zappa vids
But if someone has great relative pitch, they can write out their symphony without relying on an instrument. They might write it in C major and then listen to it and think, "darn it, I wanted it to be in A-flat." So they transpose it down a major 3rd and they're done. To avoid that problem, they could carry a pitch pipe tuner in their pocket and never get it wrong.
The absolute pitch is, at best, a secondary consideration. When writing it on paper, the primary consideration is what pitch best accommodates the ranges of the instruments, and I say that as a person convinced of the affective qualities of keys.
Thank you for this. I also saw that documentary Tim's Vermeer.
Whenever I make compositions I do hear a lot of in my head but not completely and whoever I start working on it I come up with new stuff along with it and discover things I didn’t even know I was thinking about, I think this is what frank zappa does.
Thank you Chanan.
That was a delight from start to finish, and I confess to having thought exactly the same.
I’d be really interested to know what you think about Zappa’s facility for rhythmic transcription?
I know he began as a percussionist, but that he was also a fan of “eye music“… as you say, he liked to spend hours putting dots and beams down on manuscript. Rhythm in some respects is harder to discern accurately than melody: at least with melody, you can match pitches, whereas rhythm exists only as moments in time from which we have to infer some kind of metric relationship. What are your thoughts on ability to think of and then notate rhythm? Or indeed his ability to read it? (I ask this is someone who reads music like a confused snail.)
Hi David, thanks for your kind comment! I think Zappa had a highly developed appreciation for rhythm, in fact some of his compositions started out as just written rhythms where notes were added later, "The Black Page" is a good example. The way he used rhythm was intriguing; that sort of friction that’s attained through interchange between deceleration and acceleration superimposed over a steady pulse. This was important for Zappa because he wanted the listener to hear the rhythmic dissonance and how he was being creative with it, although in order for this to happen he ensured there was an underlying steady pulse so that the rhythmic irregularity was conspicuous, otherwise, without the underlying pulse, it could make the rhythmic dissonance less salient.
@@ChananHanspal It's worth noting that Zappa was inspired by the pace and rhythms of conversation and speech for his compositions.
@@CC-oi9mc I'd be curious, CC, if you maybe have a citation or link for Zappa stating that he sometimes riffs off speech patterns. Currently researching connections between language and music. A Zappa quote would be great.
@@stephenhardy4158 I think it may have been particularly related to his style of improvising but I don’t readily have a quote in mind. It’s come up fairly often in analysis I’ve read and seen of his guitar playing technique and overall composition.
Yes. The End.
Oh how wonderful, wonderful is always appreciating your content and positivity. Perhaps sometime in the future you can make a video that amalgamate some of the other and deeper correspondences you've had with alumni members and it may shed more light on Zappa's compositions.
Maybe you'd like to take a look at some of the other videos I've uploaded about Zappa, if it's a deeper analysis you're after.
@@ChananHanspal oh I have Sir ! And from what I can tell on the channel you've had substantial correspondences was ample alumni. So what I'm saying is why not put together a video which focuses its attention on some of the Intriguing things that they've said, perhaps content that may not fit into the chord bible or pitch class analysis etc ? Either way thank you great energy, attitude and insights. Ps. Have you gone to zappanale ?
That's not a bad idea, maybe something for the future. Many thanks
As a fellow fan of dense harmony, I like your outlook on this. Good food for thought
Nice mention of Tim's Vermeer.
Excellent video. I've always wondered about composers and audiation. As for FZ being "tone deaf", I must admit I've always found his use of dissonance to be more chaotic than say, Schönberg, or Ligeti, whose work is much more refined and thematic. It just didn't sound like FZ could hear the same level of dissonant splendor, which resulted in less pleasing phrases.
It's a shame he passed, as Jazz from Hell was the start of an interesting direction in his oeuvre. Imagine what his "straight to manuscript" approach would've yielded as technology progressed passed the synclavier.
Black napkins et al makes up for any trial by error composition - he had creative magic. BTW, if you are performing live with or without others, the rooms’ acoustics can totally collapse your notion of what key someone’s playing in...I got a reminder of this rolling down the highway with the sun roof open and the driver window cracked: a popular song (remaining nameless) sounded totally off-key until I closed both windows.
That pitch shift is quite believable due to the doppler effect of the moving air compressing or expanding the period and therefore (in reverse sense) the frequency of the perceived notes.
People still have very romatic views about artistic creation and human creativity in general. So, it's very nice to see this kind of reflection. Thank you!
Yes you're right, it's the thing that makes the art important, without it, people don't give it much value. Thanks for watching!
What a terrific video… someone needs to show it to Dweezil
How come?
@@Joverover Because I think he understands frank better than anyone and it would be interesting to see his reaction/commentary.
I'm so relieved! Thank you 🙂!!!
Yes. I remember believing things were more unfathomable then they are. First a disapointment. Then a relief.
I’m glad I have relative pitch & not perfect pitch
Thanks for this video. As a fan of Zappa and composers in general I found it fascinating.
I wonder how perfect pitch would enable anyone to decide on tonal colour choices, ultimately - especially in more harmonically impressionistic music like some of Zapp’s orchestral work, for instance.
"Fathomable genius" is indeed a brilliancy 😃
Very, very good video. Thanks so much!
You're welcome Walter.
If your ability to recognize intervals is good enough you don’t need perfect pitch.
I ised to play the alto sax. When I played and improvised with other musicians, I had to use the same technique Zappa describes to find the key. I would sort of poke around a couple of notes until I found the ones that didn't clash. I always envied those who could recognize a note they heard and play it or instantly or know which scale to use.
I think what Frank really meant was, he knew what he liked.
It's not a matter of retaining all that information in one's head before it's committed to paper,
but rather a work in progress, so to speak.
C'était vraiment très intéressant 👍
Love your videos :)
i never could get on board zappas harmony now i know why!
I don’t have an opinion as to whether Zappa did or didn’t have perfect pitch.
But when it comes to composition I’d like to cite an altogether different sort of example.
The song “It Must Be a Camel” from the “Hot Rats” album has always been one of my favorites if not my all time favorite FZ song.
I first heard it in high school after I bought the album.
Many years later after the 50th year anniversary box set was issued I found out that he didn’t write it out as a complete composition beforehand and instead pieced together and utilized segments of studio improvisation (aka jamming) that eventually formed the finished product.
I know a lot of fans will point to it as just one more example of Zappa’s ingenious talent, and I don’t necessarily disagree, but I was still disappointed.
It’s such a perfect piece of music to my ears and one that for many years I assumed he must have written with pen and paper before presenting it to the studio musicians.
If I’m not mistaken it appears that he abandoned that approach as the years progressed.
Are guitars ever perfect pitch everywhere on the neck?
That would drive the perfect pictchers mad.
Zappa liked the “gritty distortion “, as well as the beauty of music.
Arf, arf , arf.
I have a friend that is an amazing musician. Oberlin degree, played with Stevie, Beyonce'.
We were talking about this one day, and she said she would NOT want to have perfect pitch. Relative pitch is the goal.
Beyonce is not on a musical level that Frank Zappa was on let's just get that straight her music is disposable pop
@@reynoldsparrow834
Maybe read my comment again? I wasn't talking about Beyonce'. I was talking about my uber talented friend that got the Beyonce' gig.
She was also in the house band for the relaunch of the Arsenio Hall Show as well as playing with Stevie Wonder for 7 years prior to that.
So many recordings from the analogue era were mixed and/or mastered in Varispeed, sometimes sped up to give the recording a little extra punch. Would a person with perfect pitch not be able to listen to the song without hearing it’s a quarter-tone out of tune?
Is it not “Dacron”, the polyester material that Bob’s clothes are made out of?
Obviously Beethoven, being deaf, or very close to it, was able to hear music in his head, however, I think it's even deeper in that Beethoven was able to see music the way Neo and Morpheus was able to see the code for The Matrix.
@@dickrichard626 Ok you are an absolute fool to think his 9th symphony is worse, which is considered one of the greatest human achievements, and then after, his late string quartets is worse, when all serious musicians rate them as some of the finest string orchestrations of all time. You are not to be taken seriously.
@@dickrichard626 I', not going to even bother with this nonsense!
A bit off topic but I think dacron in the title refers to the polyester clothing. You said it like it's a place?? Don't mean to be rude, just seems like something FZ would say. 5:52
No, I know it's not a place and that it refers to clothing
From an Unfathomable Genius to a Fathomable Genius... I think that FZ would be pleased by that turn of phrase.
Composition is hard work, and the composers who do it professionally (just like professional authors) do it every day, whether the inspiration has hit them or not. (Utilitarian compositional devices, such as serialism, make this possible.)
Two thoughts:
Two fine composers, Peter Hazzard and Michael Gibbs, both taught their students (of which I was one, at the Hogwarts of Music, in Boston) that serious composers didn't write at an instrument, they wrote at a desk, and tried out what they wrote on an instrument after the fact, to see if they liked what they'd come up with, after which aesthetics took over, retaining what was liked, excising what was not.
(and)
"Perfect Pitch" aka "Absolute Pitch" is a curse, which no one should want. What should be desired, and can be developed, is "Relative Pitch," referred to among Jazz/Pop Musicians as "Great Ears." Much more useful and valuable.
I was also worried about those things when i was 17 years old. Obsessing about stuff like that hindered me for years. Just try to do your best. A lot of my favorite musicians dont have perfect pitch. Come to think about it i dont think any of them do.
I hear music in my head, then I hunt for it on the instrument. I know when the instrument matches the sound in my head, but it can take awhile. I think most composers, including Zappa, are similar to me in their approach. I’m sure perfect pitch would speed things up significantly, but perfect pitch and creativity are not usually found in the same person.
Excellent video! Thanks 🙏
Many thanks Mark.
I usually hate playing with musicians who have perfect pitch. They are thankfully rare but they tend to be really anxious in situations where the pitch may not be what they are used to, and I find generally they are stiffer in several ways. People with strong relative pitch are the best.
I will agree, though, that one of Frank's legs was shorter than the other, and both of his feets too long, and, of course now, right along with them, he got no natural rhythm.
BTW I've heard it claimed that perfect pitch isn't real. It is real, but it ain't real good. Every musician I've worked with who claimed to have perfect pitch was too anxious to play well. It's a curse. I don't care if you know this is an A or an A flat or an elephant. Can you make it sound good?
I have / had NO problem with how well peoples' ears are trained, perfect pitch or NOT. Music involves integrative behavior. That's what's important. FZ seemed to have it, in spades.
@@kraka2oanIner Lucky you :D
I absolutely love the way music looks in manuscript paper. I only understand the basics of what I'm looking at but nonetheless it is great to gaze upon.
Some bright spark transposed Jimi Hendrix's 'Star Spangled Banner' from Woodstock , it's like a piece of art to look at.
I think you meant: "...transcribed..."
Transcribed... Yes indeed.
There’s a John Cage quote where he says that music that sounds good usually looks good.
A few minutes in, I started thinking about camera obscura. Then you hit on it! Humans are so easily convinced something is magic or pure inspiration. No matter your craft, there are tricks of the trade. When combined with steadfastness, the results can be striking! And who would really think Vermeer freehanded his paintings off the top of his head? Even if it where true, it would require insane amounts of preparation, sketches, honing technique, and having outside references.. Free soloists, whether in jazz or rock climbing sure make it look easy though!
Many thanks! It's refreshing when someone actually understands what this video is about.
Yes he was tone deaf. But somehow lead amazing bands for decades and made 100 albums many of which he produced. He improvised numerous intricate guitar solos and also somehow wrote for symphony orchestra despite the fact that he was 'tone deaf". This is why he was regarded as a genius. A tone deaf musical genius.
He wasn't tone deaf though... he was very self-deprecating. If he was tone deaf, he wouldn't have been able to tell when he was in the right key, and clearly he could.
Really awesome video!
Many thanks.
3:25 more longitudinal studies tracking individuals with perfect pitch over extended periods would be needed to better understand the stability of this capacity. Investigating potential interventions or training methods to maintain or enhance perfect pitch could shed further light on its variability over time. One may have it, lose it, have it again, I suppose.
I had a piano tuner friend -- excellent tuner, also a remarkable composer -- who called himself "tone deaf" only because he didn't have perfect pitch.
The point is that Zappa was never musically trained - his family moved around, in his formative years he was in Lancaster close to the Mohave desert , where there was no formal training available,
his teenage chum was Captain Beefheart who was also wrote incredibly complex music with no formal training on instruments he could not actually play.
Zappa was working full time as a musician in his late teens playing R&B and writing R&B songs - which he continued for most of his life.
His orchestral writings and notation were self taught. His company run by Dweezil is still putting out new original albums 29 years after his death.
Ahmet runs the family biz, not Dweezil.
@@jp1194 OK but I was close
I can hear it all in my head and rearrange it remix it etc but IDK how to get it out like how to translate what I hear it as and then when i try to get it out it just doesn't sound right these user interface aren't up to the task yet but there's new tech i just haven't been able to afford till soon lol
WITHOUT watching the video, I would say...NO. He likely was trying to express that he didn't have PERFECT PITCH, in an exaggerated way. But: he was extremely aware of INTERVALS, which is a large portion of what makes up music (besides dynamics & rhythm of course). AFTER watching the video, it (more or less) confirms my thoughts.
Zappa says in his book that he "was glued to the chair for weeks and months on end , writing music. I thought it was fun, because I could hear everything in my head . . ." (p. 142) But we don't have to assume from this that he's claiming he had perfect pitch.
For sure, but I do mention that my initial impression was "erroneous". Best wishes
Which is the piece of Stravinsky thar we hear starting at 3:40 ?
The introduction to the second half of The Rite of Spring.
To assimilate tone into perfect vocal replica of the 7 scale range doesn't mean perfect tonality either. In fact, replicating is all we do until we bring creative choice, whether hygenically pleasing or encompassing dissonance intentionally is modality of human creativity as microcosm or transistor of larger scale undifferentiated bodies of color, tone, quality etc
Goodness, listen to what John Williams 'quoted' there from Stravinsky!
Frank was only half the genius that's attributed to him. Still, some great music.
You know what i like the most about monster movies... The cheaper they are the better they are.... Eternal.
Now I have to listen to the yellow Shark!
In the book "Freak Out! My Life with Frank Zappa", the author Pauline Butcher writes about her time when she worked for Frank Zappa as a secretary between 1969 and 1972, I believe. She said Zappa would work all day, writing music on paper, and then he would rely on ian Underwood at the end of the day to play all voices together for him on piano. Zappa would only plunk a few notes here and there on the piano while composing, Pauline Butcher remembers (or words to that effect) in her book.
Thank you for this video.
you could rely on Pauline Butcher for an assessment of what a musician did with about the same confidence as looking to the bible for scientific fact
I was surprised that FZ said he would use a very slow tempo when composing on the Synclavier.
I remember seeing a video of him on piano composing from 60s and he was playing REALLY slow and almost sounded childish. It was pretty inspiring to see that you can compose and barely know how to play piano
@@bryanlee5522 Yeah, I was doing the same thing with my DAW, and it was surprising to find out that FZ composed that way also. It's a shame FZ is not around to compose using today's technology.
fantastic video thanks
Of course he’s not gone deaf, he’s a genius.
Great video.
One doesn't earn a Master's degree in music without ear training.
We’re the Wright Brothers afraid of heights?
Perfect pitch and creativity are completely unrelated.
Can anyone identify the Stravinsky piece quoted approx. In the middle of the video? Thanks
Good video.
If you know the intervals in your head you could always just write down everything straight to paper in C major (or any other key). Without perfect pitch it's likely you'd be in the wrong absolute key of course, but if your intervals are written accurately it's a simple matter of transposition, if you happen to care about the key. Anybody in theory could be trained to do this most likely.
Another corker Chanan. Dweezil also said in an interview that he (himself) was tone deaf but that didn't stop him from learning all his dad's guitar parts by ear as he doesn't read music. I really enjoy your insights into music and composition, keep em coming :) Do you like Tigran Hamasyan? ruclips.net/video/5R-mEdk1D40/видео.html
Thanks Jonny, I appreciate your feedback! Best wishes
Not having perfect pitch is NOT being tone deaf.
Brilliant communicator
You may not have achieved what you set out to achieve, but maybe that's beside the point. I like to believe that Zappa did achieve what he set out to achieve, in that by deliberately contradicting himself in the claim of being 'tone deaf' and also claiming to be able to hear everything in his head he found a way to 'confront you' (from the grave on this occasion) and as a result you arrived at a new, unexpected conclusion. A conceptual xenochrony perhaps? In my own Zappa research I have found numerous examples of this throughout his ourve which, as he stated on multiple occasions, is comprised of everything he ever did from potty humor songs written in minutes, to interviews, to album covers, to epic guitar solos, to orchestral works and everything in between. There are these kinds of contradictions everywhere in his 'project/object', be they musical, verbal, visual, or otherwise. I believe he was quite conscientious of this, partly relying on his and anyone else's tendency to be 'full of contradictions'. It's a remarkable kind of high-concept approach to turning anything into 'material', which you know he loved to do. There's a lot more Cage influence in his work than I think he lets on which, in my opinion, is expressed with his AAAFNRAA concept. Of course this is all just the speculation of an aging buffoon. Great video.
Great speculation nonetheless! Thanks for your comment.
He probably was bothered by not having perfect pitch - like he could hear intervals and recognize them right away but not necessarily specific notes by ear.