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Originally Posted by Litterick
why be a jerk about it?
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12-29-2018 06:59 PM
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Originally Posted by Litterick
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wow! just talkin' about zappa is polarizing!!!..c'mon guys, frank would be crackin' up at this...
one of fz's greatest productions..for burt ward-robin fame - of the original batman tv series
truly twisted
peace out
cheers
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I always thought he was one of the world's great one-chord soloists, as his love of the extended one-chord vamp showed. I've always thought playing bass in his band would be deadly boring during one of his many such solos. I myself walked out of one of his live concerts because of this.
That said, his playing in a one-chord vamp was unbelievable, unpredictable, and unique. There was nobody like him.
He was known to not take anything seriously but himself and didn't respond well to criticism.
Note that I'm only talking about his guitar playing, not his composing.
Jon
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Originally Posted by manleyman123
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A new book on all of Zappa's recordings just came out. It was written by Charles Ulrich and it's called "The Big Note".
Ulrich is on one of the online Zappa forums, and I contributed a little bit of research for it, so maybe he mentioned my name in the acknowledgements section.
It took him 15 years to write the book, and covers more than 100 recordings that Zappa had some role in. It's 800 pages, and costs $39. I tried to order it for my local library, but they said it was too expensive.
The Big Note | Charles Ulrich | Non-Fiction | Books | New Star Books Publisher, Vancouver British Columbia Canada, Newstarbooks, catalogue
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Originally Posted by Litterick
Well you probably won't see this as you claimed to be leaving the discussion. I didn't mean to upset you. Did I misinterpret your intended meaning? You're certainly free to point out if I got it wrong or add you're own response.
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I had heard Freak Out! in the late '60s (and was dutifully "freaked out!"), but I didn't really get into Zappa until I heard Hot Rats!, I really dug Willie the Pimp. I then proceeded to get Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Weasels Ripped my Flesh, Chunga's Revenge, and The Mothers! Live at the Fillmore '71. That was the extent to which I got into Zappa, until I recently found out that Frank played a Gibson ES-5 Switchmaster on the first 3 Mothers albums; the aforementioned Freak Out!, Abasolutely Free, and We're Only in it for the Money.
I had Freak Out! and We're Only In It for the Money on CD, so I had to get Absolutely Free to complete the collection (which I did).
This is what Frank said about his ES-5 Switchmaster:
Frank Zappa’s Gibson ES-5 SwitchmasterZappa acquired his first Gibson, an ES-5 Switchmaster, in the mid-’60s. A large-bodied jazz guitar may have seemed an unusual choice for Zappa, but his formative influences were more blues/jazz and R&B than was later evident. “I used to like Johnny Guitar Watson, Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown, Guitar Slim (a.k.a. Eddie Jones), Matt Murphy,” he told Guitar Player magazine in 1977. Zappa was a self-taught musician, but he did learn much of his harmony and compositional skills with the aid of the renowned 1950s book, Mickey Baker’s Complete Course in Jazz Guitar. Zappa’s Gibson Switchmaster was the mainstay of his early recordings – he earned the money to buy it from writing soundtracks for the low-budget movies The World’s Greatest Sinner (1962) and Run Home Slow (1965) – and “I used it for about five years. I recorded the first three [Mothers of Invention] albums with that guitar.”Despite Zappa’s fondness for his Switchmaster, he struggled with it when he wanted to play with increasing distortion. “I used to really like that guitar,” Zappa told Downbeat. “It had a nice neck on it, but there was a real problem with uncontrollable feedback whenever I needed more amplification for larger halls. That’s common for hollow-bodies. A lot of people said, ‘Well, just stuff it with styrofoam and it won’t feedback so much,’ but I didn’t feel like doing that.”Zappa tried modifying the Switchmaster to meet his demands: extra switches were installed to fully-utilize its 3-pickup potential, but he still wanted something different. The mods were a bit ramshackle anyhow: after his father’s death, Dweezil Zappa conceded that none of the switches even worked anymore.
“The [ES-5] hollow-body had a nice feel and I liked the tone of it,” Frank toldGuitar Playerin the ’70s, “but you could never use a fuzztone with it, and there was no way to tweeze it up and make it work. Remember, in those days there were no graphic equalizers or any other scientific equipment.” To make fuzz easier, Zappa retired the Switchmaster and replaced it with a Les Paul Goldtop in 1967.
I had to get those first three Mothers albums to see what kinds of sounds Frank could get out of that guitar. Like I said before, the first album I really got into was Hot Rats!, so the first three Mothers albums are still pretty much new to me, and it is a very interesting adventure. I always loved what Frank could do with a guitar.
Pics
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Zappa was a self-taught musician, but he did learn much of his harmony and compositional skills with the aid of the renowned 1950s book, Mickey Baker’s Complete Course in Jazz Guitar.
Not exactly. He studied harmony at a junior college while he was a senior in high school. Piston's Harmony was the text. No doubt he probably learned the basic jazz chords out of the Baker book, but he wasn't really a self-taught musician and he certainly didn't learn "much of his harmony and compositional skill" from Baker's book.
Originally Posted by The Mother of All Interviews
Originally Posted by interview
While he's playing down any influence he might have gotten from studying Piston, he at least admits that this is where his concepts of the basic building blocks of music came from.
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Originally Posted by FwLineberry
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I have been listening to Zappa for 40 years. Just when I think I’ve heard everything or am “over” Zappa, I listen to more stuff and get fascinated again.
Listening to the Laether recordings today and yesterday Little Dots (live 1972 recording). Genius stuff. A lot of it fits comfortably into the jazz fusion category, and some of the arrangements are extremely complicated and well above the average Maynard Ferguson big band arrangement.
Guitar-wise, at times he slips into fuzz tone pedantry, but at his best he is idiosyncratic and brilliant. I particularly like his more “acoustic” sounding stuff, I.e., less processed sounds.
Anyway thanks to recordings and now streaming music days and days and days of his music are available with a simple click.
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My first encounter with Zappa was when I was around 10 years old walking down the road on a snowy winters day.
A car full of teenagers went by and yelled, "Don't eat yellow snow!"
Not until years later did I make the connection.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
It's my observation that his bands are at their most creative when he gets out of the way. Moreover, his best guitar solos are the shortest ones.
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Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
So you're saying you prefer his 20 minute guitar solos over his 40 minute guitar solos?
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Originally Posted by FwLineberry
Zappa is kind of like Clapton. When he goes in and makes a statement, it can be flipping awesome. It's hard to keep saying something interesting though when you're playing for 10 minutes.
Zappa had a unique approach to soloing with a unique sound. He was very much a gearhead, and knew how to use distortion and feedback better than most, if not all, his peers.
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zappa was an early user of then cutting edge tech...barcus berry piezo pickups..but he didnt use it under the saddle of his acoustic...what acooustic??
he stuck it up on the headstock of his electric guitar...probably an sg at the time...he said he liked that it picked up some of the sound of his fingers against the fretboard...
percussive!..
cheers
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Originally Posted by neatomic
Roman Dodecahedron (12 sided) die discovered,...
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