Frank Zappa and His Digital Orchestra - Revision history

Spider of Destiny at 18:10, 5 July 2026

2026-07-05T18:10:18Z

Spider of Destiny at 08:12, 25 April 2026

2026-04-25T08:12:37Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 19:17, 20 August 2021

2021-08-20T19:17:29Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 17:27, 18 August 2021

2021-08-18T17:27:36Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 03:47, 26 July 2021

2021-07-26T03:47:41Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 22:34, 21 July 2021

2021-07-21T22:34:41Z

Spider of Destiny at 04:36, 23 February 2021

2021-02-23T04:36:14Z

Spider of Destiny at 18:39, 17 December 2010

2010-12-17T18:39:14Z

Spider of Destiny at 12:27, 1 December 2010

2010-12-01T12:27:10Z

Maroual at 10:04, 29 November 2007

2007-11-29T10:04:14Z

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 After all was said and done, however, Zappa waxed philosophical. "I'm really glad I did it though," he admitted, "because it was so sick. It's really one of the sicker things that a human being can do."
-If anyone knows about the sick things a human being can do, it's Frank Zappa. For over 20 years he's been garroting American culture, sub-culture, counter-culture, and culture clash in a string of recordings that began in 1966 with [[Freak Out!]] Hippies, punks, Valley girls, and Congress fall equally before his venomous pen.
+If anyone knows about the sick things a human being can do, it's Frank Zappa. For over 20 years he's been garroting American culture, sub-culture, counter-culture, and culture clash in a string of recordings that began in 1966 with [[Freak Out!]] [[Hippies]], [[punk]]s, Valley girls, and [[Politics|Congress]] fall equally before his venomous pen.
 For those who love to hate Zappa, he presents an easy target, but laced between Zappa's satirical acid is an acute social consciousness, reflected in his longstanding voter registration pleas and his recent crusade against the [[Parents Music Resource Center]] (PMRC).
@@ Line 50: / Line 50: @@
 '''You seem to prefer very metallic percussive sounds and timbres in the Synclavier music of yours that I've heard on records.<br>
-Well, that's not true of the recent stuff (Mothers Of Prevention), and even that doesn't bear any resemblance to what the stuff sounds like now since I bought extra memory for it that allows me to have instrumental ensembles that I couldn't have before. For the [[Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers of Prevention|Mothers of Prevention]] album, I had only six megabytes of RAM and a 20 megabyte Winchester (hard disk drive). Now I have two 80 megabyte Winchesters, plus 20 megs of RAM. I can store quite a bit of stuff in there and have more elaborate ensembles playing the material back.
+Well, that's not true of the recent stuff (Mothers Of Prevention), and even that doesn't bear any resemblance to what the stuff sounds like now since I bought extra memory for it that allows me to have instrumental ensembles that I couldn't have before. For the Mothers of Prevention album, I had only six megabytes of RAM and a 20 megabyte Winchester (hard disk drive). Now I have two 80 megabyte Winchesters, plus 20 megs of RAM. I can store quite a bit of stuff in there and have more elaborate ensembles playing the material back.
 '''So if this is your way around or beyond and orchestra …<br>

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 For those who love to hate Zappa, he presents an easy target, but laced between Zappa's satirical acid is an acute social consciousness, reflected in his longstanding voter registration pleas and his recent crusade against the [[Parents Music Resource Center]] (PMRC).
-Also buried in there are Zappa's serious music aspirations. While singing the praises of "Dinah-Moe Humm," he's also sung the praises of [[Edgard Varèse|Edgar Varèse]], [[Anton Webern]], and others serious 20th-century composers and pioneers. In recent years, he accomplished the goal of realizing his orchestral works with recordings by the [[London Symphony Orchestra (The Orchestra)|London Symphony Orchestra]] and Pierre Boulez' [[Ensemble Intercontemporain]]. But these were only temporary and expensive fixes for Zappa, who has found a more permanent solution to his addiction, the [[Synclavier|Synclavier II]].
+Also buried in there are Zappa's serious music aspirations. While singing the praises of "Dinah-Moe Humm," he's also sung the praises of [[Edgard Varèse|Edgar Varèse]], [[Anton Webern]], and others serious 20th-century composers and pioneers. In recent years, he accomplished the goal of realizing his orchestral works with recordings by the [[London Symphony Orchestra (The Orchestra)|London Symphony Orchestra]] and [[Pierre Boulez]]' [[Ensemble Intercontemporain]]. But these were only temporary and expensive fixes for Zappa, who has found a more permanent solution to his addiction, the [[Synclavier|Synclavier II]].
 In 1982, Zappa released [[Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar (The Series)|Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar]], a three-record set of guitar solos compiled in answer to his fans' demands. A similar refrain may soon be heard, not because Zappa's talking too much, but because he recently put down his guitar in favor of the Synclavier II computer music system. Not just any Synclavier, but the $200,000 deluxe model.
-The first releases of this music were heard in 1984 and 1985 on [[Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger|The Perfect Stranger]], [[Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers Of Prevention]] and [[Francesco Zappa|Francesco Zappa, His First Digital Recording in over 200 Years]]. He calls his Synclavier the Barking Pumpkin Digital Gratification Consort, replacing the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of Lumpy Gravy, and as you'll read, Zappa believes he's found the answer to his deepest desires – recording orchestral music – even if the orchestra is digital.
+The first releases of this music were heard in 1984 and 1985 on [[Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger|The Perfect Stranger]], [[Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers Of Prevention]] and [[Francesco Zappa|Francesco Zappa, His First Digital Recording in over 200 Years]]. He calls his Synclavier the Barking Pumpkin Digital Gratification Consort, replacing the [[Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra & Chorus]] of Lumpy Gravy, and as you'll read, Zappa believes he's found the answer to his deepest desires – recording orchestral music – even if the orchestra is digital.
-I spoke with Zappa at his home in Los Angeles, ushered into the sanctum sanctorum of his 24-track digital studio by Dweezil, with a sullen, "Frank wants you to set up in here. "
+I spoke with Zappa at his home in Los Angeles, ushered into the sanctum sanctorum of his 24-track digital studio by [[Dweezil Zappa|Dweezil]], with a sullen, "Frank wants you to set up in here. "
-As I neared the studio, the sounds of a crazed metallic mallet orchestra lashed out, silenced by Zappa as I entered. He took the only arm chair in the room, with a microphone sticking mysteriously out of the wall overhead, lit up his everpresent Winston, took the phone call from Wackerman, and with the snide exuberance that only Zappa can muster, proceeded to talk about his latest sonic assault.
+As I neared the studio, the sounds of a crazed metallic mallet orchestra lashed out, silenced by Zappa as I entered. He took the only arm chair in the room, with a microphone sticking mysteriously out of the wall overhead, lit up his everpresent Winston, took the phone call from [[Chad Wackerman|Wackerman]], and with the snide exuberance that only Zappa can muster, proceeded to talk about his latest sonic assault.
 '''You said that you haven't played the guitar in two years.<br>
@@ Line 50: / Line 50: @@
 '''You seem to prefer very metallic percussive sounds and timbres in the Synclavier music of yours that I've heard on records.<br>
-Well, that's not true of the recent stuff (Mothers Of Prevention), and even that doesn't bear any resemblance to what the stuff sounds like now since I bought extra memory for it that allows me to have instrumental ensembles that I couldn't have before. For the Mothers of Prevention album, I had only six megabytes of RAM and a 20 megabyte Winchester (hard disk drive). Now I have two 80 megabyte Winchesters, plus 20 megs of RAM. I can store quite a bit of stuff in there and have more elaborate ensembles playing the material back.
+Well, that's not true of the recent stuff (Mothers Of Prevention), and even that doesn't bear any resemblance to what the stuff sounds like now since I bought extra memory for it that allows me to have instrumental ensembles that I couldn't have before. For the [[Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers of Prevention|Mothers of Prevention]] album, I had only six megabytes of RAM and a 20 megabyte Winchester (hard disk drive). Now I have two 80 megabyte Winchesters, plus 20 megs of RAM. I can store quite a bit of stuff in there and have more elaborate ensembles playing the material back.
 '''So if this is your way around or beyond and orchestra …<br>

@@ Line 121: / Line 121: @@
 Well, what can I say? I'm doing this kind of music these days. If somebody wants to see this kind of music manifested live, there's no other way to do it. Human beings cannot play this music. It can only be played by a machine.
-'''This means you'll be going towards the instrumental music of [[The Perfect Stranger]] instead of something like [[Thing-Fish]]?<br>
+'''This means you'll be going towards the instrumental music of [[Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger|The Perfect Stranger]] instead of something like [[Thing-Fish]]?<br>
 Thing-Fish is done, it's history.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-[[Electronic Musician]], September 1986
+[[Wikipedia:Electronic Musician|Electronic Musician]], September 1986
 ''The present-day composer refuses to die … and his life support system is a Synclavier.''
@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 For those who love to hate Zappa, he presents an easy target, but laced between Zappa's satirical acid is an acute social consciousness, reflected in his longstanding voter registration pleas and his recent crusade against the [[Parents Music Resource Center]] (PMRC).
-Also buried in there are Zappa's serious music aspirations. While singing the praises of "Dinah-Moe Humm," he's also sung the praises of [[Edgard Varèese|Edgar Varèse]], [[Anton Webern]], and others serious 20th-century composers and pioneers. In recent years, he accomplished the goal of realizing his orchestral works with recordings by the [[London Symphony Orchestra (The Orchestra)|London Symphony Orchestra]] and Pierre Boulez' [[Ensemble Intercontemporain]]. But these were only temporary and expensive fixes for Zappa, who has found a more permanent solution to his addiction, the [[Synclavier|Synclavier II]].
+Also buried in there are Zappa's serious music aspirations. While singing the praises of "Dinah-Moe Humm," he's also sung the praises of [[Edgard Varèse|Edgar Varèse]], [[Anton Webern]], and others serious 20th-century composers and pioneers. In recent years, he accomplished the goal of realizing his orchestral works with recordings by the [[London Symphony Orchestra (The Orchestra)|London Symphony Orchestra]] and Pierre Boulez' [[Ensemble Intercontemporain]]. But these were only temporary and expensive fixes for Zappa, who has found a more permanent solution to his addiction, the [[Synclavier|Synclavier II]].
 In 1982, Zappa released [[Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar (The Series)|Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar]], a three-record set of guitar solos compiled in answer to his fans' demands. A similar refrain may soon be heard, not because Zappa's talking too much, but because he recently put down his guitar in favor of the Synclavier II computer music system. Not just any Synclavier, but the $200,000 deluxe model.
@@ Line 79: / Line 79: @@
 '''What were some of those other electronic works?<br>
-"Vale of Orpheus." There was an album out of early French music and I believe it was [[Pierre Schaeffer]]. Also there was a guy (Tod Dockstader) who was a disc jockey out of Denver, Colorado. He wasn't a composer in the normal sense of the word. He had a number of releases on an obscure label called Owl. One of them was called Quatermass, and I think I have three of those. He was more of an engineer than a composer, but to me some of those compositions work better than the supposedly serious big shots from Europe.
+"Vale of Orpheus." There was an album out of early French music and I believe it was [[Wikipedia:Pierre Schaeffer|Pierre Schaeffer]]. Also there was a guy (Tod Dockstader) who was a disc jockey out of Denver, Colorado. He wasn't a composer in the normal sense of the word. He had a number of releases on an obscure label called Owl. One of them was called Quatermass, and I think I have three of those. He was more of an engineer than a composer, but to me some of those compositions work better than the supposedly serious big shots from Europe.
 I remember reading about a thing called the Mixtur-Trautonium. All the things that this musicology book said about it the Synclavier now does. One of the things mentioned was chordal glissandos of kettle drums. You can have that if you want it on here.

@@ Line 67: / Line 67: @@
 '''On the track "Outside Now Again," was the solo on that improvised?<br>
-Yes. It came from the [[Joe's Garage]] album on a song called "[[Outside Now]]." That's why it's called "[[Outside Now|Outside Now Again]]" on the Boulez album.
+Yes. It came from the [[Joe's Garage Acts I, II & III|Joe's Garage]] album on a song called "[[Outside Now]]." That's why it's called "[[Outside Now|Outside Now Again]]" on the Boulez album.
 '''So this wasn't improvised on the Synclavier.<br>

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 ''The present-day composer refuses to die … and his life support system is a Synclavier.''
-While waiting to interview [[Frank Zappa]], I overheard a phone conversation with drummer [[Chad Wackerman]]. Zappa had just returned from filming an episode of TV's [[Miami Vice]] and was denigrating the script – "It is so putrid" – his clothes – "It was like Ronald MacDonald" – his role – "What do you get to be on there? A cocaine dealer. That's all that show's about" – and the "pastel policeman."
+While waiting to interview [[Biography|Frank Zappa]], I overheard a phone conversation with drummer [[Chad Wackerman]]. Zappa had just returned from filming an episode of TV's [[Miami Vice]] and was denigrating the script – "It is so putrid" – his clothes – "It was like Ronald MacDonald" – his role – "What do you get to be on there? A cocaine dealer. That's all that show's about" – and the "pastel policeman."
 After all was said and done, however, Zappa waxed philosophical. "I'm really glad I did it though," he admitted, "because it was so sick. It's really one of the sicker things that a human being can do."
@@ Line 9: / Line 9: @@
 If anyone knows about the sick things a human being can do, it's Frank Zappa. For over 20 years he's been garroting American culture, sub-culture, counter-culture, and culture clash in a string of recordings that began in 1966 with [[Freak Out!]] Hippies, punks, Valley girls, and Congress fall equally before his venomous pen.
-For those who love to hate Zappa, he presents an easy target, but laced between Zappa's satirical acid is an acute social consciousness, reflected in his longstanding voter registration pleas and his recent crusade against the Parents Music Resource Center ([[PMRC]]).
+For those who love to hate Zappa, he presents an easy target, but laced between Zappa's satirical acid is an acute social consciousness, reflected in his longstanding voter registration pleas and his recent crusade against the [[Parents Music Resource Center]] (PMRC).
-Also buried in there are Zappa's serious music aspirations. While singing the praises of "Dinah-Moe Humm," he's also sung the praises of [[Edgar Varèse]], [[Anton Webern]], and others serious 20th-century composers and pioneers. In recent years, he accomplished the goal of realizing his orchestral works with recordings by the [[London Symphony Orchestra (The Orchestra)|London Symphony Orchestra]] and Pierre Boulez' [[Ensemble Intercontemporain]]. But these were only temporary and expensive fixes for Zappa, who has found a more permanent solution to his addiction, the [[Synclavier|Synclavier II]].
+Also buried in there are Zappa's serious music aspirations. While singing the praises of "Dinah-Moe Humm," he's also sung the praises of [[Edgard Varèese|Edgar Varèse]], [[Anton Webern]], and others serious 20th-century composers and pioneers. In recent years, he accomplished the goal of realizing his orchestral works with recordings by the [[London Symphony Orchestra (The Orchestra)|London Symphony Orchestra]] and Pierre Boulez' [[Ensemble Intercontemporain]]. But these were only temporary and expensive fixes for Zappa, who has found a more permanent solution to his addiction, the [[Synclavier|Synclavier II]].
 In 1982, Zappa released [[Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar (The Series)|Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar]], a three-record set of guitar solos compiled in answer to his fans' demands. A similar refrain may soon be heard, not because Zappa's talking too much, but because he recently put down his guitar in favor of the Synclavier II computer music system. Not just any Synclavier, but the $200,000 deluxe model.
@@ Line 75: / Line 75: @@
 Well, I can do concrete there too, because of the way the system operates. They have these things called patches. A patch is a list of what sound lives under each key. You can have a different sound under each key and they can be any sound. It can be thunder under middle C and a frog on C# and a car crash on D and anything you want. If you play a normal piano part on there, you get very unusual things coming out. Or you could have the whole keyboard by the voices of people from the Congress.
-'''[[Edgar Varèse]] was an early influence on you and he was an early pioneer of musique concrete with "[[Poème Electronique]]" and "[[Déserts]]." I recall when we spoke before that you didn't think very highly of those works.<br>
+'''[[Edgard Varèse|Edgar Varèse]] was an early influence on you and he was an early pioneer of musique concrete with "[[Poème Electronique]]" and "[[Déserts]]." I recall when we spoke before that you didn't think very highly of those works.<br>
 That could possibly be due to the timing of when I heard it. Since I had more or less grown up with the pieces on EMS-401 (the first recording of Varese's works) and none of them were electronic, when I finally heard "[[Poème Electronique]]" on the Columbia album they did when he was around 80 years old, I had heard other types of electronic music. His may have come first (it didn't) and it may have been the pioneering thing (it was), but my ear had already been exposed to other albums. So it wasn't as shocking or extreme as hearing "[[Octandre]]" or "Ionizations" for the first time.

@@ Line 172: / Line 172: @@
 I don't know. The first audience is right here in this chair. If I don't like to listen to it, I'm certainly not going to share it with anybody else. If somebody else happens to like it, it's terrific. I'm prepared to have everybody on the planet hate what I do. I simply don't care.
-Some people like it, the same way I liked Varese when I heard Varese, and other people hate it the same way many people hated his music when it first came out. I used to bring friends over to the house and say "Listen to this," and they'd say "Are you crazy" What is that?"
+Some people like it, the same way I liked Varèse when I heard Varèse, and other people hate it the same way many people hated his music when it first came out. I used to bring friends over to the house and say "Listen to this," and they'd say "Are you crazy" What is that?"
 '''They used to do the same thing to me when I played [[Freak Out!]]<br>
 It's a vicious cycle. [Laughs.]
 [[Category:Interviews with Zappa]]

@@ Line 75: / Line 75: @@
 Well, I can do concrete there too, because of the way the system operates. They have these things called patches. A patch is a list of what sound lives under each key. You can have a different sound under each key and they can be any sound. It can be thunder under middle C and a frog on C# and a car crash on D and anything you want. If you play a normal piano part on there, you get very unusual things coming out. Or you could have the whole keyboard by the voices of people from the Congress.
-'''[[Edgar Varèse]] was an early influence on you and he was an early pioneer of musique concrete with "Poeme Electronique" and "Deserts." I recall when we spoke before that you didn't think very highly of those works.<br>
+'''[[Edgar Varèse]] was an early influence on you and he was an early pioneer of musique concrete with "[[Poème Electronique]]" and "[[Déserts]]." I recall when we spoke before that you didn't think very highly of those works.<br>
-That could possibly be due to the timing of when I heard it. Since I had more or less grown up with the pieces on EMS-401 (the first recording of Varese's works) and none of them were electronic, when I finally heard "Poeme Electronique" on the Columbia album they did when he was around 80 years old, I had heard other types of electronic music. His may have come first (it didn't) and it may have been the pioneering thing (it was), but my ear had already been exposed to other albums. So it wasn't as shocking or extreme as hearing "Octandre" or "Ionizations" for the first time.
+That could possibly be due to the timing of when I heard it. Since I had more or less grown up with the pieces on EMS-401 (the first recording of Varese's works) and none of them were electronic, when I finally heard "[[Poème Electronique]]" on the Columbia album they did when he was around 80 years old, I had heard other types of electronic music. His may have come first (it didn't) and it may have been the pioneering thing (it was), but my ear had already been exposed to other albums. So it wasn't as shocking or extreme as hearing "[[Octandre]]" or "Ionizations" for the first time.
 '''What were some of those other electronic works?<br>
-"Vale of Orpheus." There was an album out of early French music and I believe it was Pierre Schaeffer. Also there was a guy (Tod Dockstader) who was a disc jockey out of Denver, Colorado. He wasn't a composer in the normal sense of the word. He had a number of releases on an obscure label called Owl. One of them was called Quatermass, and I think I have three of those. He was more of an engineer than a composer, but to me some of those compositions work better than the supposedly serious big shots from Europe.
+"Vale of Orpheus." There was an album out of early French music and I believe it was [[Pierre Schaeffer]]. Also there was a guy (Tod Dockstader) who was a disc jockey out of Denver, Colorado. He wasn't a composer in the normal sense of the word. He had a number of releases on an obscure label called Owl. One of them was called Quatermass, and I think I have three of those. He was more of an engineer than a composer, but to me some of those compositions work better than the supposedly serious big shots from Europe.
 I remember reading about a thing called the Mixtur-Trautonium. All the things that this musicology book said about it the Synclavier now does. One of the things mentioned was chordal glissandos of kettle drums. You can have that if you want it on here.
@@ Line 98: / Line 98: @@
 Yeah, razor blade edits. I still do razor blade edits.
-'''Even with the Synclavier?<br>
+'''Even with the [[Synclavier]]?<br>
 Sure! If you've got 16 tracks and you have a complicated orchestration in there and you suddenly want to make a drastic change from one section of the music to another, the only way to do it, unless you have more channels or more RAM, is to print the two sections onto the tape and cut them together.
@@ Line 111: / Line 111: @@
 '''You don't think your audience would come out for it?<br>
-A certain number of them would and the rest of them would be disappointed because I wasn't playing songs off the Sheik Yerbouti album. The thing about live performances is that people don't come to hear what you played on the record. So everybody's got a different idea of what their favorite record is and an audience for my show thinks, "I want to hear songs off that one, I want to hear songs off that one."
+A certain number of them would and the rest of them would be disappointed because I wasn't playing songs off the [[Sheik Yerbouti]] album. The thing about live performances is that people don't come to hear what you played on the record. So everybody's got a different idea of what their favorite record is and an audience for my show thinks, "I want to hear songs off that one, I want to hear songs off that one."
 That's one of the reasons why, when we do a tour, the pieces that are familiar pieces are all rearranged because they have to accommodate the instrumentation and the playing techniquies of the guys on the road at that time.
@@ Line 121: / Line 121: @@
 Well, what can I say? I'm doing this kind of music these days. If somebody wants to see this kind of music manifested live, there's no other way to do it. Human beings cannot play this music. It can only be played by a machine.
-'''This means you'll be going towards the instrumental music of The Perfect Stranger instead of something like [[Thing-Fish]]?<br>
+'''This means you'll be going towards the instrumental music of [[The Perfect Stranger]] instead of something like [[Thing-Fish]]?<br>
 Thing-Fish is done, it's history.

@@ Line 57: / Line 57: @@
 The economics of the time being what they are, I see nothing but bleakness ahead for people who still have to write it on a piece of paper and give it to a human being to play it, because there's not enough money to pay for rehearsals. The tendency in most modern music concerts is, since they know there's no money for rehearsal, they write increasingly easier or more minimalist pieces requiring less and less skill. That's what's getting funded. The economics took its toll on the cultural life of America for sure.
-'''You've had a few of your orchestral works performed by the [[London Symphony Orchestra]] …<br>
+'''You've had a few of your orchestral works performed by the [[London Symphony Orchestra (The Orchestra)|London Symphony Orchestra]] …<br>
 Yeah! Right! And those pieces cost a fortune. I could've bought two of these machines for what the LSO album cost me.