Shut Up And Play Your Guitar - Revision history

Jason.Kreitzer at 14:27, 10 September 2021

2021-09-10T14:27:19Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 02:43, 22 July 2021

2021-07-22T02:43:24Z

Spider of Destiny at 20:13, 17 November 2020

2020-11-17T20:13:21Z

Propellerkuh at 05:28, 12 February 2008

2008-02-12T05:28:17Z

Propellerkuh at 09:14, 25 July 2007

2007-07-25T09:14:11Z

Propellerkuh at 09:12, 25 July 2007

2007-07-25T09:12:41Z

Propellerkuh at 09:09, 25 July 2007

2007-07-25T09:09:59Z

Propellerkuh at 20:05, 27 January 2007

2007-01-27T20:05:07Z

Propellerkuh at 20:03, 27 January 2007

2007-01-27T20:03:23Z

Propellerkuh at 20:01, 27 January 2007

2007-01-27T20:01:19Z

Show changes

@@ Line 166: / Line 166: @@
 Which one to use depends on what kind of sound you want. They all have different responses. In the very beginning I used the original Vox pedal, and then later I moved to the Boomerang, because when I didn't have the guitar with the pre-amp it added a certain amount of distortion, and I liked that. I'll be using a Boomerang tonight.
-'''On [[Revised Music For Guitar & Low Budget Orchestra]] ([[Studio Tan]]) you have brass tracking your improvised solo. How was that achieved?'''<br>
+'''On [[Music For Electric Violin And Low Budget Orchestra|Revised Music For Guitar & Low Budget Orchestra]] ([[Studio Tan]]) you have brass tracking your improvised solo. How was that achieved?'''<br>
 I improvised the solo on the Ovation and then had it transcribed and had guys play it.

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 '''Next month Frank talks about improvising, his orchestral works, Varèse and Stravinsky, and we publish his solo, Rat Tomago.'''<br>
-Last month, interviewed in his hotel room during his recent European tour, Frank Zappa spoke about his guitars and equipment, and the rhythmic ideas he employs in his music, illustrated with his solo The Sheik Yerbouti Tango. This month, talking backstage at [[Hammersmith Odeon]], he continues the discussion of rhythms and explains how composers [[Edgar Varèse|Varèse]] and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]] have been important influences in his rock and orchestral music. We also publish his solo [[Rat Tomago]], a superb improvisation on his Sheik Yerbouti album (CBS 88339). 'A tomago,' said Frank in answer to my enquiry, 'is a stuffed omelette in a Japanese restaurant. You take an egg and beat it up, and I think it's got some sugar in it. Then they make a little brick out of it, make a slit in the side and stuff it with rice. That's a tomago. A [[Rat Tomago]] is different!'<br>
+Last month, interviewed in his hotel room during his recent European tour, Frank Zappa spoke about his guitars and equipment, and the rhythmic ideas he employs in his music, illustrated with his solo The Sheik Yerbouti Tango. This month, talking backstage at [[Hammersmith Odeon]], he continues the discussion of rhythms and explains how composers [[Edgard Varèse|Varèse]] and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]] have been important influences in his rock and orchestral music. We also publish his solo [[Rat Tomago]], a superb improvisation on his Sheik Yerbouti album (CBS 88339). 'A tomago,' said Frank in answer to my enquiry, 'is a stuffed omelette in a Japanese restaurant. You take an egg and beat it up, and I think it's got some sugar in it. Then they make a little brick out of it, make a slit in the side and stuff it with rice. That's a tomago. A [[Rat Tomago]] is different!'<br>
 '''Are there any guitarists around now who you're interested in ?'''<br>

@@ Line 215: / Line 215: @@
 Right. People like funny songs. I like funny songs. Why should you have serious songs all the time? That's what's wrong with the whole rock'n'roll business. Everybody wants to be taken seriously – my art, my craft, my whatever it is. Who gives a fuck? Let's have a good time. But you can have a good time on a lot of different levels. You can laugh, you can listen to something, you can think about it, you can tap your feet, you can scratch your head, you can wonder what the fuck is going on. And then you can form opinions. That's a little bit more like real life, rather than have somebody just dump their emotional freight on your doorstep and tell you about their broken heart or how they feel about wind blowing and leaves falling off trees. That's crap, but that's what everybody likes so they're welcome to that. I just want to do something else and everybody who likes what I do, that's fine, and if they don't there's that crap, there's lots of that stuff for them.
 I'm always taking the piss out of the stuff I do, and I'm always taking the piss out of the stuff you do. I mean, let's face it. Some people have felt for a long time that the world itself is full of shit. Other people think it's full of piss. And if you agree that it's full of piss then if you take some of the piss out of it nobody's gonna miss it because there's plenty more.
 [[Category:Interviews with Zappa]]

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 '''You have a lot of music unreleased, presumably more so with your classical works?'''<br>
-Yes, but that's the same for everybody who writes orchestra music because orchestras are money making organizations just like everybody else. It's not a benevolent activity. They have to play hits too, that's why they give you mass doses of Beethoven and Mozart and all those other dead guys, and so there's not that much exposure for music being written nowadays. The other problem is that a lot of music being written today is not much fun to listen to, so consequently if an orchestra programmes it, then whatever audience they had for the hits goes running off into the bushes, because they don't want to hear all that abstract weirdness.
+Yes, but that's the same for everybody who writes orchestra music because orchestras are money making organizations just like everybody else. It's not a benevolent activity. They have to play hits too, that's why they give you mass doses of [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] and Mozart and all those other dead guys, and so there's not that much exposure for music being written nowadays. The other problem is that a lot of music being written today is not much fun to listen to, so consequently if an orchestra programmes it, then whatever audience they had for the hits goes running off into the bushes, because they don't want to hear all that abstract weirdness.
 '''So are your orchestral works fun to listen to?'''<br>

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:14, 25 July 2007
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	Interview by John Dalton<br>		Interview by John Dalton<br>
−	Guitar, May-June 1979<br>	+	[[Guitar Player Magazine]], May-June 1979<br>

@@ Line 115: / Line 115: @@
 '''You 're separating your songs from your longer instrumental pieces?'''<br>
-I'm talking about the songs we do which are purposely stupid. We deal in stupidity, and that's why the arrangements have all these different little sections in them. If there's a song, take any subject, we might then decide what would be the most ridiculous kind of accompaniment for those words, and then you go from there. Like we did a little thing at the rehearsal yesterday. At the end of one of the songs we had a make believe battle of the guitars between [[Alvin Lee]] and [[Al Di Meola]]. One guy played Alvin Lee's diddle di-diddle di-diddle from the Woodstock days, and the other guy played Al Di Meola's 32nd note A minor run that he uses on all his songs. And so it was back and forth between that. And when you take these things and just hold them up for what they are and say 'Hey, look at this. Is this stupid or what?' then that stupidity becomes the real thing.
+I'm talking about the songs we do which are purposely stupid. We deal in stupidity, and that's why the arrangements have all these different little sections in them. If there's a song, take any subject, we might then decide what would be the most ridiculous kind of accompaniment for those words, and then you go from there. Like we did a little thing at the rehearsal yesterday. At the end of one of the songs we had a make believe battle of the guitars between [[wikipedia:Alvin Lee|Alvin Lee]] and [[Al Di Meola]]. One guy played Alvin Lee's diddle di-diddle di-diddle from the Woodstock days, and the other guy played Al Di Meola's 32nd note A minor run that he uses on all his songs. And so it was back and forth between that. And when you take these things and just hold them up for what they are and say 'Hey, look at this. Is this stupid or what?' then that stupidity becomes the real thing.
 '''Your motivation for making music seems almost unique.'''<br>
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 '''Is the effect the same as with the orchestral tracking machine that you've talked about?'''<br>
-No, actually I think the overdubbing makes it sound better, because you have imperfections which make it sound more interesting. If you had something tracking it absolutely I think it would tend to be a little bit dull. I like the idea of several instruments all trying desperately to play the same line. There's a transcription of that solo too, which is available. I'm going to have a lot of this stuff in print this year. Going into the mail order business. I'll show you ... a wind quintet, the [[Bebop Tango]], a bunch of the things we're playing on this tour, the interludes from Thinpot and the Wet Teeshirt Contest ([[Fembot in A Wet T-Shirt Nite]]), and here are drum parts and bass parts. Here's some stuff from [[Zappa in New York|Live in New York]], the full band arrangement, plus here are some orchestral scores, and it's all coming out this year.
+No, actually I think the overdubbing makes it sound better, because you have imperfections which make it sound more interesting. If you had something tracking it absolutely I think it would tend to be a little bit dull. I like the idea of several instruments all trying desperately to play the same line. There's a transcription of that solo too, which is available. I'm going to have a lot of this stuff in print this year. Going into the mail order business. I'll show you ... a wind quintet, the [[Be-Bop Tango]], a bunch of the things we're playing on this tour, the interludes from Thinpot and the Wet Teeshirt Contest ([[Fembot in A Wet T-Shirt Nite]]), and here are drum parts and bass parts. Here's some stuff from [[Zappa In New York|Live In New York]], the full band arrangement, plus here are some orchestral scores, and it's all coming out this year.
 '''Are you interested in trying to help players become more versatile with rhythms?'''<br>

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 At the time of the interview Frank had been in London for a month, rehearsing his nine-piece band for their European tour and producing an album by Indian violinist [[L. Shankar]]. Afterwards he invited us to the Rainbow to hear the rehearsals, and it was very interesting to see how aware he was of the music, for occasionally he would stop the band to say that one of the keyboard players was holding a chord over for half a beat too long, or that one of the synthesizer oscillators was out of tune – which it was, slightly.
-Even at these last rehearsals he made many improvements in the arrangements, asking for different effects and fills in the interludes, swapping some of the guitar and vocal parts, and even asking for some tunes to be played in different keys. With a repertoire of more than 30 highly arranged numbers the band displayed a standard of musicianship and professionalism rare in rock, where few bands ever attempt such complex arrangements. At Hammersmith a few days later they gave a superb show, playing music from all periods of Zappa's career, (reviewed last month). The band, which Zappa largely changes every year, were Zappa, [[Ike Willis]], [[Warren Cuccurrullo]] and [[Denny Walley]] on guitars, [[Peter Wolf]] and [[Tommy Mars]] on keyboards, [[Vinnie Colaiuta|Vince Colaiuta]] and [[Ed Mann]] on drums and percussion, and [[Arthur Barrow]] on bass.
+Even at these last rehearsals he made many improvements in the arrangements, asking for different effects and fills in the interludes, swapping some of the guitar and vocal parts, and even asking for some tunes to be played in different keys. With a repertoire of more than 30 highly arranged numbers the band displayed a standard of musicianship and professionalism rare in rock, where few bands ever attempt such complex arrangements. At Hammersmith a few days later they gave a superb show, playing music from all periods of Zappa's career, (reviewed last month). The band, which Zappa largely changes every year, were Zappa, [[Ike Willis]], [[Warren Cuccurullo]] and [[Denny Walley]] on guitars, [[Peter Wolf]] and [[Tommy Mars]] on keyboards, [[Vinnie Colaiuta|Vince Colaiuta]] and [[Ed Mann]] on drums and percussion, and [[Arthur Barrow]] on bass.
 ----
 '''Relaxed and an exteriorly unemotional man, Zappa is a humorous and informative talker with many oblique and entertaining views. We began by talking about his guitar collection.'''<br>

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:03, 27 January 2007
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−	Frank Zappa is unique in the music world, a composer whose work spans rock, contemporary classical music, pop, doo wop and some modern jazz. He is 38 and from the West Coast, and since the mid sixties has released more than 20 albums full of variety in songs satirizing all areas of modern American life, instrumentals and solos from Frank and the many excellent musicians who have worked with him. Some of the best known albums are [[Freak Out!]], [[Absolutely Free]], [[~~Cruisin'~~ With Ruben & The Jets\|Ruben and the Jets]], [[Hot Rats]], [[Weasels Ripped My Flesh]], [[200 Motels]], [[The Grand Wazoo]], [[~~Overnite~~ Sensation]], [[Apostrophe (')]], [[One Size Fits All]] and [[Zoot Allures]], and these also reveal Zappa as an excellent producer and tape editor. His distinctive guitar style is partly attributable to the cohesive strength and rhythmic subtlety of his lines and phrases (also apparent in his arrangements), and as a soloist he is brilliantly adept at playing around and across beats. To illustrate this interest Frank kindly gave us a transcription of his solo [[The Sheik Yerbouti Tango]], from his new [[Sheik Yerbouti]] album (reviewed in this issue), and next month, with the second part of this interview, we will feature his solo [[Rat Tomago]].	+	Frank Zappa is unique in the music world, a composer whose work spans rock, contemporary classical music, pop, doo wop and some modern jazz. He is 38 and from the West Coast, and since the mid sixties has released more than 20 albums full of variety in songs satirizing all areas of modern American life, instrumentals and solos from Frank and the many excellent musicians who have worked with him. Some of the best known albums are [[Freak Out!]], [[Absolutely Free]], [[Cruising With Ruben & The Jets\|Ruben and the Jets]], [[Hot Rats]], [[Weasels Ripped My Flesh]], [[200 Motels]], [[The Grand Wazoo]], [[Over-Nite Sensation]], [[Apostrophe (')]], [[One Size Fits All]] and [[Zoot Allures]], and these also reveal Zappa as an excellent producer and tape editor. His distinctive guitar style is partly attributable to the cohesive strength and rhythmic subtlety of his lines and phrases (also apparent in his arrangements), and as a soloist he is brilliantly adept at playing around and across beats. To illustrate this interest Frank kindly gave us a transcription of his solo [[The Sheik Yerbouti Tango]], from his new [[Sheik Yerbouti]] album (reviewed in this issue), and next month, with the second part of this interview, we will feature his solo [[Rat Tomago]].

	At the time of the interview Frank had been in London for a month, rehearsing his nine-piece band for their European tour and producing an album by Indian violinist [[L. Shankar]]. Afterwards he invited us to the Rainbow to hear the rehearsals, and it was very interesting to see how aware he was of the music, for occasionally he would stop the band to say that one of the keyboard players was holding a chord over for half a beat too long, or that one of the synthesizer oscillators was out of tune – which it was, slightly.		At the time of the interview Frank had been in London for a month, rehearsing his nine-piece band for their European tour and producing an album by Indian violinist [[L. Shankar]]. Afterwards he invited us to the Rainbow to hear the rehearsals, and it was very interesting to see how aware he was of the music, for occasionally he would stop the band to say that one of the keyboard players was holding a chord over for half a beat too long, or that one of the synthesizer oscillators was out of tune – which it was, slightly.