Zappa the composer

I'm trying for a mix of personal and professional in this blog, so in an effort to cover my bases I'll do some entries this way, addressing each of the five questions individually and directly.

I think Zappa's music sounds like an elaborate joke to a lot of people when they first hear it. Before taking this class, what did I know of Zappa's music? I knew "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow" and "Muffin Man" and Charlotte Cornfield has a Killy Ugly Radio poster in her living room. That was about it and I think most people without a previous interest might say the same. In an episode of the Simpsons entitled "A Midsummer's Nice Dream," Cheech and Chong come to town inspiring one of several psychedelia/sixties-influenced episodes. One of the jokes exploiting the seventies involves holding up several comedy albums with funny names that bear a distinct resemblance to, say, Zappa's "We're Only In It For The Money" and "Ruben and the Jets."

The interesting thing is that in Googling that episode combined with the phrase "comedy albums," the first few comments from blogs and reviews say that this particular joke had them in stitches. I feel I've learned a whole lot this year not just about Frank Zappa's work but artwork in general: in almost every case, what seems difficult, obscure or absurd has another more serious side to it. I remember when I was a kid, that whole scene reeked of a kind of dangerous symbolism. Around that time in my life kids were walking around my middle school wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the anarchy symbol, the Nirvana smiley face, The Ramones, Guns N' Roses, London Calling, and of course you had to have your cons. They started dying their hair with Kool-Aid. I of course was completely baffled by it all (as I had been by reggae and Macy Gray). At that age I was already disgruntled by the sexual implications of "Guns N' Roses" (I actually remember very clearly one boy making gestures with his hands and saying, "Get it? GUNS and ROSES?") and though I was ok with the other shirts, I was disturbed by the ones that said HEY HO LET'S GO thinking it was possibly yet another derogatory statement towards women, as that was the majority of what I saw in that music.

But there was an almost religious hermeticism to it all, and I wanted in. The only problem is that when you don't know enough about something, especially something you have previously disdained, you tend to lump all the things you know about that subject into one generalized category. So for me rock music became smoking weed-guitar solos-funny clothes-weird hair-lots of sex-drinking-more and crazier drugs. As you can see very few of those things have to do with actually making music. I'd thank a couple bands primarily for introducing me to that aspect of rock music, but Led Zeppelin in particular. I had developed an interest in jazz around grade seven and that led me to blues, which I knew I liked, and I already knew I liked poetry. Zeppelin had good lyrics and a bluesy undertone that eased me in.

The thing about Zappa was that he just wasn't into that. For works of art in general, the ones that are going to become successful do present something original, but usually accompanied by something familiar. A poet might write a poem about the Tower of Power that Zappa found so amusing, but write it in a classical form like a sonnet to give it a framework. A visual artist might paint a still life of a cat's skull, old bubblegum, torn slippers and a TV guide, but it's still in the form of a still life so it's a little easier to grasp, even though it's surprising. Zappa was just completely off the wall and he knew it. He said a lot that he was making music for the fans, and maybe he really meant it, but he was clearly so laden with artistic preoccupations that he couldn't even produce a decent hit single (with the exception perhaps of songs such as "Valley Girl" which were usually accidental hits anyway).

These preoccupations were: being a superb technician and the importance of progress. However cantankerous the artists who are consumed by the need to realize these two ideals, ultimately I feel they are optimists. They are actually too sensitive to reveal that they believe the world in which they see so much pain, ugliness and violence could be made perfect. Most artists accept that the world is imperfect and a few die trying to perfect it.

Quantifiably, Zappa changed much about rock music with his compositions and recordings. Improvisation was brought to a new level, not just improvising lyrics or riffs over chord changes like scat and jazz, but everything in the world, even material objects as hinted at in Uncle Meat. He didn't stick just to instruments when he was composing, writing in directions for funny things to be done with the instruments or the members of the orchestra themselves. He spliced tape obsessively leading to new overdubbing and sampling techniques, as well as placing the recording process in the same venerable bracket as performing. A rock musician didn't have to be someone who just knew about all the flanges and tweeters and wah-wahs and six ways to use a whammy bar to make yourself look like an idiot. He could be someone who understood, technically, the building blocks of classical music and all the technical equipment onstage, not just theirs. Zappa in his blowhard manner actually ends up accepting all types: even nerds. Kids didn't have anything to turn to in those days other than "Peggy Sue Got Married" and other loner Buddy Holly tunes, and there was no way those could possibly communicate the angst and rage they probably felt when all they heard were songs about the football quarterback dancing with the high school cheerleader, or worse, songs about being ultra-sexy and having it in for an ultra-sexy unattainable foxy lady. Numbers, arrangements, compositions, chemicals, harmonies, theory: these things are more calming for people like Zappa and true music geeks than swaying one's hips to a sexy backbeat could ever be.

The truth is, the people who don't exactly fit the mold are able to progress an art form because they have a different way of looking at things and the courage to realize it. I always think about Zappa's interest in the graphic aspect of musical notes on score paper. That may not be the dimension of music that is meant to be appreciated, but why not? Not many would disagree that all those tiny little notes are actually quite pretty sitting quietly on the page without anyone messing with them. It takes time. Because I associated Zappa with rock music, I thought he did a lot of drugs and just had a talent for saying funny stuff to his friends into a microphone, and they would laugh because they were drunk or high, or because they were weird and weird stuff made sense to them. Frank Zappa wasn't really like that--he just had an expansive imagination, and if I work to extract meaning and beauty from his music like Zappa extracted the beauty of those written notes on the page, my imagination will expand too.