[NewMusic] Zappa now with Schott Music

[Michael Henry]

The orchestra I play in (Redwood Sym) performed the Ensemble Modern Arrangement of G-Spot Tornado a few years back. So this is good news. It was a bit of a hassle getting parts via the Zappa family trust.

I've just about got our conductor convinced to program The Dog Breath Variations/Uncle Meat for a future concert.

Fuzzy dice and bongos!

-MH

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FWIW (to those of you who enjoy Zappa's music...before he began his EAI
phase...)

<<³It¹s all over, folks. Get smart<take out a real estate license. The least
you can do is tell your students: ODON¹T DO IT! STOP THIS MADNESS! DON¹T
WRITE ANY MORE MODERN MUSIC!¹²>> FZ

Schott Music is pleased to announce that it is now the worldwide
representative of Munchkin Music<for the orchestral and ensemble works of
Frank Zappa, iconoclast, innovator, satirist, and above all, American
composer. Known for his originality of composition, independence and
certainly humor, Zappa was a fierce defender of the First Amendment of The
U.S. Constitution and proponent of his own freedom of artistic expression in
the face of public scrutiny, sitting on trial for obscenity both in America
and the UK, and winning every time. Commissions most important to Zappa
include those from Pierre Boulez (Ensemble InterContemporain) and the
Ensemble Modern.

Perhaps Zappa is best described in his own words, from ³The Real Frank Zappa
Book:²
³One day I happened across an article about Sam Goody¹s record store in Look
magazine which raved about what a wonderful merchandizer he was. The writer
said that Mr. Goody could sell anything<and as an example he mentioned that
he had even managed to sell an album called Ionisation.²

The article went on to say something like: OThis album is nothing but
drums<it¹s dissonant and terrible; the worst music in the world¹ Ahh! Yes!
That¹s for me!²

³I turned the volume all the way up (in order to get the maximum amount of
Ofi¹) and carefully placed the all-purpose osmium-tipped needle on the
lead-in spiral to OIonisation.¹ I have a nice Catholic mother who likes to
watch Roller Derby. When she heard what came out of that little speaker at
the bottom of the Decca, she looked at me like I was out of my fucking
mind.²
³I bought my first Boulez album when I was in the twelfth grade: a Columbia
recording of OLe Marteau Sans Maitre¹ (The Hammer Without a Master)
conducted by Robert Craft, with OZeitmasse¹ (Time-mass) by Stockhausen on
the other side.²

³I didn¹t know anything about twelve-tone music then, but I liked the way it
sounded. Since I didn¹t have any kind of formal training, it didn¹t make any
difference to me if I was listening to Lightnin¹ Slim, or a vocal group
called the Jewels [S] or Webern, or Varèse, or Stravinsky. To me it was all
good music.²

³What do you do for a living, dad? If one of my kids ever asked me that
question, the answer would have to be: OWhat I do is composition.¹ I just
happen to use material other than notes for the pieces.²

³A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air
molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians. [S] In my
compositions, I employ a system of weights, balances, measured tensions and
releases<in some way similar to Varese¹s aesthetic. The similarities are
best illustrated by comparison to a Calder mobile: a multicolored
whatchamacallit, dangling in space, that has big blobs of metal connected to
pieces of wire, balanced ingeniously against little metal dingleberries on
the other end.²

³The orchestra is the ultimate instrument, and conducting one is an
unbelievable sensation. Nothing else is like it, except maybe singing
doo-wop harmony and hearing the chords come out right.²

³I find music of the classical period boring because it reminds me of
Opainting by numbers¹. There are certain things composers of that period
were not allowed to do because they were considered to be outside the
boundaries of the industrial regulations which determined whether the piece
was a symphony, a sonata, or a whatever. All of the norms, as practiced
during the olden days, came into being because the guys who paid the bills
wanted the Otunes¹ they were buying to Osound a certain way¹².

³It¹s all over, folks. Get smart<take out a real estate license. The least
you can do is tell your students: ODON¹T DO IT! STOP THIS MADNESS! DON¹T
WRITE ANY MORE MODERN MUSIC!¹²

³OInformation is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not
truth, truth is not beauty, beauty is not love, love is not music. Music is
the best.¹² ­ Joe¹s Garage, 19