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University of Cincinnati U UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date: I, , hereby submit this original work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in It is entitled: Student Signature: This work and its defense approved by: Committee Chair: Approval of the electronic document: I have reviewed the Thesis/Dissertation in its final electronic format and certify that it is an accurate copy of the document reviewed and approved by the committee. Committee Chair signature: A Study of the Instrumental Music of Frank Zappa A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Division of Composition, Musicology, and Theory of the College-Conservatory of Music by Brett Clement B.M. Florida State University (2002) M.M. Florida State University (2004) July 2009 Committee Chair: Dr. David Carson Berry ABSTRACT This dissertation offers the first large-scale analytical study of the instrumental music of Frank Zappa (1940–1993). Following initial commentary in Chapter 1 on the problems of categorization in the repertoire, Chapter 2 offers a preliminary discussion of style and form in Zappa’s music. Regarding style, I detail the fallouts of Zappa’s unique early musical education as well as the influence of his guitar playing in his compositional style. My investigation of form explores the formal implications of melodic repetition, examining non-repeating forms characteristic of the hybrid music and repeating forms utilizing variation procedures such as contour retention and isomelism . Chapter 3 is devoted to rhythm and meter in Zappa’s music. The primary topics of this chapter are various types of rhythmic/metrical conflict, including polymeter, metrical dissonance , and rhythmic dissonance , which are explained in part as an attempted merging of advanced compositional techniques and rock/pop music norms. A theoretical discussion of rhythmic dissonance, which is Zappa’s trademark rhythmic device, comprises the bulk of the chapter. Chapter 4 offers a Lydian theory for Zappa’s diatonic music, loosely adapted from George Russell’s seminal jazz theory The Lydian Chromatic Concept (1953). This theory views the Lydian scale as representing a tonic state in Zappa’s music due to its special static attributes. It introduces the concept of a Lydian system , containing a limited group of diatonic modes related to a common Lydian scale. Within, I demonstrate how the pitch structures of non-Lydian modes are related abstractly to those of the Lydian tonic, and follow by considering pedal substitutions and progressions within the Lydian system. ii Chapter 5 is devoted to Zappa’s non-diatonic music. The first section of this chapter explores Zappa’s methods of chromatic pitch organization, including pitch-class diversity , chromatic saturation , and symmetry. The second section investigates a system of composition based on a Chord Bible of Zappa’s own devising. This section includes a preliminary recreation of certain aspects of Chord Bible and a discussion of the compositional employment of Chord- Bible harmony in the series of orchestral works composed circa 1977–1982. iii © 2009 by Brett Clement All rights reserved. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I would like to thank those directly involved with this project. I am greatly appreciative of my advisor David Carson Berry for his assistance and support throughout the research and writing of the dissertation. Additionally, I would like to thank committee members Steven J. Cahn and Catherine Losada for offering many insightful comments on several drafts of the document. I would also like to thank Matthew Shaftel for his early encouragement of my research into Zappa’s music at Florida State University. I would like to extend my appreciation to those who have made research materials available to me. Special thanks are given to Jonathan W. Bernard, Arved Ashby, and librarian Nicholas Wilkenson for allowing access to several scores. I would also like to recognize David Ocker for offering his recollections at several points during my studies. Additionally, I must acknowledge the support of Gail Zappa and the Zappa Family Trust. Finally, I would like to thank numerous members of the Zappa fanbase for their prior work of cataloguing Zappa’s interviews, concerts, and other materials and for making them readily available. Most importantly, I must thank my family for their generous support throughout the dissertation process. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I: Introduction. 1 I. Topic and repertory. 1 II. Organization. 3 Chapter II: Style and Form. 8 I. Stylistic preliminaries. 9 A. Zappa’s early musical education. 10 B. Guitaristic elements in Zappa’s music. 14 II. Form. 21 A. Non-repeating forms. 22 B. Forms utilizing repetition. 25 1. Contour retention. 25 2. Isomelism. 29 Chapter III: Rhythm and Meter. 39 I. Meter. 40 A. Early metrical practices. 40 B. Metrical dissonance. 47 II. Rhythm. 55 A. Distinctions between rhythm and meter. 55 B. Rhythmic dissonance: preliminaries. 61 C. Rhythmic dissonance in the hybrid music. 66 1. Theoretical interpretation. 67 2. “The Black Page” #1 and #2. 72 3. Rhythmic dissonances in simple meters. 77 4. Indirect dissonance. 81 5. Dissonance resolution. 86 D. Rhythmic dissonance in non-hybrid music. 89 E. Influences and precursors. 95 Chapter IV: Diatonic Music. 100 I. Introduction: Zappa and common-practice tonality. 100 II. George Russell and the “Lydian Chromatic Concept.” 105 III. A Lydian theory for Zappa’s diatonic music. 117 A. Theoretical fundamentals. 117 B. The modes of the Lydian system. 122 1. Mode I: Lydian. 123 2. Mode II: Ionian. 128 3. Mode III: Mixolydian. 131 4. Mode IV: Dorian. 134 5. Mode V: Aeolian. 140 6. Pentatonic scales. 144 vi a. Segment 1: Minor 1. 144 b. Segment 2: Minor 2. 146 c. Segment 3: Major. 148 C. Interaction between modes. 149 1. Pedal substitution. 150 2. Progressions within a Lydian system: L/M and D/M. 156 3. Progressions between different Lydian systems. 166 IV. Concluding remarks. 173 Chapter V: Non-diatonic Music. 175 I. Chromatic music. 176 A. Early experiments with serialism. 176 B. General features of the chromatic works. 180 1. Pitch-class diversity. 180 2. Chromatic saturation. 182 3. Symmetry. 191 Transition to Part II: Harmonic issues in the chromatic works. 196 II. Scalar non-diatonicism: The Chord Bible. 198 A. Introduction to the “Chord Bible.” 198 B. Scalar resources and chordal densities of the Chord Bible. 202 1. Diatonic chords. 202 2. Minor Lydian chords. 206 3. Octatonic chords. 214 C. Chord-Bible harmony in Zappa’s orchestral works. 217 1. “Envelopes” and “Sinister Footwear I.” 218 2. “The Perfect Stranger” and “Dupree’s Paradise.” 228 III. Summary remarks. 240 Bibliography. 242 Musical examples. 255 Chapter 1. 256 Chapter 2. 258 Chapter 3. 272 Chapter 4. 300 Chapter 5. 346 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION I. Topic and repertory. This dissertation offers the first large-scale analytical study of the instrumental music of Frank Zappa (1940–1993). My intention is to identify and explicate the principal compositional techniques found in this music and to explore certain relevant theoretical concepts. I do not claim that this study represents a comprehensive examination of all facets of Zappa’s very diverse output; such an inquiry would involve a repertoire significantly larger than the music I will discuss. Nevertheless, my use of the term “instrumental” is somewhat loose, as I do intend to consider certain musical passages that have been set to text. Specifically, the titles to be investigated will include the following: (1) those that exist only in instrumental form; (2) those that have appeared both as songs (i.e., with lyrics) and as instrumentals (a common phenomenon in Zappa’s music); (3) short connective instrumental passages or interludes that appear within songs; and (4) songs that share characteristics with the instrumentals and were most likely first composed without a text. Well over 150 compositions by Zappa are described by one of these four categories (the majority by one of the first three). 1 While this body of work naturally represents a more manageable size for analytic inquiry than the entire Zappa output, it is still far 1 Determining the exact number of instrumental works composed by Zappa is challenging for many reasons. In fact, “piece” and “work” are somewhat misleading terms when applied to much of Zappa’s instrumental music, as only a certain segment of his instrumental titles appear as “closed” works, fixed in form and instrumentation. More often, given the open-ended nature of Zappa’s musical forms (to be discussed in Chapter 2), an instrumental passage allows for any number of contextual employments. Therefore, it is often difficult to determine what does or does not constitute a “piece of music” in Zappa’s output. Indeed, many instrumental passages appeared under different titles throughout Zappa’s career. For the purposes of this study, I will reserve the terms “piece” and “work” for those titles achieving a sufficient degree of contextual closure. 1 too large for practical purposes. Therefore, I will be concerned with a smaller, but substantial, selection of titles that I believe are representative of the variety of styles in which he composed. In order to determine this selection, I have attempted to draw upon the broadest variety of music possible, but practical considerations have precluded the incorporation of many compositions into this study. The most serious setback for the analyst of Zappa’s music is the difficulty in obtaining musical scores, which have not been available for commercial purchase since the beginning of 2005. 2 While roughly fifteen of the aforementioned scores will be utilized in this study, the vast majority of my analyses will be based on my own transcriptions. 3 Because these transcriptions are not based on scores that the reader can easily obtain and consult, the musical examples based on these transcriptions herein will most often not indicate measure numbers, opting instead for time indications from recordings.
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