Why I did a PhD on Frank Zappa

[@mcolville]

I like how you talk about studying Jazz but being unable to put Zappa down, as though "Zappa" is an entire musical tradition in its own right. :D

[@glenmorrison8080]

I think "an entire musical tradition in its own right" is a great way to describe Zappa. :)

[@MikkelGrumBovin]

@@glenmorrison8080 i wholehearted agree 😉👌

[@roguetoken5640]

Zappa is its own genre.

[@TheKwaze]

As Ruth Underwood said in the "Zappa" documentary

[@donny_doyle]

Dude! You are my man!! I did a big band arrangement of "Peaches" for an arranging class. I studied jazz performance at Duquesne U in Pittsburgh and spent weeks arranging that song, only to get a "C." The professor claims it was unplayable and got pissed off at me for even trying such ridiculous music... the parts that came together sounded amazing tho- long live Frank Zappa.

[@bontrom8]

😂 Somebody is institutionalized hahah

[@dannymoore7751]

Well done Chanon. I graduated with a degree in music on guitar and used a number of Zappa tunes in my exam performances. I have often contemplated doing a doctorate, and perhaps doing a thesis on Zappa's guitar playing specifically. Huge prospect. I was thrilled to find your video and hear that you had done this wonderful work. All credit to you from a fellow Zappa devotee. Cheers from Tasmania, Australia.

[@victorhawkins3461]

I first heard FZ in the summer of '72...6 years after The Mothers' FREAK OUT...I was introduced to FZ's catalog by a youth minister (!). Live at the Fillmore East, 1971 and Just Another Band from L.A. were my intro. I quickly caught up with the past catalog, and I simply kept going. Congrats on your PhD...congrats on your topic choice...and congrats on being one of the few...the proud...the Zappaheads!

[@simonstrash]

love all of your videos on zappa!! as an aspiring composer as well as zappa fanatic i couldn't have asked for a better resource. :)

[@ChananHanspal]

Many thanks!

[@alexandresoljenitsyne3558]

même avis

[@steveM1341]

1987? Wow, I've been there since 68'. I'm no musician, just a sponge that's absorbed the magical liquidity that is Zappa's work. Great channel, subscribed.

[@kwalter1955]

I think all Zappa freaks have a similar origin story where they got hooked and never looked back. When I was a 15 year old musician in 1970, a friend played Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Absolutely Free and I was completely blown away. I’d already been listening to a lot of rock and pop and classical music like Stravinsky, Beethoven, and Prokofiev. I immediately went out and bought Hot Rats and Lumpy Gravy, since they were the only albums filed under “Frank Zappa” at a local electronics store (probably because I didn’t know enough to look under “Mothers of Invention”). These blew me away as well, in FDT Lumpy Gravy became my all time favorite album, and by freshman year of college I had the whole catalogue and never stopped getting my hands on everything I could find. Luckily I saw him perform 20 times from 1971-1984, and he never, ever, disappointed. Thanks so much for sharing and drawing attention to some of what makes his music so wonderful and worthwhile!

[@ChananHanspal]

You're welcome and thank you for watching.

[@alexandresoljenitsyne3558]

Vous avez de la chance d'être vieux !! LOL.... J'ai découvert Zappa à mes 16ans, soit un an tout juste après son décès... (sortie de l'album Strictly commercial, 1994). Je n'ai jamais plus cessé de suivre son parcours dès lors ! Très heureux que des gens comme Chanan HANSPAL existent : c'est un sacré travail que d'essayer d'aborder son oeuvre. Et Chanan fait cela très bien, en plus d'avoir une discographie personnelle fort sympathique (découverte complètement par hasard sur BandCamp).

[@terryeaster1]

Absolutely beautiful. Congratulations on your PhD, I'm glad you are such a kind thoughtful person carrying his genius forward.

[@jeffreyjorgensen887]

Dr. Hanspal - congratulations on your PhD - greatly enjoyed the discussion of your thesis - you were very humble and did a great job thanking those who assisted you with your research - I wish you every continued success.

[@ChananHanspal]

Many thanks Jeffrey.

[@ryanbuxton9464]

Thanks for sharing your process and journey. I am in the final stages of an MA in composing and studying Zappa (among others) to complete my practice based research. I was introduced to you by Matt Duduryn and I cannot believe that, when I lived in Cambridge, I would have had the chance to chat to you about all of this. Still, maybe one day I will bump into you. Thanks for the inspiration to get my head back down to work!

[@MikkelGrumBovin]

Thanx man,- Bout time Zappa gets the world recognition he so overwhelming deserves .... Next up , Allan Holdsworth ,-

[@listenfaster]

So grateful to have found your channel and hear your clear thoughts. I was fortunate to study with Jonathan Bernard in the 90s at UW in Seattle, Author of the Music of Edgard Varese among other things, whose approach to analysis guided me in some of my own sifting of Frank's music. Very inspiring to see you here with such high quality work - keep it up!

[@aivoryuk]

Very interesting - I wrote my music degree dissertation in 2001 focusing on Frank Zappa. I was asking the question if computers have changed the way people compose music. My conclusion with FZ was that it didn't as he always composed difficult pieces of music but what he did get was the performances that he was looking for.

[@DrPantsMusic]

Chanan...SO GRATEFUL to have found your channel. I am an amateur Zappologist at best, but I SO admire the work you have done and I was so thrilled to find some of these videos, especially the chord bible one. Shedding light on his processes and modes of working in these areas is just wonderful. I have a masters in composition and I teach at a university in Oklahoma City, USA. I am definitely going to stay tuned in to the channel. I would love to hear about any other work you're doing, so if there's an email list or anything like that, maybe comment back and let me know? Again, fantastic work. Could not be happier to have discovered your work.

[@ChananHanspal]

I'm glad you enjoyed the video, many thanks for watching!

[@jameshicks7125]

Brilliant! I downloaded it and am reading it now. This will be interesting for me. I see that you wrote it as a PHD for doctorate in philosophy. That was the course I took for a while but moved into Psychoanalysis. Hegel and Lacan are a huge influence there, as Zappa was musically in my youth when I played in bands. We covered Peaches en Regalia and Inca Roads in a 5 piece band I formed in the late 1980s. I was the drummer along with violin, guitar, bass and keys players. We covered Jean Luc Ponty and Mahavishnu as well. Definitely bit off more than we could chew. I really wanted to cover "The Adventures of Greggary Peckary" lol.

[@pilchard2000]

congratulations Chanan , a very worthy subject indeed.

[@ChananHanspal]

👍

[@JohnLloydDavis]

I upvoted the last upload and this one is even better. Thanks for the extra content Chanan :)

[@ChananHanspal]

You're welcome Jonny.

[@bobreece5842]

I was fortunate to attend the BONGO FURY concert in Austin at the Armadillo World Headquarters, one of the best places at the time to see just about every artist under the sun. BONGO FURY was actually recorded over two nights. First night was just amazing, flawless. Beefheart was a surprise guest because there was nothing in marketing about him being there. The Armadillo World Headquarters, located in southern Austin under the Texas Sun, had no air conditioning. I still don't know how Zappa and his performers played for nearly 3 hours, but they did. This was a summer concert. Then, the second night. Someone in one of those homes around the Armadillo World Headquarters was probably fed up with hearing Zappa. In the middle of a song, Zappa waved his arms like the conductor he was and the band stopped playing immediately. He announced that there was a bomb threat. "No joke boys and girls. We all have to leave the building." Even the band had to leave the building. It was dark. I walked around to the front of the building facing Lamar Blvd and there he was sitting under a tree cradling his guitar in his lap. I enjoyed a wonderful visit with the maestro himself. What a night that was. Zappa returned to the stage after the building was cleared and he just was not into it anymore. He probably cut the second night's performance in half, and left early. I think he was fed up. For me, it was a night I'll never forget.

[@terencegregory3466]

Loved your video on your PHD. I am not a musicologist or even musician but always enjoyed what I perceived to be the quirkiness of his music., Great to have some understanding now of the craft and thought that went into this.

[@ChananHanspal]

Many thanks indeed!

[@jonreededworthy7518]

Thing about Zappa is just how insanely prolific he was. So even if you listen to his music and don't care for the majority of it, chances are there will still be one album or several songs/pieces across his albums that you'll really like. For me his music follows a bell curve where I find his big band/jazz fusion stuff quite tedious, but I quite like some of his orchestral work and I really like plenty of his more straightforward songs like "Uncle Remus" and "Dancin' Fool".

[@breakfall]

Well done brother. Maestro Zappa!

[@michaelplautz5108]

As a composer myself, one of the things I like about Zappa was his total abandonment of the tradition of need of musical “rules” (theory/structure) in composition. This is very noticeable in a piece like Little House I Used to Live In (the piano intro, which I transcribed and learned to play - this differs from the Zappa “Improved” transcription in his sheet music Vol. 1 Book), where he bounces back and forth between structured dissonance, diatonic, and free dissonance. This is an approach I took before I ever knew Zappa’s music. It reminds me of pieces Franz Liszt composed toward the end of his life, like Nuages Gris, which is mostly free dissonance - unlike structured dissonance typical of serialism or someone like Messiaen.

[@juanman2874]

Because you are awesome. That's why

[@vanomaden]

Brilliant! Well doen. However, shocking to hear about the lack of support of the Zappa trust.

[@Fervillasmil]

Man, oh man. Kudos! And, by the way, isn’t there something kinda wrong about the FZFT? I mean, in front of your expertise and search, I think they should have been at least a little more collaborative. Bites me.

[@yurib7067]

I had 70 Zappa records

[@zw-nm5mc]

As far as you know is the score of uncle meat (Yellow Shark version) available? I've searched online but I haven't reallt find a copy. Thanks a lot, your videos are great.

[@scubadiva666]

Zappa was a genius. When I first heard his music in the 70s, I was hooked; sadly, he got very little airplay, but fortunately there are gems like "I'm the Slime" kzbin.info/www/bejne/qpXXeKJofsdspas that survive-even though Lorne Michaels, producer of SNL, put Frank on a blacklist of people who were never to host the show again.

[@iamkarma20]

I pretty much stopped watching snl after I heard that!😊

[@jutphish9131]

I wish you were a guy that lived down the street that I could talk to about music.

[@squeakeththewheel]

I have a copy of and have read The Negative Dielectics of Poodle Play, and I have never hear it mentioned anywhere until here at 6:41.

[@Michael_Dominic]

great story, thank you

[@ChananHanspal]

Many thanks!

[@Matthew-ut6ed]

Wait, hang on a minute, Chanan, - Paul Carr? Is that the Paul Carr who was at the music school at the Newcastle College of Arts in the 1980s? I was there too!

[@MegaZzyyxx]

Uno puede escuchar a los grandes clásicos y ver que son muy buenos, pero Zappa parecía tener un pacto con el diablo, o venir de otro planeta...muchos pueden hacer música muy elaborada, pero conseguir que además sea bella y te haga reir y asombrar al mismo tiempo hizo la diferencia...tuvimos la suerte de tenerlo...Gracias.

[@ChananHanspal]

Muchas gracias!

[@simonpepper9721]

Not to mention the rate that music was produced and released.

[@Baribrotzer]

FZ claimed that he wrote everything by ear, and that - other than a few broad aesthetic principles - he had no "system" of composition. But with that said, he might have followed some unconscious method of organizing notes, harmonies, sections, and transitions. So perhaps assiduous study and analysis of his scores and performances could deduce such a possible method.

[@crazydigitalmusic]

Congratulations, Channan, Bert

[@ChananHanspal]

Thank you!

[@crazydigitalmusic]

@@ChananHanspal You're welcome, my dear Zappa friend, Bert

[@Mr.Altavoz]

Interesting videos.... thanks❤

[@BuffaloL100]

Shout out to Dada Records!

[@jutphish9131]

Wow man.

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

Is there any similarities of Zappa's music and Edgar Varese? Has anyone done a study of Edgar's music?

[@bobbichin2621]

I hear it all the time. Listen to "Civilization Phaze III."

[@seanbeadles7421]

Fascinating What exactly is a fiver in regards to a PhD? Is that a midway review?

[@ChananHanspal]

Thanks Sean. The viva consists of a panel of academics who review your thesis and ask you lots of questions about your research. This is where you explain the choices you have made and why, kind of a justification for your work. Sometimes, people have to make significant changes to their work and others only minor, and in some rare cases no amendments are needed.

[@seanbeadles7421]

@@ChananHanspal thanks for the reply! Sorry, I normally don’t mishear english accents that badly. I guess I’ve never heard of a PhD defense being called that but it sounds much more appropriate for an academic setting to me

[@thierrymace4735]

Hello Chanan, What did your PhD dissertation demonstrate?

[@machinebeard1639]

How did you do your doctorate on Zappa and not mention, Verez or Slonimsky?

[@natesh0re]

Nice! Earned a subscription from me

[@enricocavallo4386]

Let alone _this other kind of music_ 😄

[@fostercathead]

Where can we read your thesis?

[@ChananHanspal]

www.academia.edu/31660102/Frank_Zappa_and_the_Orchestra_Question_pdf

[@shiroumxm2052]

do you guys consider Zappa at the same level of Stravinsky, Webern, Messiaen, dallapiccola, Berg etc¿

[@jespermaintz8993]

I have been a Zappa fan for more than 30 years, and have spent countless hours analysing - 5 years ago, I finally delved into classical music, and quickly ended up with Webern (especially), Berg, and Schoenberg. It spoke to me, the same way as Frank - and I now consider them as part of the upper echelon of my personal musical universe. So, in short: Yes. :)

[@garygomesvedicastrology]

Yes, I do. I have been listening to the composers you mentioned and more since the 1970s; and Free Jazz live Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Coltrane, mong others. Zappa was my gateway drug to all these people and more. Interesting man... unique.

[@photonjiagu]

Ironic because Zappa hated the concept of college so much that he forbade all of his children from attending college!

[@Matthew-ut6ed]

He didn't forbid it per se, Zappa would never dictate to another person like that... just said if they wanted to go they should pay for it themselves.

[@docbailey3265]

FZ might have had the greatest range between genius music like Inca Roads, and (in Zappa’s own words) some of the most horriblest shit a band could ever play. His gutter humor detracted from his opus. ‘Bobby Brown’? ‘Harder than your Husband’? The whole Sheik Yerbouti album swung from fantastic to drek.

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

It's a reupload, isn't it?

[@ChananHanspal]

Hi there, yes it's a repost.

[@pputnam100]

Those last two sentences of the video really struck me of the undying devotion Gail had and still has for Frank, which almost defies belief after what that woman lived through...

[@gj8683]

Gail Zappa died in 2015, so it must be others who are protecting Frank's work.

[@pputnam100]

@@spooge33 If you knew what she lived through, how she was virtually tortured by that sick F__K, you sorta understand why she wouldn't have acted in a sane way.

[@gregrice1354]

Love Zappa. Your content is interesting. PLEASE- check your recording voice/volume levels before posting. I'm at full volume, and your mumbling, poor recording level is terrible for a music focused content maker.

[@2GooDProductions]

A PHD on one musician? How has that turned out for employment?