Watched some very interesting video of my
hero, Frank Zappa on Youtube yesterday.
Most of the ones I watched were made
during the last part of his life (He died
in 1993 of prostate cancer). He seems
relaxed and confident.

In one tape of “some morning talk show,”
he mentions that he hasn’t listened to any
Philip Glass, but that he doesn’t like “Minimalism.”

When pressed, he named Stravinsky, Bartok and Webern as the sort of classical composers he likes.

This morning I was laying in bed thinking about how I was going to pull off church. I got up and wrote flute and violin   for the prelude and second communion hymn. Then I turned on the computer and got an email from the violinist. Her grandmother died and she won’t be at church tomorrow.

Obviously I can’t blame her for all that. I think I will print up the instrumental parts anyway just for the heck of it.

In the YouTube video, Zappa is interviewed in his home. At one point he sits in front of his famous machine that includes a musical keyboard and a computer. When asked if using this kind of equipment changes the music in a bad way, Zappa bitterly replies that it takes the most unreliable part of the music out, the musicians. He must have been burned quite a bit in his life. He also repeated his advice from his book about parenting: “keep your kids as far away from religion as possible.” He has a point there, even though the church has been “berry berry good to me.”

I know buy diazepam 2mg online uk that I am lucky to just be slightly inconvenienced (if at all really) when a violinist can’t show up because her grandmother died. Of course, Zappa was trying to make a living with his admittedly eccentric approach to the music industry. I have to admire his tenacity and drive as well as his music.

I do wonder what he would have thought of the internet proliferation. He was especially bitter about what music was getting to the public in his interview with Larry King. He was adamant that people should be able to listen to whatever music they want to listen to (whether he found that music worthwhile or not). But he also pointed out that it was difficult for an aspiring musician to get his/her music heard. Not so right now. Plus recording technology is so accessible and inexpensive (compared to what it was throughout most of Zappa’s life).

I like to think Zappa would have exercised his big brain and realized that throwing open his catalogue to the file exchange madness for free would increase his net worth as well as his ability to communicate with his music.

Right now, his living descendents have taken the approach that Zappa’s music is their legacy and should not even be performed (much less listened to) without them making a buck on it or giving permission. Too bad, but predictable I guess. I don’t blame them for wanting to honor Zappa’s life. I just wish they were actually more like him: brilliant, outrageous and insightful.

Not gonna happen.