The number of people huffing and puffing on Frank Zappa - Zomby Woof :

Frank Zappa - Zomby Woof continues!

Let's continue with Frank Zappa's Zomby Woof from his album The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life! 

Zomby Woof

See my last post too!

5 notes grouping and pointless melodies

'I am the zomby woof!'. The rocking, soulful vocal section is hot and cool again, followed by a section where the beat changes to odd ones again. As always, bars in odd meters are highlighted in red.

(1:30-)

The 5th and 6th bars are two bars of 5/4, and the content is grouped into 5 units, as is obvious from listening to the melody. 5/16 * 8 bars can have the same meaning and length, so the actual score might be in 5/16. Here, the notes are finely divided into 10 pieces of 32nd note with the hi-hat, instead of 5 pieces of 16th note. Considering the position of the accent and the sharpness of the hi-hat sound, the sticking may be alternated (RLRLRLRL). That's kind of quick. The ability of the drummer Chad Wackerman shines through. Sure, his technique shines in other parts as well, not just this one!

From 9th bar, a strange and mysterious section starts based on a, dare I say, completely nonsensical melody motif; notice how the melody in the 9th bar is repeated in the 10th bar with the same pitch up and down, only the rhythm is different. As usual, let's see if someone with absolute pitch can confirm it. This is a very mechanical way to write music.

A long guitar solo and a superfunky section!

After the above, a long guitar solo begins, which is a frequent feature of Frank Zappa's music in this period. Although Frank Zappa is a composer and a bandmaster, he likes to play guitar solos more than anyone else. He even released an album entitled Guitar, which emphasizes his own guitar solos. And it was a large serving with the 2 CDs set. It's right after the end of his guitar solo:

(4:35-)

The 5th bar is the section where the vocal part is prominent again. Only the drums and the vocals perform, and the rock song stands out hot. The backbeat of the drums here slips forward by a 16th note, and this works synergistically with the vocals to make for an extremely funky music. Even so, he doesn't slip a 16th note in every bar. I'm impressed that he doesn't stick to a same phrase and can come up with various phrases quickly. It's not an odd meter, but it's another highlight of this song. After this, in the middle of the 12th bar, it gets triplets and becomes a 6/8 rock ballad-like section. Then in the 14th bar, it gets a sudden and strange fill to return to the first verse from the 15th bar in no time. How abrupt!

Condensed Zappa-esque albums

I have covered all the problematic parts of the song in my Zomby Woof series (two articles in total). I'm sure you'll be ready to play any day now.

When I re-listened to the albums around the time of the release of Zomby Woof, I found that many of the songs that I consider to be Zappa-esque were released around 1973-1975. Zappa-esque things are condensed especially on Over-Nite Sensation, which has Zomby Woof in it, but also Apostrophe, Roxy & Elsewhere, and One Size Fits All released right after Over-Nite Sensation. Unfortunately, Zappa-related articles are not very popular on this blog, but I'd like to continue to highlight drumming from these rich-tasting albums in detail.