BURNT WEENY SANDWICH: ATONALITY

After five years of relentless touring Zappa in 1969 disbanded the Mothers of Invention in their first line up. The band members were taken by surprise and accusations on both sides followed. According to Zappa their technical abilities weren't adequate for performence of his compositions and the band members accused Zappa of using their ideas without giving them credit. Some of them hold grudges until today. From the unreleased studio and live recordings two albums were compiled, "Burnt weany sandwich" and "Weasels ripped my flesh", just as "Uncle Meat" and "Hot Rats" mainly instrumental albums. Both were released in 1970. For a completely live album from the sixties we have to wait until 1993, when "Ahead of their time" was released.

From these two albums I've taken some examples of atonal melodies. Though the concept of tonality is the main factor in harmonic analysis, it's meaning is usually taken for granted. It depends much on the context of a text what the author means by it. Tonality is not such a clear concept as sometimes suggested, because it's a combination of features, that for this site I would describe in following order of importance as:
- The music uses (mainly diatonic) scales.
- The scales are applied in a stable unfragmentated way.
- The chords are 5th and 7th chords, occasional 9th chords, moving in a fluid way from chord to chord by having notes in common.
- The opening scale is also the ending scale.
- Harmonic cadences confirm the key note.
You may as well use a different definition. But by describing tonality this way, it becomes better explainable that there's a large gray area between completely tonal and completely atonal. There's a big difference between Wagner's rapid shifting through keys and chromaticism, Debussy's extended chords (all combinations of scale notes, but avoiding the minor second) and his whole tone scale compositions and the calculated 100% atonality of Schoenberg. In the earlier mentioned compositions "Brown shoes don't make it" and "Uncle Meat main title", Zappa's inclination to make fast and sometimes abrupt key changes has been commented upon. Of the note examples of this section the first one still has a faint relationship with keys, the others are completely atonal.

Piano introduction to Little house, #1, bars 6-9 (notes).

This fragment from "Piano introduction to Little House I used to live in" from "Burnt weany sandwich" is a good example of tonal vagueness. The melody by itself is hardly tonal, but a relationship with keys is established in the chords that are played on this melody. The combinations (in major keys) are notes of C, notes of B, and a sort of mixture chord. This last arpeggio chord starts chromatically but then proceeds with notes of C. The album liner notes are ambiguous about whether band member Ian Underwood is its performer or also its composer. The "The Frank Zappa Songbook vol. I" takes away this doubt: composition and score are by Frank Zappa (see the credit information at the end).
The middle block of the "Piano introduction..." is an atonal chord progression. The whole piece is characterized by several kinds of chord progressions that are interval determined (compare the melodic line of the first section of "Uncle meat" from above). For instance the next three bars:

Piano introduction to Little house, #2 (midi file)

Piano introduction to Little house, #2 (notes)

Here the common element in the three bars is a fifth plus fifth chord alternating with a fourth plus fourth chord or with a third plus fourth chord. There are several more comparable bars in the piece with intervals alternating. Just as in "five-five-FIVE" and the first section of "Uncle meat", traditional harmony is ignored. See also the "It must be a camel" example (Hot Rats section) and the "Put a motor in yourself" sketches (Synclavier section) for non-traditional chords. Ian Underwood is playing this episode with refined expression on the album. Compared with his performance the midi file here is mechanical.

The next three examples contain some bars from "Igor's boogie, phase I" as well as the opening bars of "Igor's boogie, phase II" and the "Eric Dolphy memorial party" from "Weasels ripped my flesh". All comprise counterpoint. The lines in the two "Igor's boogie" phases are all strictly prescribed. "Phase I" is present in the Songbook. The opening of "Phase II" below is transcribed by me and only an approximation. It has a leading melody in the first staff, around which the other parts are playing in a so called hocketing style, little interrupted pieces of melodic material. It's difficult to hear what's exactly going on with irregular notes coming up from various angles. I also can't derive the meters with any certainty, below I've followed the lead melody for setting up a division to make it readable.
To what extend the bass line in "Eric Dolphy Memorial Party" is prescribed is debatable, my best guess is that Zappa wrote out the melody with per bar a bass pedal note (as he did in "The black page", that has been officially published). The bass player could then improvise along this pattern. Zappa has sometimes been accused of taking too much credit of the songs. "Weasels of ripped my flesh" is an album with a lot of improvisation, estimated at 80% by Zappa himself. But if you ask yourself if then it shouldn't be credited as a group effort, then you have to take into account that: in all rock and jazz music the writer of the basic themes gets the credit and the soloists never, Zappa himself is improvising on guitar, "Directly from my heart to you" is a cover and Zappa is the one directing, editing and compiling the album. Without the prescribed material it would have been a set of loose ends.

Eric Dolphy Memorial Party, opening (midi file)
Igor's boogie, phase I, opening (midi file)
Igor's boogie, phase II, opening (midi file)

Eric Dolphy Memorial Party, opening (transcription)
Bars from Igor's boogie, phase I (notes)
Igor's boogie, phase II, opening (transcription)

Atonality is an integrate part of Zappa's music. He could use it at will in his rock compositions as well as his chamber music and orchestral works, sometimes combining tonality and atonality in the same piece of music. The subject will come by in various other sections in this study like:
- Lumpy gravy: "I don't know if I can go through this again".
- Sequences: "Penis dimension", "Billy the mountain".
- The LSO - The perfect stranger.
- Drowning witch - Them or us.
- Jazz from hell: "Damp ankles".
- The yellow shark.