Only a master of music could write this. And only a master of music could play this. What an achievement. Wowwwww. Wowwwww. Wowwwww. Even Gregory Peccary's eyes popped out.
As a drummer, I find this particular performance, amazing. As a listener, inspiring as to how far music can go. It is such a shame that, in most artistic creations, are never realized till further down the road. Frank continues to be my Idol, in approach, and attitude to the art.
@@Berserker26 that's just your opinion. I'm sure someone thinks your favorite band sucks, and there's nothing wrong with that. People look for different things in music and art.
Kinda like the time I played Close To The Edge by Yes for my wife . She couldn't get past the first three minutes . That's why she's now my ex ........
@@Berserker26I agree although it's not rubbish but rather just really overrated,underwhelming,tacky,and pompous most the time but not rubbish by any means and I like some of his music I get the appeal.
The whole melody of the piece is so jubilant and celebratory. Frank knew the notes that evoked joy. He came across as a serious sourpuss sometimes, but I think he knew how to tap into his inner joy.
With all that music he had to get out of him, it's no wonder he took life so seriously, come the end, he still had more to do. He was the equivalent of tesla, but in music, as far as am concerned.
Sort of - but no. What is amazing is one person's love and devotion to creating beauty. When you love something so much, you stop thinking about memorization or virtuosity. It's all about passion. We should stop praising musicians for talent. It gives people the wrong idea of what music or musicianship is.
I would describe it as suspenseful with supreme confidence. it's dominated by the 4th/11th and the 6th/13th, both of which are neutral and hence render a sense of mystery and suspense until they resolve to a major or minor. While bearing a major and mostly minor undertones, The Black Page never really resolvers to a major or a minor, so the entire song is suspenseful. Naturally, this does not evoke joy at all IMO, which, truly, is the reason why this is such a unique piece. It is hard to not resolve to major/minor. It resembles background scores like those accompanying stealth missions and serial killer trails from the movies in the late 60s and 70s.
I worked front of house audio at a few venues back in the late 2000's. Got to live mix this 2 nights in a row. The case that bozzios setup came in is still the largest road case ive ever seen.
J. Lennon took an FZ toon and called it "Ragjam", I can't remember the exact story. But, he (John & Yoyo) jammed with Frank and Gangk the music. Frank did some covers that for this FZ fan were as good or better than the original. Happy Together (live Fillmore East, on the white album, Mud Shu Shu Shark, "can I come on your bus?") Stairway to Heaven (there's so much to be said, not enough time.) Whipping Post (WOW, Duane would have been so honored. Bobby Mars Vocal, maybe one of the best live performances ever.) Thanks, I nominate "Imagine" as the the dumbest piece of music ever written. Muskrat Love was Bach, Beethoven, Mozart in comparison.) Greetings from Colorado Springs Colorado.
I don't know how Bozzio can live without playing this stuff! Surely, as a drummer, you can't get more fun out of your kit than mastering tunes like this? Fucking stunning. I will always love Franks tunes, and I know he used many skilled musicians over the years, but Terry Bozzio brought a different dimension to the Zappa stage. Fantastic. Thanks for sharing shaktidey . . or whatever your pretend name is.
The gimmick that makes Dance of Eternity complex is changing time signatures often. Inside the parts themselves, there's not much complexity, and it conveys zero emotion. Requires a lot of skill to play, for sure, but does not require soul :).
Absolute brilliance in performance and Zappa's original Black Page score. Seen Frank with the Mothers first time 1973 in Rome. Mind blowing. Overnite Sensation was the gig. I remember it clear as yesterday.
I love how it borderline sounds like someone just randomly messing around in a music store in the beginning, but is full of masterful coordination. One weird and thin line for sure
Never thought this vid would make it over 1M views but it did ! I hope some of the people that were not aware of Frank's genius have found music to listen to for the upcoming years. And no, 7 years later, I'm not yet approaching its statistical density but now I'm playing in a band we plan to work on the easy teenage version sometime ! Wish me luck !
ive been a musician since is was in 5th grade im 56 still playing professionally. this is probably the most amazing piece of music ive ever seen performed by such incredibly gifted players. flabbergasted!
What’s great about this is that it’s just on the cusp of being so complicated that it’s trivial and unenjoyable. It’s right there where it’s still actual music you can listen to and not just complex noise that’s complex for the sake of it.
I saw Frank 6 times over the years, from 1977 to 1988, and every single time was a revelation. It wasn't until ZPZ came along that anyone got anywhere close to that same experience. If Dweezil comes to your country you need to GO! It's the nearest you'll ever get to the real thing.
I'm an old time huge Zappa fan. My nephew got me the Zappa Plays Zappa DVD for Christmas and I was completely mind-blown when I watched it. Incredible quality all the way around. Dweezil did his Pops proud!!
Clearly people don't listen to enough avant-garde classical music. Number one is about the same as a John Cage or Morton Feldman piece: not music to play at a party or anything, but pretty interesting. And number two is dope.
It's cus it sounds unnatural in context of song, it's the same way bucketheads super fast solos kinda sound like garbage cus it sound unnatural and the bars are so complex you just can't follow along
It's all matter of opinion and Zappa understood this. It feels like he wrote a jazz fusion piece for the sake of writing one and having a challenge. Whether you think it's a good song or not isnt the point, but the fact that the performance has to be top notch for it to convey the right emotion. Now, with that being said, I think this song is trash 🤣
There's a ton of FZ's music I love (been listening since the 70's) there is some I don't care for but I think this FZ masterpiece rocks and I think that Dweezel does a damn good job of reproducing his dads music and what could I ever say about Terry ?
I wouldn’t go so far as to say the piece itself sounds incredible, but I would definitely say incredulity is a feeling the piece invokes. It may not be melodic but these guys can play it this exact 100% identical way Every. Single. Time. That blows my mind. The song doesn’t really fit in to anything, you can’t necessarily imagine anyone DOING anything to this song, but the sheer complexity of it and the flawless execution leave me in awe every time.
One my faves of Frank's tunes.. and they pulled this off as amazingly as Frank's band (that included Bozzio, of course) did on the original Zappa In New York version. Incredible! I saw Dweez, Bozzio, Vai, et al play this on the first ZPZ tour. So nice to see a recorded version of it posted here, thanks. If you ever have the chance to see ZPZ live, DO IT.
On purpose. From what I understand, he wrote it as kind of a joke. But with Frank, it's hard to tell. So they proved they could play his "unplayable" composition.
Anthony Genzale Nope. I never assumed I was the only one that understood music theory. I just assumed that the guy that though all the song was “da-Pa-da-da-da-dum” and anyone could play it didn’t understand music theory. Fine. Maybe you do understand music theory. Then you’re just being dumb. Works for me. I amend my statement: “Found the guy being idiotic.”
Anthony Genzale Zappa wrote lots of good music. This is just an experimental one. Listen to Cosmic Debis for example, it’s funny and entertaining and there is a great George Duke solo in the middle of it.
It's one thing as a musician to pick up (or sit behind) an instrument and shred it like a boss, but it's quite another to take an incredible, complex piece of music, written by someone else, note for note and play it like they do. Bozzio does an amazing job with it as do the rest of them here. Fine tribute to an amazing composer. We miss you Frank!
Just so people know, the reason this piece is so complex is because it makes use of nested tuplets. This basically means tuplets within tuplets. For example you could have triplets within triplets, and you work out how that sounds basically by taking the base triplets as a kind of base tempo. In other words, understand them not as triplets, but as normal non-tuplet notes at a higher tempo. The triplets within those triplets then, become triplets relative to those higher tempo normal notes, this is how you calculate the speed at which they are played. It's awkward to explain, and incredibly difficult to do. The result sounds like random notes, but ultimately those nested tuplets return to the master tempo of the song after they're played, so it's possible, but very difficult, to have a steady pulse underneath (as Bozzio achieves with the hi-hat). Of course, nested tuplets become pretty much unplayable at high master tempos, at least with precision anyway, so they're usually beholden to a moderate master tempo. Also worth mentioning is that triplets within triplets is only the tip of the iceberg - I'm pretty sure this piece has triplets nested within quintuplets. It's all very cerebral; Bozzio must be losing years off his life behind that kit.
So... Assuming for example, notes in groupings of 4, at 40bpm. 70bpm for instance, would be in 7 relative to that. Is the next step to assume groupings of 4 at 70bpm, and play for instance, in 7 relative to that? That would lead to playing time signatures with decimals, not really possible for a human. Well... It's getting late, I may be overthinking this, or proposing insane examples. :D
Never been a more intelligent group of musicians than this incarnation of Frank's band. Dweezil is doing this music true honor. I guess it's really in the genes.
Talking Heads. Not a more intelligent but not less influential. Listen to their album Remain in Light, it'll blow your mind. The 2nd and 3rd track - mind blowed for sure. Brian Eno & TH were the giants of creativity as well, as Zappa was.
Mark Doney-Mccloud oddly enough I always wanted to be a drummer but in school they talked me into playing the trumpet. I hated it and quit after two weeks. (I wish I woulda kept playing and learned to read music lol) Anyways, around age 15 I taught myself guitar (and still play to this day) but I always had a love for drums. I tried to play them here and there over the years but there’s just too much going on at once for me haha and I can play in time but I shouldn’t be the one keeping the timing going lol So when I see a kit like this I’m just in awe haha
absolutely wonderfully performed by DZ & company... Frank Zappa truly was the quintessential brilliant modern day composer . . .still brings a tear to my eye when listening to this fabulous piece to this day.
had to look it up myself.... ""I'll tell you a really great Vinnie story. He's one of the most amazing sight-readers that ever existed on the instrument. One day we were in a Frank rehearsal, this was early '80s, and Frank brought in this piece of music called "Mo 'N Herb's Vacation." Just unbelievably complex. All the drums were written out, just like "The Black Page" except even more complex. There were these runs of like 17 over 3 and every drumhead is notated differently. And there were a whole bunch of people there, I think Bozzio was there." "Vinnie had this piece of music on the stand to his right. To his left he had another music stand with a plate of sushi on it, okay? Now the tempo of the piece was very slow, like "The Black Page." And then the first riff came in, [mimics bizarre Zappa-esque drum rhythm patterns] with all these choking of cymbals, and hi-hat, ruffs, spinning of rototoms and all this crazy stuff. And I saw Vinnie reading this thing. Now, Vinnie has this habit of pushing his glasses up with the middle finger of his right hand. Well I saw him look at this one bar of music, it was the last bar of music on the page. He started to play it as he was turning the page with one hand, and then once the page was turned he continued playing the riff with his right hand, as he reached over with his left hand, grabbed a piece of sushi and put it in his mouth, continued the riff with his left hand and feet, pushed his glasses up, and then played the remaining part of the bar." "It was the sickest thing I have ever seen. Frank threw his music up in the air. Bozzio turned around and walked away. I just started laughing." - Steve Vai
That is obviously extremely difficult music to play but is also godawful to listen to. Came in wanting to be blown away and love it. Amazing musicians.
If you didn't know this piece and didn't read the title, you would have no problem picking this out as a Zappa composition. Mad skills there by those talented musicians!
Is it complex indeed and abstract but FOR a reason : this piece was written by Zappa as a test for drummer Terry Bozzio, in order to see if he had what it takes to play with the master. Then, above the dromsolo, he added the melody which is an amazing feast to my understanding of music. Respect !
@@sebione3576 Perfect pitch does not have anything to do with the rhythm portion of this song. You definitely cannot play this song correctly without musical knowledge. You can probably go "close enough" by relying on pure memory though.
@@thanussongprasart2568 I feel like memory, understanding practically what you have to play and being able to count can get you through this piece perfectly.
That intro for Vai sounded so much like Frank that I spent the rest of the video searching the guitarists for him. Only then did I read the notes. Good job DZ!
While virtuosity for virtuosity's sake isn't something I care for, this is very different. I think we've entered this weird cultural phase of absolute levelling in which anything can be art, and sometimes that just feels like a get out clause for people who can't do stuff or are too lazy to learn to do stuff. There's lots of incredible minimal art out there, but there's also a lot of chancers. This is virtuosity (or craft) and art working together, and I think we need to return to such values.
I played in a band with a dude who was a huge Zappa fan and memorized this. He’d play it in the middle of our set as sorta of an interlude. Incredible piece of music.
Zappa could really make you go out there! This is thinking outside the box! Zappa remained an explorer all his life. He wanted to hear the litlle dots on the paper. And he was a master composer, arranjer and performer. Zappa really pushed the boundaries of music and also of our perception of music. He made us understand it a little better. Like George Duke said, "I can't imagine what he would be doing today. I miss him." - I just wanted to say that.
Ah, that explains. This song has odd note grouping. In western, the beats are divided into halves, quarters, 1/8th etc. Sometimes, we divide into 3, called triplets. In eastern music, esp in Carnatic, we divide beats in 3s 5s 7s etc This sort of grouping is used in this song. Also, we use quite bit of polyrhythms as well.
Frank Zappa was the Gene Krupa of Progressive rock. Even though they played different instruments, they both redefined how they were used. Just imagine where Jazz would be without Krupa and where Progressive Rock/Metal would be without Zappa.
That really depends on what kind of music you like. Zappa was not a pretentious guy. He just liked to push the boundaries of what was generally considered musically acceptable. However, if you don't enjoy experimental music then it's not something that you would probably like. Unlistenable? Maybe to you. Pretentious? Not at all.
Wow, thank you! Of the thousands of songs written by FZ, this is in my top 5 favorites and my #1 answer when drummers talk about the hardest drum pieces to play, it always ends the conversation. And who better to play it with Zappa plays Zappa but the 1st of 2 drummers to ever play it right...Terry Bozzio
