By Tom Mulhern
Guitar Player, February 1983
Before exiting his teens, Steve Vai had made a suitable impression on Frank
Zappa. While attending Boston's Berklee School of Music, he diligently transcribed
and arranged some of Zappa's pieces, including a piece entitles "Black
Napkins" ["Zoot Allures"]. Upon hearing the young guitarist's
unsolicited transcription and an accompanying cassette of his band, Zappa offered
Steve work as a transcriber.
One of 22-year-old Vai's roles in the Zappa ensemble entails playing extremely
difficult passages and creating sound effects with his guitar. Apparently, Zappa
is pleased: When introducing the band in concert, Frank often describes Vai
fondly as "our little Italian virtuoso".
Born on June 6, 1960 in Carleplace, Long Island, New York, Steve moved to Boston
when 17, and went to Berklee College of Music. There he participated in various
bands. One in particular, a fusion ensemble called Morning Thunder, performed
the arrangement that landed Vai the job with Zappa.
Starting on accordion at the age of 11, Steve soon switched to a $5.00 Tempo
electric. Lessons with local instructors followed, and Vai progressed steadily,
enrolling in a music theory class and performing in rock bands. After graduating
high school, Steve enrolled at Berklee, and in just two years he developed his
skills sufficiently to become one of the many gifted young musicians who have
gained exposure in Zappa's ensemble.
To date, he's played on four albums with Frank Zappa: "Tinsel Town Rebellion",
"You Are What You Is", "Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning
Witch", and "The Man From Utopia". In the following interview,
Steve talks about his role on these albums, as well as his approach to soloing
and the difficulties and rewards of transcribing.
Q: Transcribing is a very difficult art. How did you first become involved
with it?
A: While at Berklee. I had a roommate who transcribed a Larry Carlton
solo, and I'd never heard of transcribing. He showed it to me and I said, "You
figured this out from the record?" I thought it was a neat idea, so I started
transcribing all kinds of stuff. One of the first things I transcribed was Allan
Holdsworth's solo from "In The Dead Of Night" ["U.K.", Polydor,
PD-1-6146]. Then I did "Europa (Earth's Cry Heaven's Smile)" by Santana
["Amigos", Columbia, JC33576]. I really got into it. When I heard
"The Black Page" by Zappa, I almost died. I couldn't believe it.
Q: So you were taken aback by the complexity of Zappa's music.
A: I was just awed by it, and I tried to transcribe it. It took me
months. I did a rough copy of it, and then every week I'd add something to it.
That's when I was first exposed to artificial groupings - like when you take
an odd number of notes, say, and put them over one or two beats. It's just out
of your ordinary type of rhythmic structure. Here's an example of this kind
of proportional grouping: Start with a normal grouping of a dotted eighth-note
with a sixteenth. This is a normal grouping; you take the beat and it is divided
into one or two or four - but it's even. Now, when you take something like five
and put it over an even beat, it's called an artificial grouping, or a polyrhythm.
That is, you have two rhythms going at once. And that's what I discovered about
"The Black Page": There are a lot of polyrhythmic things in it. And
I remember saying, "If you can do this, you can do that." One thing
led to another and I transcribed "The Black Page" ["Zappa In
New York"]. I sent it to Frank and he wrote back telling me that he liked
it, and he offered me a job transcribing. I took it, of course: Frank was my
favorite.
Q: How old were you then?
A: I was 18 or 19 when I transcribed all the stuff that's in the book.
I started transcribing then, and I just finished, right before the 1982 tour.
Q: How do you go about transcribing Frank's songs?
A: Well, besides doing transcriptions of guitar solos and drum solos,
I've also done other things for him: lead sheets and orchestral stuff. Now,
in order to accurately do a song that needs special care, such as "Waka
/ Jawaka" [from "Waka / Jawaka"], which was really tough, you
have to take the masters and make several tapes of as many different tracks
as you can get, because with the real close horn section in that song, it's
almost impossible - if not impossible - to hear the individual voices. The human
ear won't hear more than four voices moving in a closed-voice motion individually.
Q: Are the harmonies just too dense?
A: Yeah. When your four horns hit a chord, it's really hard to hear.
So you have to go in and really tweeze-up the mix. Now, for those of you who
want to transcribe something that complex and don't have the 24-track machine
or the masters to help you, I've come across a couple of things that are really
helpful. If the album you're transcribing from is well produced, and if you
have a stereo tape recorder, here's what to do. Record the song onto the 2-track
machine, and when you play it back, bring one channel down all the way, and
the other channel into the middle of the mix. And whatever was panned to one
side in the original mix, you'll hear better. So if there were four voices mixed,
say, hard left - a lot of recordings these days have parts panned either hard
left, hard right, or in the center - you can get a good idea what's happening
in that channel. Then listen the other channel, too.
Q: Any other tips?
A: If the music is going by very fast, you can bring it down to half
speed. That's one of the techniques I used throughout some of the big band transcribing
for Frank. He had me working on "Greggery Peccary" ["Studio Tan"].
About 98% of it was written out, but there are sections that weren't. A lot
was just improvised or pieced together. I had to tweeze through the score and
transcribe the vocal part. It's strange to see, because the human voice has
notes to it, but they're in such an order that they don't sound like notes from
an instrument; the overall tone of the voice is completely different. But if
you analyze a voice - for instance, take what I'm saying right now and stop
on every syllable - you'll hear a note. There are notes to it. The thing that
makes it sound like a human voice is the articulation - the slurs and dynamics
and so forth.
Q: Has any of this vocal transcribing been translated to guitar lines?
A: As you'll see on the next album, "The Man From Utopia",
there's a song called "The Jazz Discharge Party Hats". On it, Frank
does a part that's half talk and half singing. And I transcribed that part and
doubled it on guitar. And it sounds really weird - like George Benson from Venus.
It sounds so bizarre. If you listen hard enough after you write down the notes
in each syllable, and use the right articulation markings to phrase the notes
so that they sound like they're in a sentence, you'll come out with some really
strange effects.
Q: Did you major in guitar at Berklee?
A: Overall, I was just trying to get a good grasp on modal harmony
and arranging for big bands. I started to go into music scoring for movies,
although I never quite got to it, because I started working for Frank.
Q: What did you see as the school's strong points?
A: It was really good for musicians who weren't on such a competitive
level. Anytime you wanted, you could knock on someone's door and jam your face
off. There are a lot of really great musicians there. And for the person who
wants to really learn something by playing with other people, that's the place
to do it, because there are lots of musicians and a lot of opportunities to
play.
Q: How much of an education have you gained by working with Frank?
A: Well, I'll put it like this: The stuff I've learned from Frank you
can't acquire for money. Besides learning how to deal with perfection in the
studio, I've learned how to deal with the ropes on the road, which is a very
tough place - especially the way Frank tours. He doesn't tour like a normal
rock group; he has to keep going and going and going. We went three solid months
without breaks, five or six gigs a week. That in itself is a total learning
experience. Just working with the man's genius inspires you to become as much
of a perfectionist as he is. You strive for that.
Q: Is he really rough with the musicians?
A: I think there're a lot of false rumors around about Frank as far
as his being the guy with the big iron whip or something. It's weird because
he's totally mellow. If you can't do something, it's fine: Don't do it and he'll
experiment with your abilities, and he'll get you to do things that you didn't
think you could do.
Q: He just pushes you a little harder?
A: Well, he doesn't exactly push you; he gets you to push yourself.
And another great learning experience with Frank besides working for him is
playing with the musicians you're exposed to. I mean, each of the guys in Frank's
band has a special ability. Take someone like Ed Mann, the percussionist. In
my opinion, he's the best I've ever seen at what he does. And I'm sure that's
Frank's opinion, too. You can take a piece of music and hand it to him, and
if it's totally un-sight-readable, he'll take it home and learn it. A lot of
people say they can sight-read anything, but they don't know. Let them try to
sight-read some of Frank's stuff. But Ed's the kind of guy who can learn something
like this. And Tommy Mars, the keyboard player, too.
Q: What amazes you about him?
A: His ear. He can hear something and just know it. He knows all of
Frank's old standards. And [guitarist / singer] Ray White's vocal abilities.
But with Frank, you can audition and not know how to read, and you wouldn't
completely lose the gig right away. You just have to have something about you
that you can do that will fit the band real well. If you can read, it's a plus.
It also helps to have a sense of humor.
Q: So, in all, it's not a bad gig?
A: Look, as far as the money goes, I've saved up over the years, and
now I've got my house to show for it.
Q: So, you don't blow all your money on guitars and drugs.
A: Not at all. I don't take any drugs, and I have just a couple of
guitars that I really enjoy. I'd like to do what Frank does: spend all my money
on music. But as you can see, even if the pay is nothing, you're still coming
out way ahead when you work for Frank. And I wish that every serious musician
could get a crack at it. It really is an incredible learning experience. It's
like the school of Zappa.
Q: It's a kind of a music unto itself.
A: You sure can't find anything like him. Also, the guy has a great
sense of humor, and is able to incorporate that in the music, too. Listen to
something like "Valley Girl" ["Drowning Witch"] and then
listen to something like 'The Purple Lagoon" ["Zappa In New York"]
or "Greggery Peccary" ["Studio Tan"] or "Bogus Pomp"
["Orchestral Favorites"]. Where does someone come off being able to
do that?
Q: When you come into a band like Frank's, how are the older pieces
learned?
A: Well, Frank rinses out his band a lot, and it can be very troublesome
for him to teach a song and then have to go back and teach it again. So he hires
someone who knows the songs and who was perhaps at the original learning of
it, and Frank has him teach it to the band. And in this case, that person is
[bassist] Arthur Barrow. He's a great teacher. He'll come in and spend the whole
day in rehearsals teaching us the songs, and then Frank will come in and spiff
them up. I think that works really well because Arthur is a great musician,
a great bassist, and he can play keyboards very well. And since he knows the
parts, he can teach the keyboard player and the bass player their parts. He
teaches me parts, too. He'll go through all the hard music with us, and then
Frank will come in and give it the final tweeze. With a new band, a song's never
quite the same, but Frank compensates for that by changing the song or adding
something else. An example of that is "Peaches En Regalia". You listen
to the three versions ["Hot Rats", "Fillmore East", and
"Tinsel Town Rebellion"], and each is different. You know what I mean?
Q: Did you finish up at Berklee?
A: No. I was in my fourth semester - I went straight summers and all
- and right at the very end of the fourth semester I got the call from Frank
to start transcribing. I was living in a Boston apartment about the size of
my kitchen, with mice that you had to wrestle with. It was incredible. Well,
working for Frank is a full-time thing, you can't go to college and work for
Zappa - it just doesn't work. So it was a choice, and of course I started working
for Frank. Right away, I was transcribing anywhere between 13 and 15 hours a
day. That's nerve-wracking. There's a huge stack of my transcriptions that I'm
sure he'll eventually find use for. God, I really worked my ass off. At the
beginning I was getting paid nothing - I was getting paid like $10.00 a page,
which is what a lead sheet transcriber would get. And I used to cram this stuff
on the page and cram all the staffs so that Frank would see that I wasn't trying
to rip him off.
Q: Were you earning enough money transcribing to make it worthwhile?
A: Well, $10.00 a page was still a lot of money for someone who was
living on $10.00 a week! And I remember the first one I did that I was on salary
for was "Outside Now" ["Joe's Garage, Acts II & III"].
Then I did "He Used To Cut The Grass" ["Joe's Garage, Acts II
& III"]. And this stuff was transcribed using a cassette recorder that
was so small and weak and lousy. It was really hard. I used to sit and listen
to one bar of music maybe a hundred times - hours and hours and hours of music.
But it was fun; I enjoyed it. I felt useful. I was learning. I think that transcribing
is one of the biggest learning experiences for a musician, and it's really good
for a person.
Q: Did you ever transcribe classical pieces or any jazz?
A: I didn't see anything challenging about the jazz stuff because it
was just straight up and down, arpeggiated, eighth-note, laid-back, swing-type
stuff. There's no way you'd see meters like 13 against 16. But then again, I've
missed certain qualities that you can learn by transcribing stuff like that,
such as learning how to hear chord changes go by at the speed of light, because
I haven't done much of that. Most of Frank's solos are played over a pedal tone.
So I suggest that if someone is going to take up transcribing for a learning
experience, they should try to cover a lot of different realms, including classical,
jazz, and rock. Take the gruntiest Hendrix solo and try to write it out as colorfully
and accurately as possible. Also, do a Bird [saxophonist Charlie Parker] solo
or something similar. If you can do that and distinguish the difference on paper,
you're ahead of the game.
Q: Has transcribing drums and other instruments besides guitar made
you a better sight-reader?
A: Oh, yeah. But I don't stress sight-reading in my playing, because
I'm the kind of guy who's not satisfied with sight-reading. It's not real. As
far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't want to have to sight-read any music to play
on the spot, because in order to get a piece of music to groove really well,
it has to be played quite a few times. Then you really become a part of it.
Sight-reading doesn't give you that chance, unless you're Tommy Tedesco or someone
like that. I'm sure he might have trouble with some of Frank's stuff, too. But
transcribing definitely helps your sight-reading. It'll help your ears; it'll
help your sense of time. It's a miracle drug. It's really worth it. Just don't
ever try to transcribe too much at one time.
Q: How did you make the transition from transcribing for Frank to playing
for him in the band?
A: Well, I transcribed a song called "The Deathless Horsie"
["Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar Some More"], and Frank asked me to learn
it on the guitar. He knew I played guitar because I'd sent him a tape he'd said
he liked. So I told him I'd try. I learned the song, and I guess it was pretty
good because he used it on the record and went into the studio and doubled the
original guitar part. And if you listen to the album, you can hear two guitars
- I'm playing exactly the same part as Frank; I doubled the solo. You can hear
the distinction, though. So when that happened, Frank had written a piece which
turned into "The Second Movement Of The Sinister Footwear". It sort
of looks like the other transcriptions looked - really weird. I learned that,
and I think he was impressed with it. So, he asked me if I'd do some overdubs
for "You Are What You Is". So I ended up redoing about 80% of the
guitars on the album. He had me down to rehearsal, and I got the gig.
Q: How much freedom does Zappa afford you? Does he say where to do specific
solos or what notes to play?
A: It varies. At times, he'll hear something that he wants me to play
exactly and I'll do that. At other times, he'll say do something like this,
and at times he'll just take the chain off and I can go crazy.
Q: On the song "Drowning Witch", it sounds as if you played
a processed electric sitar.
A: Actually, on that song I had a live guitar track, and then I overdubbed
two more guitars during that real weird section. Also, during some of the real
fast sections, I played a Hofner bass at half speed - one lick actually - and
then the tape was returned to normal speed, which makes it sound twice as fast.
That's a really fast section. As a matter of fact, I think [percussionist] Ed
Mann was the only one playing very accurately - that's a ridiculously difficult
part on a stringed instrument. And I doubled it on guitar at regular speed.
But in order to really make it speak well, I doubled it at half speed on the
Hofner bass. It sounds really weird - sort of like a surf guitar when it's recorded
at half speed and brought back to normal speed. It's really punchy.
Q: What solos did you do? Does Frank prefer to do most of the solos?
A: Frank does all the solos, which suits me fine. He's a great guitar
player, you know? Even onstage there's actually only one song where I get an
extended solo, so to speak. That's on "Stevie's Spanking" [not on
an album]. It works like this: Frank does a solo for about eight bars and I
do a solo for X - whatever it is. I try not to make it too long, though. Then
Frank does another solo, and finally we both play together - which I really
enjoy. It's strange to hear some of the things I come up with when Frank and
me solo together. For the most part, though, he solos all the time. I'm pretty
much a parts player, and I don't mind.
Q: So your role is more like that of a horn player.
A: Yeah. But the parts are never boring, that's for sure.
Q: Do you see yourself primarily as a rhythm guitarist?
A: Well, I'm not really credited on the albums very often as a rhythm
guitarist. For instance, on "You Are What You Is", the first album
I played on, I'm credited for "Strat abuse." And for "Tinsel
Town Rebellion", I was credited for playing rhythm guitar - and for 90%
of the time I did play rhythm. On "You Are What You Is", I did some
strange things. For instance, the solo on "Teenage Wind" is me. It's
not really a solo; it's just like background, maniac-type guitar.
Q: Do you have any favorite solos that you've done?
A: I don't know. I really don't do any solos. The only solo I've done
on record is in "Teenage Wind". But someone might get an idea of the
weird things I might be able to do by hearing some of the songs on "The
Man From Utopia": "The Jazz Discharge Party Hats" or "Dangerous
Kitchen", or a song called "Moggio". It was arranged with really
nice, beautifully arpeggiated chords with odd meters in it. But there's one
great thing about the way Frank writes odd meters. As far as I'm concerned,
he doesn't just write odd meters for the sake of writing odd meters. If something
is in an odd meter, it's the effect he wanted. So this song started out with
the arpeggiated chords, and then it went to a guitar solo, and then it went
back to the arpeggiated chords, with a big, long melody on top of it. And the
melody's really tough, but it's nice. The only thing that's in the final mix
of the album is the melody. Frank just sliced the melody off and put it on the
record. It's a toughie - it's sort of like "St. Alfonso's Pancake Breakfast"
["Apostrophe"], but it's real nice, and that might show me off for
a few seconds. But I'm not really too concerned about that.
Q: You do a lot of sound effects with your Strat.
A: Like on "We're Turning Again" [not on record] where I
do Hendrix-style things - Adrian Belew rip-offs [laughs]. Well, some nights
it works, some nights it doesn't - just like Hendrix, I guess. As some magazine
said about me, it's my never-ending quest to be more like Adrian Belew [laughs].
No offense against Adrian - I love the way he plays.
Q: How do you like being called an imitator?
A: I don't really care, because the crux of the biscuit is if somebody
hears it and likes it, then that's all that matters. Who cares if somebody says
it sounds like someone else? Let's face it: I'm not original. Neither is anybody
else, except the Shaggs [a vocal group from the Northeast].
Q: On "Teenage Prostitute" ["Drowning Witch"], there's
a guitar tone that sounds a lot like "Peter Gunn".
A: The lick is Peter Gunn, and when I went in to record it, that part
was overdubbed. When I heard it on the record, I was really shocked, because
the sound is completely a result of processing. I played my Strat through a
couple of effects - nothing really serious - but when [engineer] Mark Pinske
and Frank Zappa got done with it, it sounded like "Peter Gunn".
Q: When you're playing especially difficult rhythmic parts, who do you
key off of?
A: I try to tune in to Ed Mann, because he's the guy who's mostly on
top of it. But then again the drums are there, too; Chad Wackerman has a really
good sense of time, and in this band, you need it. Now, my time wavers a little,
but with a real good band - a rhythm section like [bassist] Scott Thunes and
Chad Wackerman, I can key into that and hear the beats.
Q: Do you and the band work from any transcriptions of the old material?
A: Here's what happens sometimes: Frank once said, "Let's do "Redunzl"
["Studio Tan"]." So he made me a tape of a version he did with
the band from "Roxy And Elsewhere", which was great. I took combinations
of that tape and the version that was released on the album, and put together
a score. I made copies and brought them down to rehearsal. Arthur Barrow taught
the song, and Frank came in and tweezed it. So we did "Redunzl" on
the last tour. That's one example of how my transcriptions help the band. Arthur
does transcriptions, too: He did "Zomby Woof" ["Over-Nite Sensation"].
Q: With all the material that Frank has, how difficult is it for you
and the other musicians to prepare a set?
A: Well, from what I've heard, Frank used to get one set together and
work it so that it was really happening. With this particular band, we had about
85 songs. We've been together for over a year - for "Drowning Witch"
and "The Man From Utopia". Arthur helped a lot. If Frank thought we
had the song okay, we would work on another song. With Tommy Mars, who had been
in the band for five years, and Ed Mann, and me, who had been listening to his
music for so long, it didn't take too long to learn the songs. You just listen
to the record and learn it. In order to get it right in Frank's eyes, it might
take a while. I guess he thought we could learn a lot of songs. Learning 85
songs was a little too much for me, because some of the stuff is so hard. I
have to keep playing it to keep it fresh under my fingers. A lot of the lines
don't fall on guitar very well, and it takes an awful lot of chops for you to
execute the lines in a way that Frank wants to hear them. So, when you have
85 songs, and 20 of them are really hard, you have to do those 20 every night
or else they get a little sloppy. We rehearsed in soundchecks too, and I had
a guitar in my hotel room. But towards the end of the tour I didn't have a guitar
in the room anymore, and some of the guitar parts then started to get a bit
spotty.
Q: Did you find it difficult learning Warren Cuccurullo's country style
licks for "Harder Than Your Husband" ["You Are What You Is"]?
A: I just turned on the guitar's real trebly pickup position, brought
the volume down a bit, and held the whammy bar under my wrist to get that country
sound. Then I picked the chords and vibrated the whammy bar to give it that
pedal-steel string effect. I was going to use a mike stand for slide, but Frank
didn't want me to.
Q: When you're doing a solo, what do you focus on in your mind?
A: I haven't had enough soloing experience in front of large quantities
of people to really sit back and say, "Okay, I'm going to open up my mind
and do what I like," because I think of quite a few different things. Back
when I was in Morning Thunder, I had a really open field, and I could solo for
as long as I wanted. Now, it's according to the context of what else is going
on. Sometimes I have to solo around a synthetic mode - something like John McLaughlin
might play - which isn't derived from the major scale like the typical modes.
Lydian, for instance, starts on the fourth degree of the major scale. If you're
in the key of G, and you start on the fourth note, you'll still be in the key
of G, but it's called the C lydian. A synthetic mode, on the other hand, isn't
derived from the basic diatonic major scale system. You make up a scale from
scratch, and then you can build triads on it and devise a whole system around
it.
Q: How do you work within such a non-standard framework?
A: In a situation like that, I figure out a lick that starts at X and
goes to Y. I know it will work because I already had to figure it out. That's
one way of doing a solo. But in my eyes, a scale or lick is just a device to
show you what fingerings or notes are capable of being played. A lot of people
get tangled up in scales and licks, and the next thing you know, they're doing
finger exercises, scales, and licks; and it sounds like it.
Q: Do you have any other approaches?
A: Another thing I do is not think about playing. If you don't think
about it, you'd be surprised at what you come out with. It's like asking a centipede
how it walks. How do you put one leg over the other? And he'll start to trip
all over. If you think about what you're doing, it's really hard. One of the
most difficult things to get away from - and I'm sure most musicians will know
what I'm talking about - is the egotistical playing. It's very hard to get away
from the fact that you're onstage, and that people are looking at you and you're
trying to impress them. Frank is one of the people who can surmount that. I
think subconsciously you're trying to impress the people in the audience, rather
than trying to make a musical statement. As far as I'm concerned, many players
don't try to make a serious statement. Once they've been around for a while
they may get totally fed up with that kind of shit.
Q: They want to singe everyone's eyebrows off with their lightning speed
and tricks.
A: Right. Totally egotistical, but subconscious. And that's hard to
get away from. I do it myself. You're up in front of people, and there's nothing
you can do about it. It's a strange feeling. The people came to be entertained.
Now, by egotistical, I mean you're going to play differently when you're in
your room playing than when you're onstage in front of even 20 people. It's
just something psychological, and that's going to put a clamp on your soloing.
So if you can just clear your mind of everything, and let your fingers go, strange
things will happen.
Q: What do you think makes a good solo?
A: A good solo is like a good book. It'll start out in sentences, or
a phrase. It will be in paragraphs, and have pauses, and then it will go and
have a great ending - a climax. And it should make sense that way, whether it's
a big solo or a little one. There's one solo I really like, which Eddie Van
Halen does in "Push Comes To Shove" ["Fair Warning", Warner
Bros., HS 3540]. You just have to remember not to throw in all your tricks in
that short a time. A lot of people try to shoot their load in the first ten
seconds of the solo, and it looks totally preposterous and sounds even more
ridiculous.
Q: How do you organize a solo into sentences or phrases?
A: I sometimes develop a solo by taking a story I have in my head and
reciting it. And as you say the story, sing it. No one will hear you singing
because the amp's too loud. Then play what you're singing. That way, you're
going to get sentences. And you do it that way and listen to what you play,
you'll be shocked. It's a totally different approach.
Q: What sets the tone of your solos?
A: When I solo, my realm of thinking is totally derived from the mood,
the vamp, the musicians, and the audience. It's a lot of different factors.
I can't get onstage and say I'm going to do this every night, because it really
doesn't work that way. I mean, a song based on an E lydian-based vamp in 3/4
gives a totally different soloing aura than something like [saxophonist John
Coltrane's] "Giant Steps", which has a chord change every eighth of
a second. You can't think of the same thing. A lot of people give the rap that
they play from the heart. They don't read music, but they play from the heart.
And you'd be surprised how hard that really is. A lot of people say it, but
I believe that only a few can understand what that phrase really means. Everyone
understands it to a degree - a lot of people may get uptight at that statement,
but I think that to truly play from the heart, only a few can experience that.
Q: Do you have any favorite guitarists?
A: Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page. I like Brian May very much, too. I also
like Ed Van Halen - he's a good high-energy rocker - and Randy Rhoads, and of
course. Frank.
Q: Are any jazz players of interest to you?
A: Joe Pass, who is a standard jazz player. Oh, Ted Greene, of course.
Did you ever hear his album, "Solo Guitar" [Professional Music Products
(14731 E. Franklin Ave., Tustin, CA 92680), A-5010]? He's a maniac the way he
makes the rhythm and melody go at the same time. When I was about 15, I bought
his book, "Chord Chemistry" [Dale Zdenek Pub., Box 3245, Westlake
Village, CA 91361]. It's amazing. I learned so much just by reading through
that book and trying to utilize it. When I borrowed his album from my guitar
teacher, I just flipped out. I couldn't believe the stuff he was doing. And
it's so mellow and it's so cool. Really enjoyable. Some of the chord structures
are ridiculous.
Q: What kind of equipment did you use on the last tour with Zappa?
A: I had a '76 Fender Strat, which had a circuit card in it built by
[Zappa equipment specialist] Midget Sloatman. There was an overdrive control,
which had a switch and a pot, and there was another pot for a ring modulator.
There was also another device that had a 500Hz boost turned one way and about
a 6k boost when it was turned the other way. On the output plug was an Alembic
Stratoblaster [preamp], which gives another boost around 6k. Then there was
an on/off switch that would turn the batteries to the card on and off. Whenever
you put a direct guitar through any circuit, it changes the tone.
Q: Why didn't you have a bypass switch?
A: There's really no such thing as bypassing it with one switch, because
there's always going to be a change of tone. I didn't want that, so I had one
switch put in that would turn the battery on and off, this completely bypasses
the card. Then, in order to keep the battery from draining all the time, I had
a switch to place the card in the circuit - kind of like a standby.
Q: Did you also have four standard controls?
A: I had one volume and a five-way selector. The selector was a standard
5-position model with three phase switches. So I could put the coils in series,
in parallel, or off. Because I could have any of the pickups on or off, I was
able to get combinations of any pickup, with any type of polarity.
Q: What kind of pickups were you using?
A: I put two Strat pickups in and a dummy pickup. The dummy pickup
goes between the other two pickups face-down in the guitar. It acts as a humbucker
and cancels the noise of the single-coil pickups. But the problem with a dummy
pickup is that it has to be the exact same model as the other two it's bucking.
It takes the noise out from the lights, and it's great.
Q: How long had you been using a dummy pickup?
A: I've always had a dummy pickup on Strats. In the treble position
I had a DiMarzio X2N, which is a real high-output humbucker. It gave me a lot
of chops. Then we did this gig in Mannheim, Germany, and the guitar got stuck
in a rainstorm. The whole circuit melted and it had to be ripped out of the
guitar - the whole card had to be thrown away. From there on, all I used was
one pickup and a volume control. One of the problems I had with the dummy pickup
was this: It's on all the time; it's taped up, but it picks up some of the harmonics
in the body.
Q: Did you try to remedy this?
A: Not being the guitar workman, I went in there with a Dremel [drill]
tool to put the humbucker in and drilled all this space out. It left a big cavity,
plus there was the cavity for the circuit card. Then, whenever I'd hit a note,
it would vibrate in the guitar like it was an acoustic, and the dummy pickup
would pick it up and feed back like crazy. So, the guitar was really hurting.
It's great in the studio room, though.
Q: Was there a tremolo on it?
A: I had a Floyd Rose Tremolo System on it. It's great.
Q: What kind of amps did you use on the road?
A: I was using Frank's Acoustic with two 12s for a dirtier sound. And
my pedalboard consisted of an MXR Distortion+, an MXR flanger, a Cry-Baby wah-wah,
a Boss CE-2 Chorus, and an A/B box. The A/B box enabled me to switch between
two different amps. Onstage I had a Roland Jazz Chorus amp with two 12s set
to a real clean sound. I could switch that on and off, and I could switch to
the Acoustic, which really had some grits to it. But you know me: I always had
the Acoustic on [laughs]. I also had the Coral Electric Sitar and a spare Strat.
The Sitar is Frank's - it's really cool. I can't think of anything that's about
to be released that I used it on, but I really liked playing it.
Q: What are your favorite guitar tricks?
A: Before I put the Floyd Rose on, I used to reach back behind the
nut - between the nut and tuners - and pull on the strings. With the combination
of pulling the string here and using the vibrato bar, you can get some nice
effects. There's also the familiar string tapping. One of the things I've been
doing a lot of lately is walking hand over hand down one string. I also like
to hit harmonics and bring them down with the vibrato bar. You can also hit
notes and lower the vibrato bar until the strings are completely slack.
Q: What's your current main guitar?
A: It's an Oriental blue Performance guitar, made in Hollywood. I had
them custom-make the neck. They do really good work. The guitar also has Schaller
tuning machines and a Floyd Rose Tremolo System. I have a DiMarzio X2N at the
bridge and two more DiMarzio PAFs. It also has an Alembic Stratoblaster preamp.
There are three switches and two knobs: one knob each for volume and tone, one
switch for the Alembic, one to turn the pickups on and off, and a master switch.
With that I can get a Les Paul type setup. I can get the rhythm pickup alone,
rhythm and middle pickup, or just the treble pickup. Then when I turn the master
switch on, I can get either the rhythm and middle, all three pickups, or the
middle and lead pickups.
Q: Why do you wrap the ball ends of the strings around your tuning machines?
A: You have to cut them off anyhow to use the Floyd Rose.
Q: Do the strings last any longer or shorter as a result of using the
Floyd Rose?
A: No. They last about the same amount of time. When a Floyd Rose is
new, I find that I break a lot of strings until the parts break in a bit.
Q: Do you ever teach guitar?
A: I love teaching - in fact, it's one of my favorite pastimes. I only
like to teach students who are really willing to learn - and willing to blow
up the bridge. It's difficult to find students who are capable of working long
hours on what I give them. I try to give my students the same types of things
that my teachers gave me. I really give them a push. It's important to get the
player to want to learn. You have to inspire them.
Q: Since you're so musically inclined, one might ask if you came from
a house full of players.
A: No, I didn't. I'm the only musician in the whole family. My brother
played tuba in high school. Everybody thought I was a freak, because when I
was in high school, I had really long hair, an earring, and a tattoo - all that
garbage. But my parents were always with me through it all. They helped me by
giving me money for lessons. It's hard to find such understanding parents, and
it really makes it easier. I first played accordion - which I was forced to
practice, and which I didn't enjoy - for about three years, starting when I
was around 11. But when it came to playing guitar, my parents were all too happy
to help, and they were interested in what I was doing and what I was playing.
Which is very encouraging.
Q: The accordion was once very popular, but it doesn't seem to have
much favor among contemporary stylists.
A: One of these days I'd like to hook one up to a Marshall stack and
go through the effects and see if I can get some feedback. Definitely think
they should bottle the smell that they give off.
Q: What do you recommend for someone trying to develop their ear?
A: Transcribing is one thing. And sight-singing. What a guitarist can
do that I think is great for developing their ear is what I tell my students:
Sing everything that you play. A lot of times if you sing what you play, you'll
come out with completely different melodies. It's great for your ear. It also
gets your fingers to recognize the neck.
Q: Can you suggest any specific ear-training exercises?
A: There's a great exercise where you play one note on the guitar,
sing a note, and try to play the note you sang on the guitar. This develops
your relative pitch. Say, you play an E and then sing a G #; you don't know
it's a G#, but you look at the guitar and try to identify the interval immediately
and hit that note. It's really hard to get that right and work it up to a fairly
fast pace - one note per second or every two seconds. It's really tough. Another
thing that's really good for your ears is chord identification practice. I used
to use a cheap tape recorder and a cheap 60-minute tape - 99% of all guitarists
have at least this basic setup - and I would just play a series of 100 or 200
chords. You play the chord, play each individual note of the chord, and then
leave a few seconds blank on the tape, which will allow you time to name the
chord. Then listen back to it, and try to name each chord by hearing it. If
you put enough chords on the tape, you'll never be able to remember the chords
simply by their order. Of course, first you have to learn the basic scales and
a bit of chord theory; you must be able to call a chord by name.
Q: How do you apply these skills?
A: If you're up onstage with, say, a keyboard player, and he goes plink
on the piano or synthesizer, you'll be able to identify the note or chord immediately
and be able to play around it. Your ears will be so accustomed to what notes
sound like that your fingers will automatically go to them - due to the first
exercise. Your fingers develop eyes, so to speak. You get to the point where
the key, the scale, and the exercises will mean nothing, and you'll just be
playing. That's when you come out with your best stuff. It's no longer the scale,
or the ego, or whatever.
Q: Do you have a set practice routine?
A: Oh, yeah. I used to divide my day into about 12 hours. The first
nine hours were divided into three equal sections. I used to be ridiculous,
because I would overload myself. I had finger exercises, scales, and chords.
Eventually I added reading. The first hour of, say, exercises I would sit and
do a series of exercises to develop my fingering. Now, chops aren't everything,
but they are a lot. Chops are very important to a musician, because they give
you authority. If you can use them maturely and control them, it lends a lot
of authority to the way you play. I have some really weird coordination exercises
that help me play things that don't sound characteristic of the guitar. They
sound more characteristic of the keyboard. This approach is incorporated in
a lot of licks written by Frank. Most guitarists don't use intervals of ninths
and tenths - they tend to stay in patterns. Expanding like that enhances your
melody playing. Then I would go through all the scales and modes, and I would
write synthetic scales and learn them. Then I would break the chord playing
down. At the end of it all, I would just play. I haven't done that for a while.
Working with Frank, you have to rearrange your day. Soon, I hope to be back
to practicing like that again.
Q: Can you recommend any other books besides Ted Greene's?
A: Yeah. For guitarists interested in strange rhythmic things, they
might try "Rhythms" by Gary Chaffee. It's more than what your average
musician thinks will ever be useful. It's very effective if it's done right.
It's a dying art. There's almost no one out there who will consciously or even
subconsciously use this stuff. It just seems too far out of the ordinary and
too far out of the grasp of what people call sensitive. Many people think that
if they know this stuff they won't be sensitive, emotional, heartful players
anymore. That's total bullshit. I don't believe there's anything wrong with
knowing what the notes are and knowing what the chords are, while still being
a sensitive player. It's a cop-out, because it takes a lot of patience and a
lot of time, energy, and devotion to learn music. And I don't mean just bar
chords and rock licks. It's a cop-out to say, "I play from the heart. I
don't have to read music." You don't have to read music to be a good musician,
but to make a statement like that isn't right, either. You can take all the
theory in the world and make it an effective part of your playing, without sounding
mechanical. But a lot of people, when they are learning the mechanics of it,
sound mechanical, because that's their realm of thinking at the time. But a
good, mature player will be able to incorporate mechanics and sensitivity and
get a nice style. Gary Chaffee's book will open up the advanced reader to odd
rhythms.
Q: Can you recommend any other books?
A: There's a book by Pasquale Bona called "Rhythm Articulation"
[G. Schirmer, 866 Third Ave., New York, NY 10022]. Then there's "Polyrhythms"
by Pete Magadini [Try Pub., dist. by Professional Drum Shop, 854 Vine, Hollywood,
CA 90038]. It'll open your mind to a lot of stuff. Frank's book has enough to
keep a player happy until his drums sticks freeze over. And if Frank's transcription
books get a really good response, I may do a book on these weird types of constructions
and rhythms.
Q: Have you ever considered doing studio work?
A: I'll only do studio things for a couple of people, unless it's real
major league. The problem with studio work is I don't like what's going on in
the studios these days. It's so commercial. I mean, doing something like "The
Dukes of Hazzard" would be like "The Black Page" compared to
most of the stuff going on in LA these days. It's sickening. People don't realize
that if something is too commercial, it's not going to make it. It has to have
some kick to it, some spice. The stuff is so commercial that it's really making
me hate the business. Eventually someone will come along wanting to do something
worth-while, and nobody will give that guy a chance. I don't do much studio
work.
Q: With Frank's band off the road for a while, what do you plan to do?
A: You never can tell what Frank's going to do. If he's going to go
back out on the road, I'd like to go with. But he has so many projects going
that if he doesn't want to go on the road, he doesn't have to. I don't think
it's a good time for any band to go on the road. In the meantime, I'm working
on my own studio - which will be 4-track, and eventually maybe 8- or 16-track.
I'd also like to do some producing and I'd love to get back to teaching. I also
want to write some songs and see if people like them. Eventually, if I find
a group that's happening enough - in my idea of a good time - I might go with
them. I looked into a couple of heavy metal groups recently, but they all seem
to be booked. It's really hard these days. I'm most excited with getting something
going on my own. I'm really looking forward to looking for musicians. It will
be a totally different realm of music. It's going to be hard to find the kind
of people who can play the kind of music that I want to play, and finding money
to pay these people will be harder, and trying to find gigs for this type of
music will be harder still. I'm not really concerned with making a lot of money,
though - as long as I've got my guitar, my little studio, some tape, and herbal
tea [laughs].