T h e B l a c k P a g e by Frank Zappa Sequenced by Bill Gwynne CIS 71344,46 Internet: gwynne@iac.net General Info: This sequence was originally entered (almost immediately) after the written lead-sheet version was published in KEYBOARD MAGAZINE, February 1987. The sequencer I was using then only had 96 clocks-per-beat resolution and as such the polyrhythms often came out in values that were in fractions of a clock, leading to a certain amount of slop at the end of long odd-tuplets and the like. This has been straightened out in this release version. The Arrangement: I loosely modeled this arrangement after the original New York recording ("Live In New York", 1976). It started with a drums/percussion playing of the theme (no pitched mallet instruments however) once through to a quarter note foot-closed hi-hat pulse at 60 beats-per-minute. The drums, cowbells and stuff took the basic "directional" elements of the melody and adapted them to the ranges available on the cowbell rack or temple block set or whatever. The second part of the arrangement is with the melody being played by the instrument of your choice (there are no program changes or controllers in the file, just notes), and is doubled by the Mallet Perc track which is identical except that I have sequenced rolls where I felt appropriate on the long notes in the melody. The 1/4 note hi-hat continues throughout and bass notes and a simple drum-beat (accentually representative of the "disco-type-vamp" FZ refers to on the original recording) consisting of bass drum and snare drum provide timekeeping. Description of Tracks in Midifile Track 1-Melody: This is a straight ahead iteration of the melody. It starts in measure 31 which would be after the drum solo is finished. The original sequencing resolution is 480 clocks-per-beat but will be limited to the resolution of your sequencer if it is less than 480 cpb. For the most part, this was sufficient to accommodate all of the nested polyrhythms with a few exceptions which have been duly noted in the text entries in Track 8, "Text Notes" All notes have been quantized in both start time and duration with a few exceptions in the duration department to allow for grace notes or because performance convention has dictated that a certain note is played short. Track 2-Drum Melody: Bars 1-30; this is the same melody as the main melody, transposed down two octaves to get it into the "meat" range of most drum machines. In order to get all the notes to play I found it necessary to go into this melody and do some range limiting and reassignment of notes due to the 2 1/2 octave range the melody covers so that there were no "holes" in the rhythm. As an arrangement suggestion, one thing that worked out really well was to assemble a bank of perc. sounds for my DX-7II. The criteria was that they had to be as weird and clanky as possible but fast attacking enough to handle the "eleven-plets" in bar 29. Using sync to tape I overdubbed 8 stereo pairs to tape and got this humongous, clangorous perc- ussion ensemble that was very satisfying. Track 3-Mallet Version: (Bars 31-60) This is a straight play through of the melody as written with the addition of rolls on the long notes which is a feature of mallet playing. I highly recommend copying this track to accompany the drum solo track in bars 1-30, especially on clanky stuff like cowbells, agogos etc. Track 4-Drum Beat: This is a very stupid, annoying little track that plays a little beat. I left this bare bones because I noticed that one of the fun things FZ would do to the Black Page over the years was to keep superimposing different styles on it to see what would happen. He did it as a fast country two-beat, a new age track, among others. So let your creativity run wild... how about a double-time ska beat underneath or a hip- hop version. How would the straight polyrhythms sound against the swung 16th notes of a hip-hop beat? Track 5-Bass Notes: The KEYBOARD lead sheet had what looked like chord symbols over some bars. These pitches are played as long notes, in octaves here to anchor down the root. No attempt has been made to be creative in any way with this track. Interesting side note: the chord qualities were all listed as "2" like C2 or Eb2. Generally this means that there is a triad with a ninth but no seventh, and the ninth is down next to the root, not on top. I have not experimented at all with this harmony so I don't know how it will sound. Let me know... Track 6-Hi-Hat Beat: 60 bars of 1/4 notes on a foot-closed hat. No biggie here. I find that some kind of timekeeping track is helpful in better appreciating the "statistical density" of the opening percussion jam. Later it becomes unnecessary as the drum beat develops. Track 7-Text Notes: This is essentially a list of irregularities that had to be dealt with in regards to quantization of notes. Even with 480 clocks per beat there are some note values that calculate out to fractions of a clock and all of these adjustments are documented here. They are placed at the bar/beat in the sequence that they refer to. Track 8-Brag Track: Roll credits! Hope you get some enjoyment out of this. I would be VERY interested in hearing about any performances or recordings that this file gets or any Zappa news in general. Enjoy!!! Bill Gwynne 1/23/95 *************************************************************************** * Bill ->gwynne@iac.net | "There's never enough time to do it right... * * Gwynne ->CIS: 71344,46 | but there's always enough time to do it over!"* ***************************************************************************