Re: Zappa's guitar playing:

[Kevin <kevin@TheNettles.com>]

At 01:18 AM 3/22/2006, you wrote:
>Zappa's tone, control of feedback, subtle use of wah wah, &so on
>....all aspects of technique which are not so easy to emulate.

Zappa was also able to shred polyrhythmically. For example, Zappa 
could play the first three notes of a figure as if they were part of 
a quintuplet (five notes in the space of a quarter note) and then at 
the end play a triplet instead of the last two 16th notes.  This is a 
key part of his lines and is explained better than I can at:
http://www.vai.com/LittleBlackDots/tempomental.html

It's important to keep in mind that musically there were two Zappas: 
the composer-arranger and the improviser.  When he was on tour, he 
composed  on-the-fly during his solos which he taped.  Back in the 
studio, he would take his solo tapes and rework these into 
compositions.  It's my understanding that Zappa didn't practice 
guitar much.  So the longer he toured, the better his solos were.

I'm not a big Zappa fan, but I really appreciate and respect some of his 
work.

Cheers,
Kevin

The Nettles: Progressive and Exciting Celtic Music
www.TheNettles.com