Diss.--Berlin, 1991. / Bibliogr. et discogr. p. 285-300.

Thesis (M.M.) -- Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Matthew Shaftel, Florida State University, School of Music. Title and description from thesis home page (viewed 9-28-04). Document formatted into pages; contains 75 pages. Includes biographical sketch. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (MMus(R)) - University of Glasgow, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.

When Frank Zappa died in 1993, he left Civilization Phaze III as a last testament to both his musical and thematic purpose. The work received a handful of reviews in the popular music press, and has subsequently been ignored by both the popular press and, with few exceptions, academia. Many are the composers whose careers have been thought describe a mid-period mastery, followed by later decline. This presumption seems to have fallen upon Frank Zappa, apparently due to his retirement from the concert stage, and final years writing music on the Synclavier. This thesis seeks to demonstrate that Zappa's compositional abilities were in no way diminished at the end of his life, but had instead reached a peak level of mastery in composition of his last work. This thesis shall provide an analysis and musical/extra-musical description of this piece, with the intention of situating it in relation to Zappa's compositional legacy, and to establish Civilization Phaze III as the crowning compositional achievement of his career.

Akademisk Avhandling--Philosophie--Stockholm, 1999. / Bibliogr. p. 225-243. Index.

No description available.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:27:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-09-22Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:14:58Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 herraiz_m_me_ia.pdf: 2114698 bytes, checksum: 92cfbc277d4a13ae617652ac880e14d7 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Esta dissertação busca oferecer o primeiro estudo musicológico na língua portuguesa a se dedicar de forma extensiva à obra de Frank Zappa (1940-1993). É também o primeiro trabalho de que se tem notícia a empreender análises aprofundadas de algumas de suas composições para grande orquestra ou orquestra de câmara, a saber, o terceiro movimento de “Sinister Footwear”, “Outrage At Valdez”, “The Perfect Stranger” e “Naval Aviation In Art?” – a última das quais, especificamente, não foi abordada por nenhum outro autor até então. O primeiro capítulo traça um panorama geral da vida e obra de Zappa, seguido de uma revisão crítica da escassa bibliografia existente sobre o assunto e das principais referências teóricas utilizadas neste trabalho, incluindo uma introdução à técnica das “redes harmônicas” desenvolvida pelo compositor e teórico belga Henri Pousseur. Este capítulo é concluído com um breve comentário sobre as principais fontes alternativas de material (isto é, além do próprio catálogo oficial do compositor) disponíveis ao pesquisador. O segundo capítulo aborda os principais aspectos técnicos e estilísticos do trabalho composicional de Zappa, ilustrados com análises de excertos retirados de diversas obras. A questão formal na obra do compositor, caracterizada por um forte apelo à descontinuidade, é discutida à luz da teoria dos modos temporais de Jonathan Kramer, e é oferecida ainda uma visão geral das teorias propostas por Brett Clement para o estudo deste repertório. Este capítulo serve, assim, como base conceitual para as análises propriamente ditas, reunidas no terceiro capítulo, que mostram como o compositor aplicou efetivamente os procedimentos e técnicas vistos no capítulo anterior em um discurso objetivo e direto, de acordo com um projeto musical claramente delineado em cada obra. É dada especial atenção... / This dissertation offers the first musicological study in the Portuguese language extensively dedicated to the work of Frank Zappa (1940-1993). It is also the first work to undertake in-depth analyses of some of his compositions for large orchestra or chamber orchestra, namely the third movement of “Sinister Footwear”, “Outrage At Valdez”, “The Perfect Stranger” and “Naval Aviation In Art?” – the last of which has not been specifically discussed before by any other author. Chapter 1 provides a general outline of Zappa’s life and work, followed by a critical review of the scarce works available on his orchestral music and of the main theoretical references utilized throughout this study, including an introduction to the technique of “harmonic nets” devised by Belgian composer and theoretician Henri Pousseur. This chapter concludes with a brief commentary on the main alternative sources of material (beyond Zappa’s official output) currently available to the scholar. Chapter 2 examines the main technical and stylistic aspects of Zappa’s compositional work, illustrated with analyses of excerpts from several pieces. It discusses the issue of form in the composer’s oeuvre, which is characterized by a strong penchant for discontinuity, in light of Jonathan Kramer’s theory of temporal modes. It also provides an overview of the theories proposed by Brett Clement for studying this repertoire. This chapter thus serves as a conceptual basis for the analyses themselves, gathered in chapter 3, which shows how the composer has effectively applied the procedures and techniques considered in the previous chapter within the framework of an objective discourse, each work according to a clearly outlined musical project. Special attention is given to the various forms of interaction between linear and nonlinear aspects of the musical discourse (concepts discussed by Kramer)... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

For this project, the author uses Bakhtin's theory of carnival to illuminate Zappa's sound and rhetoric. The author hopes that by using this theoretical lens allows audiences to understand Zappa's choices in subject matter. Those who can see his work as satire and understand the use of carnivalesque techniques in challenging authority see the genius in his work.

This dissertation argues that music is always ideological. For this thesis two lines of argument are given. The first states that music is always ideological because it requires verbal discourses about itself. The second line of argument states that music is always ideological because it influences the listener affectively. That language is necessary for talk about music is trivial. The point is rather that talk about music is necessary for auditive behaviour to turn into complex cultural artefacts. Without language humans would have no more music than birds, whales or duetting apes. At the other extreme, musical experiences are affective in nature. To have a musical experience is to experience an affective unfolding through time. Affect (as distinguished from the emotions) refers to the amodal properties of perception-such as intensity, shape, rhythm-and lies at the heart of human communication. With its roots in early mother-infant interaction, affective communication is inherently social. Together with discourses about music, the affective properties of musical experiences makes music into an extremely subtle, and thereby efficient, ideological manipulator in various types of social contexts. Finally, the theoretical conclusions reached will be exemplified by introducing a virtual listener, the various facets of whose listening experiences are captured by different analytical methods and listening reports as applied to some of the "serious" music by Frank Zappa. Central for the explanation of these listening experiences are the "passions," that is, the affects, moods and emotions that the music evokes in the listener, or that the listener takes the music to express. / <p>The attached fulltext is a revised version of the original thesis.</p>