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Man, you guys are really nerding this up. I thought this record was for listening to, not reading about. Guess I was wrong... about a great many things.

Can I still make out to it, or do I have to read a book on making out first?

Dr. O' Nothing wrote:
Wrong, wrong, wrong. What is your source for this? Total bullshit. I've never read ANYWHERE, including Bill Harkleroad's own book, where he claimed authorship for any of the TMR songs. He may have contributed a lick or phrase and/or certainly added his own flair to the parts, he did not actually COMPOSE them.

Well, okay, you're right there, and the interview I posted featured him describing the initial piano parts. But this is possibly the most abstract, meaningless usage of the word "composition" I've ever come across. Beefheart was essentially just hitting random notes, coming up with stuff by chance.

The fleshing out of those piano parts must have constituted the lion's share of work needed to get the songs into the shapes they eventually became. So I would give much more credit to Harkleroad and French than I ever would to Beefheart.

At least as I understand it, the piano parts were the launching pad, but the musicians still had to make them cohere into stuff that sounds good. So I think the notion of "authorship" is actually totally blurred here.

And regarding your other post, there are in fact moments of improvisation on this record. 'China Pig' for example is Doug Moon, i think his name is, fooling around with some semi-generic blues noodling, nothing special and certainly not scripted. Plus, you think those sax parts were written out? No way, jack.

Okay, fine, I was talking about the guitar/bass/drum parts, but if you want to mention tiny, really infrequent aspects of improvisation, I guess you're welcome to do that. My general statement, "Everything was planned out," is still 98% true.

KeithV wrote:Man, you guys are really nerding this up. I thought this record was for listening to, not reading about. Guess I was wrong... about a great many things.

Can I still make out to it, or do I have to read a book on making out first?

My appreciation of the songs comes completely from listening to them, not from reading about them. This information is really interesting, though, because it shows how the forms of the songs came together in the way they did.

It's just a way to understand how such bizarre music ever got made in the first place.

NerblyBear wrote:Well, okay, you're right there, and the interview I posted featured him describing the initial piano parts. But this is possibly the most abstract, meaningless usage of the word "composition" I've ever come across. Beefheart was essentially just hitting random notes, coming up with stuff by chance.

Wow, it sounds like Don was doing the improvising then to make the composition.

Nobody can be right about this one.

I liked it. It wasn't mind-blowing. I thought, "Hurm. That's interesting. Two songs at the same time. You gotta be crazy into rehearsals if you can pull that off."

KeithV wrote:
Wow, it sounds like Don was doing the improvising then to make the composition.

Nobody can be right about this one.

I guess you could look at it that way. Compositions based on random note-hitting.

But the problem with this is that the parts don't sound random or chaotic. That leads me to think that a lot of tweaking was necessary -- say, moving around a couple of notes here, playing something a bit differently here -- so that something coherent could be born.

But, yes, I guess it's still ultimately based on a random series, not on a consciously planned pattern. However, I wouldn't call what Beefheart was doing on the piano "improvising," because he still worked out his piano parts.

NerblyBear wrote:Beefheart himself (who had little musical training or talent)

I'm sorry but I cannot let such a ridiculous statement hide away in parentheses.

Beefheart had little musical talent?

What.

The.

Fuck.

Are.

You.

Talking.

About?!?!?!?!?!?!

Lemme set this straight. The MISTAKES were rehearsed. Each spec of sound was completely intentional and rehearsed.

Nerbly is talking out of his ass again. He prolly overheard someone's rap on DVV and now it's his, sans detail.

simmo wrote:

NerblyBear wrote:Beefheart himself (who had little musical training or talent)

I'm sorry but I cannot let such a ridiculous statement hide away in parentheses.

Beefheart had little musical talent?

What.

The.

Fuck.

Are.

You.

Talking.

About?!?!?!?!?!?!

Harkleroad, his own guitar player, said as much:

80% of it was done by him kind of beating the shit out of a piano, in a rhythmic sense, and having no idea what any of those black and white things were on the piano. And John French, the drummer, transcribed it, notated it all, and would dole out the parts to the players. So he had a concept of being away from tonality, but using rhythm as the main input, because that's what he had to offer, right, being a non-musician. So John would transcribe it, and then in the process of us working with John to get the parts - you know, when there were seven notes, you'd scratch your head and say, 'Well, how do I do seven notes with six strings?' - so then we would invert things and mess around, and try to keep it as close to what he played. For what reason, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure, because he didn't know what he played after he played it.

So Harkleroad even admits that he has no idea why they would even work off of Beefheart's piano-part template.

He had a great voice and an ear for melody, but he wasn't a musician. That's all I was trying to say. Maybe I should have said, "He has talent, but he wasn't a trained musician, in contrast to the other members of his band, who were trained and versatile musicians."

OK, second statement accepted. But watch your mouth, boy! Think before you speak!