I would not get to too insulted about playing for Linda Ronstand considering that her back up band was none other than the Eagles, before they become famous, in the early 70s.
the story that sticks out in my mind about the zappa/vai relationship is when he sent him a transcription of the black page(which is a extremely piece to play yet alone write out musically).zappa in turn after seeing it offers him a job.not thats just INSANE!
@SidVicious10101 doing just 7/8 raggae,yes it's not that hard.. but we don't know what SCALE vai played at that time that must be played in 7/8 reggae.. and every scale must be added some tone in every next. I cant imagine... u sould listen carefully :D dont blame me..
@Surrilium Linda Ronstad part may be a picture on poor music for poor guitar players. If you listen to Frank Zappa music, you'll hear lots of 7/8 bar, 7/8 reggea, 7/8 country music and I don't know it all. If you hear Zappa's album Uncle Meat, you can hear Ian Underwood's autition for Frank Zappa. He played alto sax. Crazy stuff.
In Where The Wild Things Are there is a moment where Jeremy Colson is playing with drums around the neck and with a skull in the front. He is making it saying; I here Britney Spears are looking for a drummer ;-) ;-) ;-)
@kermicheo Zappa recorded _everything_ ... there may not be video of the audition, but I bet you, somewhere in Zappa's vault, that audition exists on audio tape. And I'd love to hear it.
@liamzuid Reaggea would be the style to play it in, like you have Rock, but there's also rock'a'billie or shuffle, so 7/8 would be the time-signature ( like 4/4 ) and 7/8 reggea would be a 7/8 time signature with a reggae feel to it......
@joelioes i meant the very previous words when he says "ok now....................." im sorry but im not english or american so its difficult to understand since he speaks quite fast
Part of the reason Frank wrote such difficult stuff was to challenge his musicians and keep them interested. They all would have left had they been doing only his "novelty" songs in 4/4 constantly.
@z2153 sorta...she was pop but she is very skilled and well respected as a singer, far beyond where those 2 you mentioned have any hope of going. Your comparison is right on in the way Frank meant it....cheezy pop sideman gig.
it's WELL worth mentioning that frank said of his own guitar solos towards the end of his life, "99% of it is garbage." about his live solos? i'd say 85% is closer.
when frank had time to comp together solos on record he's fantastic.
Steve Vai was absolutely correct. Try improvisation with Frank Zappa and you will get lost on the chromatic scale. Frank used pentatonic, Chromatic and zingy pics in music theory that few artists ever learned.
zappa was probably searching a ways to play his linda ronstadt joke on future band members... with vai it was a bit harder.. so he pushed it to impossible... what a jokester zappa was...
actually, you may think 7/8 reggae was weird, but weird signatures and progressions was what made zappa's music so good... so a future members had to be ready for everything...
7/8 reggae kinda sounds cool. Its a wonderful, wonderful idea (just one of millions from the fantastic musician) - never thought abaout it - it actually works :))
@ProjectBerklee im wondering the same thing. i think its not set in stone. reggae is all about accenting the offbeats, so essentially, play in 7/8 and accent certain beats to make it sound reggae. im guessing its pretty subjective
@ProjectBerklee it's where you put the emphasis on certain notes and how you space them - giving it a more reggae feel. I can't even imagine how that would sound at 7/8 with some crazy riff.
@Anarchyffan Frank had a lot to do with making Steve great. I remember him saying so years and years ago when I was learning to read music from Steve's transcriptions in Guitar Player.
haha, i was at this concert! it was my last day of 4rd grade, we even had to leave early to make the show from maine. i had no clue who zappa was, other than hungry freaks daddy. i remembered little. last summer (3 yrs later) i found a DVD of frank, and i fell in love with it. i started to remember this concert. ever since then i've been listenin to zappa nonstop and trying to expose as many people as i can to him. everyone as school thinks he was nuts. eh, what the hell do they kno?
very good. i hope that you were atleast in your high school jazz band. my first encounter with 7/8 pissed me off because i didnt understand what the instructor wanted. but i have it down now. and 7/8 reggae is hard, but not as hard as playing the fiddle part of the devil went down to georgia on guitar.
In 1983-84 I auditioned for the keyboard slot with Frank's band due to the departure of Tommy Mars. My former bandmate Bob Harris had been singing backup with Zappa (Tinseltown Rebellion), and other friends were in the organization. During the audition FZ showed Vai an insane lick (I was working on a synth sound), then asked me to play what he had been showing Vai. Vai showed the lick to me, I showed the lick to FZ ... FZ showed me the door. I have never feared anything since.
I'm not sure reggae can be played in 7/8. if so, it's probably not reggae any more. more like Esperanto for the guitar. And Frank definately knew how to acheive that!! LOL!
welllllll 7/4 (or 7 quarter notes as you put it) totals an even number. BUT if you mentally group your measures into s-"sub-groupings" (like 1-2-3/1-2-3-4) it makes odd number counts just as easy. DON'T OVER ANALYSE IT! just feel it.
Easy way to get started: Play eight notes (it doesn't matter what tempo) of equal value and accent the eight note. Repeat until you get it. That's the basic idea.
ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-TI-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-TI etc.
Seven-eight, 3/4, 5/4, etc., it's all about the the repeated accent. Repeated accent defines meter, basically.
I was fortunate enough to have a conversation on this same subject about the music of Mr.Frank Zappa with the great Mr.Chester Thompson. He said that Frank pushed all of his musicians to the IMPOSSIBLE! He basically told me how all of the charts that Frank wrote were made to be impossible to play, and in MY mind that's what made THEM a great and possibly the best band of there impossible to label "genre"! :-)
You ever heard of a disciple of Zappa that sucked & with no chops?
Actually no, the lower number/upper number thing is not valid for all meters:
In 4/4, or 3/4, or 5/4 quarter notes get the beat.
If there's an 8 on the bottom (6/8, 9/8, 12/8) the beats have 3 eighths (instead of 2 as in 4/4), so you say a dotted-quarter note gets the beat. So 12/8 is a 4-beat measure (listen to slow blues for example).
In 7/8 it's mixed - it could be (counting eighths) 1-2,1-2,1-2-3 or 1-2-3,1-2,1-2 (less common 1-2,1-2-3,1-2), but it's always 3 beats.
I have always looked at it like this, top number=how many, bottom number what type of note. So 7/8 in my mind would be that you have the space of 7 eighth notes to do what ever you want, so for all I care I can throw three quarters and an eighth note. That is just my way though.
when you have 7/8 time it means that there is 7 beats in a measure and a quarter note gets one eighth of a beat... and in 7/4 you still have seven beats to a measure but a quarternote gets a quarter beat.... with any time signature the top number is the number of beats in the measure and the bottom note is going to describe how long to hold your quarternote... get it?
C'mon man, are you kidding me?! 7/8 time definitely means 7 beats per measure, but that an eighth note gets one beat. A quarter note does NOT get one eighth of a beat; in fact, it gets two beats (again, in 7/8 time). The top number is indeed the number of beats per measure, but the bottom number says which notes get "one" beat. Get with it!!!
Listen to some late King Crimson or or early Genesis they like to use odd (as in not divisble by 2 or 3) timings quite a bit. I remember writing out Tony Banks keyboard solo on "Supper's Ready" (from Genesis' Foxtrot) which is in 2/4, with Phil playing 4/4 above a Guitar/Bass Riff which runs in 9/8 (actually 4.5/4) :-) Mind blowing stuff, hard to play two handed. Another good example is "Thela Hun Ginjeet" from King Crimson's "Discipline" where the verse is in 7/8.
or modern jazz bands - Branford Marsalis, Steve Coleman, Logan Richardson, Brad Meldau, etc.
Actually, after Stravinsky & his cohorts, the first to use 7 as a successful time signature in pop music was Dave Brubeck! He also used 5/4 (Take Five) in a HUGE hit in the late 1950s, as well as 9/8 (Blue Rondo a la Turk). Check out the album Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out!
Lets say you have 4/4 time. That is 4 quarter notes in a measure. The 4 shows that you use quarter notes.
7/8 means 7 eighth notes in a measure. So basically, 3/8 is 3 eighth notes a measure just like how 3/4 is 3 quarter notes a measure. Both time signatures are conducted in the same general motion but could be played differently.
7 beats to a measure, 8th note gets a beat. weird timing. beats to a measure, note that gets a beat. anything odd (5,7,9,etc) ain't yer 4/4 pop song. genesis, one of the last songs in suppers ready, i think its called apocalypse, 9/8 time. you can count it, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
7 refers to the number of beats in a measure, and 8 refers to how each eighth note is worth one beat. Same with 7/4, except the 4 refers to how each quarter note is worth one beat.
reggae is a style of Caribbean music, so saying "play 7/8 reggae" is like saying "play this rock song with a laid back feel and emphasis on the off-beats, while in 7/8"
i don't think i'd be able to pull of that audition, so i'm in the same boat as every other guitarist that doesn't play and think like Zappa
Being a huge Frank Zappa fan, the more I listen to it the more I like the story and find it funny! Just like the Burger King joke in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, never too much. Has anyone out there ever seen a video of Things That Look Like Meat or Winos Do Not March on youtube? Can't find it.
7/8 is a time signature. the most common is 4/4, which is four beats to a bar. the second number tells you which kind of note. so 7/8 is seven eighth-notes (quavers) to a bar.
It's not "7th 8th" as you put it. It is 7/8. It is a time signature. It differs from the usual 4/4 time in that the eighth note gets the pulse and there are seven eighth notes per measure. Basically, it is one eighth note shorter than a measure of 4/4. Check out Tom Sawyer by Rush as I know the interlude of that song is primarily in 7/8 time. Hope that helps.
You know how there is 4/4 time and 6/8 time? 7/8: It's a a time signature where you have to play seven notes per measure (fairly quickly as well, because of the eight). It usually has a very specific accenting to the notes and it's very rarely used, so basically he was really heavily testing Steve's ability.
Actually, 7/8 means there are 7 eighth notes in it. It only means it has seven beats if each eighth note is given its own respective beat. If the quarter note still gets the beat (which can happen if you switch time signatures in the midst of a song from 4/4 to 7/8), then it would be three and a half beats.
wassup131994, a good and familiar example of 7/8 time: listen to Pink Floyd's song "Money." That's in 7/8 time. The beginning bass line repeats itself every 7 beats. Then at the guitar solo it changes to 4/4. Then back to 7/8.
for instance: if you say the words "Canada Canada Cuba" putting the accent in only in th "Cu" of cuba, you can solfege a 7/8 time signature (it may sound like "CA NA DA CA NA DA Q"). Another 7/8 solfege method is to count a 4/4 and a 4/3 togeher (1-2-3-4-1-2-3 and son on). That's why Stravinsky said music is all about math !. Hope this helps you.
Great clip....yet I am embarassed by some of these comments.....some have abolutely NO concept of conceptual thinking (7/8 reggae et al.)....methinks they need to go suck on a nitrous tank for a couple of days and get back to us :p
No matter who you are, the one thing nobody can deny about Frank zappa is that he was the single most intense musician on the planet, nobody will ever outdo him at his own game. I
f I'd been auditioning I'd have fouled myself in fear, having the best musicians in the world watching your playing is no small pressure.
Cool!
guitarsdave 3 days ago
I would not get to too insulted about playing for Linda Ronstand considering that her back up band was none other than the Eagles, before they become famous, in the early 70s.
kitarra13 6 days ago
When's the Rondstadt auditions !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
kingfreeze 1 week ago
I think 42 Linda Ronstadt fans watched this video :-P
jezmundberserker 1 month ago
it's a good thing that steve is a legend guitarist cause he would starve as a comedian.
katkal3 1 month ago
It must have been truly impossible if Steve says that there is no way to put that note there
TheMonsterHawk 1 month ago 3
The facial features of Vai are like the cool, rock n' roll version of Robert Sean Leonard.
RadioDiablo 1 month ago
Vai = God :-)
pattas2005 2 months ago
@pattas2005 You're damn right!
ZackAPack 2 months ago
:D
Great
Vai hablando del maestro Zappa
erickfullmoon27 3 months ago
Vai's hands are the size of shovels. He could clear my driveway in the winter with ease...
surrealforreal 3 months ago
I would die just for knowing this guy, I woulod say hi steve, nice to meet you, and then die...just die
g14ub3n 4 months ago
I can see it happening in my mind. Wish I could have been there.
mikinmontague 4 months ago
good story...
phantom5691 4 months ago
That's a really long intro for a bad joke...
Necrolokost 4 months ago
Via and Frank,what a combo this was one of the greatest players put together I am so glad it happened!!!!!!!!!!!!!
keeneglass 4 months ago
the story that sticks out in my mind about the zappa/vai relationship is when he sent him a transcription of the black page(which is a extremely piece to play yet alone write out musically).zappa in turn after seeing it offers him a job.not thats just INSANE!
74choppzilla 4 months ago
I absolutely love Steve's attitude to music and people, it's like he's in perfect harmony with everything and everyone.
FeuerfaustAnent 5 months ago
Steve Vai is amazing and so is frank... but when I think about it 7/8 Reggae isn't as hard as it seems.
SidVicious10101 5 months ago
@SidVicious10101 doing just 7/8 raggae,yes it's not that hard.. but we don't know what SCALE vai played at that time that must be played in 7/8 reggae.. and every scale must be added some tone in every next. I cant imagine... u sould listen carefully :D dont blame me..
VaiRendy 1 month ago
1:49 .... realizing he just trashed himself... hahaha
420Honey 5 months ago
amazing story
jawneeshow101 5 months ago
steve vai recorded the audition ?
in his head !
albertinkstain 5 months ago
I don't get the Linda Ronstadt part, damn xD
And I would love to hear this lick^^
Surrilium 5 months ago
@Surrilium Linda Ronstad part may be a picture on poor music for poor guitar players. If you listen to Frank Zappa music, you'll hear lots of 7/8 bar, 7/8 reggea, 7/8 country music and I don't know it all. If you hear Zappa's album Uncle Meat, you can hear Ian Underwood's autition for Frank Zappa. He played alto sax. Crazy stuff.
tutorlaurdag 5 months ago
In Where The Wild Things Are there is a moment where Jeremy Colson is playing with drums around the neck and with a skull in the front. He is making it saying; I here Britney Spears are looking for a drummer ;-) ;-) ;-)
ABshookme 6 months ago
"I hear Linda Ronstadt is looking for a guitarist"
Zappa is hilarious.
FrankCastlez 6 months ago
They're rehearsing Pound for a Brown in the background! Great story this is, btw.
sungretsch 6 months ago
"and you gotta get it right like that, or *vrittt* ya know"
TheChexer1231 6 months ago
so wish someone recorded that audition
kermicheo 7 months ago
@kermicheo Zappa recorded _everything_ ... there may not be video of the audition, but I bet you, somewhere in Zappa's vault, that audition exists on audio tape. And I'd love to hear it.
astrosteve 6 months ago
What is the difference between 7/8 and 7/8 reggae?
liamzuid 7 months ago
@liamzuid Reaggea would be the style to play it in, like you have Rock, but there's also rock'a'billie or shuffle, so 7/8 would be the time-signature ( like 4/4 ) and 7/8 reggea would be a 7/8 time signature with a reggae feel to it......
emiel4sma 6 months ago 2
@liamzuid What 7/8 reggae means is to play with the feel of reggae, which is to accent the offbeats, rather than the downbeats.
So for example, a regular 4/4 beat is:
1 2 3 4
You might add offbeats, inbetween the main beats of the bar.
1 & 2 & 3 & 4
In reggae, you accent the offbeats (the &'s), not the downbeats, so it's a slightly different feel.
jealey83 6 months ago
you know?
boogster123321 7 months ago
@giogiope89 hey says "okay, now add this note"
qwert11 7 months ago
@qwert11 thank you! now i think that everyone who watches this video would like to know which note he's talking about. unfortunately we'll never do
giogiope89 7 months ago
could someone tell me what does he say at 1:32 please?
giogiope89 7 months ago
@giogiope89 "and i looked up to him and i said it's impossible"
i think that's what you meant ?
joelioes 7 months ago
@joelioes i meant the very previous words when he says "ok now....................." im sorry but im not english or american so its difficult to understand since he speaks quite fast
giogiope89 7 months ago
I could watch stuff like this all day....
lilnetty2 7 months ago
Part of the reason Frank wrote such difficult stuff was to challenge his musicians and keep them interested. They all would have left had they been doing only his "novelty" songs in 4/4 constantly.
.
jackmioff100 8 months ago
errr....he says "well i hear ???? is looking for a guitar player!" little help?
cuzcooo 9 months ago
@cuzcooo Linda Ronstadt was a pop singer much like what Miley Cyrus or Britney Spears is today.
z2153 8 months ago
@z2153 sorta...she was pop but she is very skilled and well respected as a singer, far beyond where those 2 you mentioned have any hope of going. Your comparison is right on in the way Frank meant it....cheezy pop sideman gig.
lilnetty2 8 months ago
it's WELL worth mentioning that frank said of his own guitar solos towards the end of his life, "99% of it is garbage." about his live solos? i'd say 85% is closer.
when frank had time to comp together solos on record he's fantastic.
caesarcerf 9 months ago
that's about the hight of being professional as a musician - 98% of musicians couldn't even imagine the skill needed
MrGritstoner 9 months ago
Love this Guitar Music Video
Marty
MartyGuitaring 9 months ago
Great line.... can't help but to smile at this Zappa story!!
IowaHarley65 9 months ago
Damn I would like to hear that line!!!
Lukasoncapeta 9 months ago
As an useless fact, Mr. Zappa taught Hendrix to use the Wah
TheHombreRadioactivo 9 months ago 3
I love this story. You can tell that he really loved working with Frank, and that he owed alot to him. Great video
longirons6 10 months ago
I read the title of this video as "Steve Vai on the Auction for Frank Zappa's Beard."
sluttyhearts 10 months ago
Steve Vai was absolutely correct. Try improvisation with Frank Zappa and you will get lost on the chromatic scale. Frank used pentatonic, Chromatic and zingy pics in music theory that few artists ever learned.
alrozz 10 months ago
Lol, if Vai says it's impossible, it's way beyond impossible.
taufoofar 10 months ago 4
in watching this I realize how alike Zappa he is in the way that he speaks and acts
Sbemailer 10 months ago
@antman5000000
7/8 reggae actually works fine, played by grateful dead. check out "estimated prophet".
rhabarberkompott 10 months ago
I can watch this like FOREVER ...Amazing Story ... FZ FOREVER.
kishosoundandvision 11 months ago
zappa was probably searching a ways to play his linda ronstadt joke on future band members... with vai it was a bit harder.. so he pushed it to impossible... what a jokester zappa was...
actually, you may think 7/8 reggae was weird, but weird signatures and progressions was what made zappa's music so good... so a future members had to be ready for everything...
pedalla 11 months ago
"Well I hear Linda Ronstadt is looking for a guitar player!" LMFAO!!!
mattpipermusic 11 months ago 11
I sooo wanna hear Vai's rendition of his audition
NerfedToDeath 1 year ago
what is 7/8 reggae?? can anyone tell me??
ProjectBerklee 1 year ago
7/8 reggae kinda sounds cool. Its a wonderful, wonderful idea (just one of millions from the fantastic musician) - never thought abaout it - it actually works :))
adamtoensberg 1 year ago
great story of legend,people could talk about this in a hundred years still
burninhellfire84 1 year ago 14
what does 7/8 reggae mean? im sorry i googled it and found nothing
i know 7/8 time signature.. but how do you make it reggae?
ProjectBerklee 1 year ago 3
@ProjectBerklee im wondering the same thing. i think its not set in stone. reggae is all about accenting the offbeats, so essentially, play in 7/8 and accent certain beats to make it sound reggae. im guessing its pretty subjective
DimebagsLeftToe 1 year ago
@ProjectBerklee You place the accents on the up beat.
jagjaghuh 1 year ago
@ProjectBerklee it's where you put the emphasis on certain notes and how you space them - giving it a more reggae feel. I can't even imagine how that would sound at 7/8 with some crazy riff.
MHenebury 1 year ago
@MHenebury well reggae counts to 4, so play one bar of 4 beats and leave the last beat off the next bar.
Jaakk0S 1 year ago
@antman5000000 7/8 Reggae? Damn, I thought I was original...
ZachValkyrie 1 year ago
On "The Worst Band You Never Heard in Your Life" they did "Ring of Fire" in Reggae! Fantastic.
jsharai 1 year ago 3
What a great ad, great story.
lightnweight 1 year ago
sweet thats franks humor!!
tdragon68 1 year ago
Classic. I so wish I could've had a short conversation with Frank Zappa before he passed. He sounded like a really funny guy.
skrason 1 year ago 6
@skrason well a lot of his songs had hella funny lyrics, so I'd imagine a conversation with the man himself would go in a similar direction.
Nettacki 1 year ago
i love you!
spadesrave 1 year ago
Hahahahaha, that sounds like Frank! Miss him!
whuffie 1 year ago 5
they made vai try out? haha
Anarchyffan 1 year ago
@Anarchyffan Frank had a lot to do with making Steve great. I remember him saying so years and years ago when I was learning to read music from Steve's transcriptions in Guitar Player.
secretsaregood 1 year ago
"I hear Linda Rondstat is still looking for a guitar player!"
OMG, ROFL! XD
ShadowLancer128 1 year ago 55
haha, i was at this concert! it was my last day of 4rd grade, we even had to leave early to make the show from maine. i had no clue who zappa was, other than hungry freaks daddy. i remembered little. last summer (3 yrs later) i found a DVD of frank, and i fell in love with it. i started to remember this concert. ever since then i've been listenin to zappa nonstop and trying to expose as many people as i can to him. everyone as school thinks he was nuts. eh, what the hell do they kno?
FZmustacheFZ 1 year ago 5
haha man I love this video. Sounds like Zappa was an ass wipe
jawesome01 1 year ago
he still has a long island accent in this video :)
dude9521 1 year ago
woah, this is the first time ive ever heard him talk
SlipKnoTtater 1 year ago
hilarious
nititomestrel 1 year ago
actually its not very hard to imagine 7/8 reggae - but I'm not saying it would be easy to play with Zappa because of that :-)
laurentius88 1 year ago
@laurentius88 what makes hard is not the 7/8 reggae..
but 7/8 reggae with those 'unusual scales'? and then he had to add notes ,
in front of zappa. XD
VaiRendy 1 month ago
absolute magic.
moondog450 1 year ago
I remember it well... he was so funny.. but he taught Dweezil well! Frank was impressed from the git go with Steve...
cherielynnae 1 year ago 3
He just said he was 20, did n´t he?
Great posting, by the way....
bricky59 2 years ago 7
In the moment he is talking about in this video, he is saying that he was 20, yes.
BooksMusic 2 years ago
very good. i hope that you were atleast in your high school jazz band. my first encounter with 7/8 pissed me off because i didnt understand what the instructor wanted. but i have it down now. and 7/8 reggae is hard, but not as hard as playing the fiddle part of the devil went down to georgia on guitar.
JoeTregoIsAFag 2 years ago
7/8 reggae...frank must have enjoyed torturing the 17 year old vai. Maybe thats why he's the best guitar player on the planet today
qwsx098 2 years ago 13
@qwsx098 Right on!
WakeUpDummies 2 years ago
@qwsx098 he was 20
trakir 1 year ago 2
This is such a great story. It shows that no matter how great you are at something, you can always be better. Steve Vai is such a class act.
longirons6 2 years ago
Linda Rodstadt ..now play You're No Good in 7/8 reggae, lol
tony45347 2 years ago
7/8 reggae???? Wooooooooooooow.
jsga10 2 years ago 6
In 1983-84 I auditioned for the keyboard slot with Frank's band due to the departure of Tommy Mars. My former bandmate Bob Harris had been singing backup with Zappa (Tinseltown Rebellion), and other friends were in the organization. During the audition FZ showed Vai an insane lick (I was working on a synth sound), then asked me to play what he had been showing Vai. Vai showed the lick to me, I showed the lick to FZ ... FZ showed me the door. I have never feared anything since.
killerfiction 2 years ago 15
@killerfiction wow
darthvaderyoda 1 year ago
lol, i never get tired of listening to this story...frank zappa was beyond musicianship...thats why many of us don't get it.
Malachi01 2 years ago
that was funny
kainhatton 2 years ago
I'm not sure reggae can be played in 7/8. if so, it's probably not reggae any more. more like Esperanto for the guitar. And Frank definately knew how to acheive that!! LOL!
RubHerSoul1 2 years ago
Sounds like they are rehearsing 'Montana' in the background. Awesome Song, Awesome guitarist.
DrLaverock 2 years ago
I`d love to hear that line played after all those Frank`s "requests" .....,-)))))
mufty1qwer33 2 years ago
Both guys are just freak guitar players, I love them.
Muayadw 2 years ago
vai. cool guy. great story.
kimonui 2 years ago 15
welllllll 7/4 (or 7 quarter notes as you put it) totals an even number. BUT if you mentally group your measures into s-"sub-groupings" (like 1-2-3/1-2-3-4) it makes odd number counts just as easy. DON'T OVER ANALYSE IT! just feel it.
alucard1083 2 years ago
Happy Zappadan, everyone.
devolve42 2 years ago 10
haha thats great
lloomoo 2 years ago
I had never listen to him speak before, I thought he was the cocky bastard he plays in Crossroads.......but he is really cool.
contact1araya 2 years ago
"wat does 7/8 timing mean?"
Easy way to get started: Play eight notes (it doesn't matter what tempo) of equal value and accent the eight note. Repeat until you get it. That's the basic idea.
ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-TI-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-TI etc.
Seven-eight, 3/4, 5/4, etc., it's all about the the repeated accent. Repeated accent defines meter, basically.
richcapo 2 years ago
Love that story.
deziistheone 2 years ago 45
By way of an example, the verse to "All You Need Is Love" is in 7/8. So is Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill."
reichmarshall 2 years ago 3
Solsbury Hill is 7/4.
rockslavesoft 2 years ago
I was fortunate enough to have a conversation on this same subject about the music of Mr.Frank Zappa with the great Mr.Chester Thompson. He said that Frank pushed all of his musicians to the IMPOSSIBLE! He basically told me how all of the charts that Frank wrote were made to be impossible to play, and in MY mind that's what made THEM a great and possibly the best band of there impossible to label "genre"! :-)
You ever heard of a disciple of Zappa that sucked & with no chops?
Impossible!
:-)
davethedrummercancun 2 years ago 148
@davethedrummercancun well many of his early associates had no chops at all
blefusku 11 months ago
1 2 3 1 2 1 2 OR
1 2 1 2 1 2 3
Basic rhythm in macedonian folk music! Do a little research and you'll hear it.
iggybouli 2 years ago
Sounds like a nice story
boob1019 2 years ago
To play &/8 it's easier when you're starting to count in;
1..2..3..4..1..2..3
1..2..3..4..1..2..3
and if you can repeat that you're in 7/8. Don't woory if you don't get it straight away, as it's difficult time signature to pull off properly.
PneRobinho619 2 years ago
wat does 7/8 timing mean? or even 7/4
im new to this timing stuff so i need to learn it
patdel92 2 years ago
7/8 = 7 quaver beats to the bar.
the lower number is the note value. 2 = minum, 4= crotchet, 8 = quaver... etc.
the top number is the amount of beats in the bar.
so 7/4 is seven crotchet beats to the bar.
TheZombyWoof1808 2 years ago 12
Actually no, the lower number/upper number thing is not valid for all meters:
In 4/4, or 3/4, or 5/4 quarter notes get the beat.
If there's an 8 on the bottom (6/8, 9/8, 12/8) the beats have 3 eighths (instead of 2 as in 4/4), so you say a dotted-quarter note gets the beat. So 12/8 is a 4-beat measure (listen to slow blues for example).
In 7/8 it's mixed - it could be (counting eighths) 1-2,1-2,1-2-3 or 1-2-3,1-2,1-2 (less common 1-2,1-2-3,1-2), but it's always 3 beats.
kalokagathon69 2 years ago 6
@kalokagathon69
I have always looked at it like this, top number=how many, bottom number what type of note. So 7/8 in my mind would be that you have the space of 7 eighth notes to do what ever you want, so for all I care I can throw three quarters and an eighth note. That is just my way though.
bassguitarkeybordwiz 2 years ago
@kalokagathon69 no brain just exploded
cpdaddy7 1 year ago
The top note means how many beats are in a measure, the bottom means what note gets 1 beat.
So in 7/8, there are 7 beats in a measure, and an eighth note equals one of those beats
ArcaneSox 2 years ago
The beat is on the 8th note and there are 7 of them in a single measure
empreme 2 years ago
when you have 7/8 time it means that there is 7 beats in a measure and a quarter note gets one eighth of a beat... and in 7/4 you still have seven beats to a measure but a quarternote gets a quarter beat.... with any time signature the top number is the number of beats in the measure and the bottom note is going to describe how long to hold your quarternote... get it?
OGITISM 2 years ago 9
C'mon man, are you kidding me?! 7/8 time definitely means 7 beats per measure, but that an eighth note gets one beat. A quarter note does NOT get one eighth of a beat; in fact, it gets two beats (again, in 7/8 time). The top number is indeed the number of beats per measure, but the bottom number says which notes get "one" beat. Get with it!!!
zildj1an 2 years ago
Are you a drummer?! Do you really have any idea what the hell you're talking about?!
zildj1an 2 years ago
Listen to some late King Crimson or or early Genesis they like to use odd (as in not divisble by 2 or 3) timings quite a bit. I remember writing out Tony Banks keyboard solo on "Supper's Ready" (from Genesis' Foxtrot) which is in 2/4, with Phil playing 4/4 above a Guitar/Bass Riff which runs in 9/8 (actually 4.5/4) :-) Mind blowing stuff, hard to play two handed. Another good example is "Thela Hun Ginjeet" from King Crimson's "Discipline" where the verse is in 7/8.
realraven2000 2 years ago
or modern jazz bands - Branford Marsalis, Steve Coleman, Logan Richardson, Brad Meldau, etc.
Actually, after Stravinsky & his cohorts, the first to use 7 as a successful time signature in pop music was Dave Brubeck! He also used 5/4 (Take Five) in a HUGE hit in the late 1950s, as well as 9/8 (Blue Rondo a la Turk). Check out the album Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out!
szumo1982 2 years ago
It's actually very simple.
Lets say you have 4/4 time. That is 4 quarter notes in a measure. The 4 shows that you use quarter notes.
7/8 means 7 eighth notes in a measure. So basically, 3/8 is 3 eighth notes a measure just like how 3/4 is 3 quarter notes a measure. Both time signatures are conducted in the same general motion but could be played differently.
Amnesiac009 2 years ago
listen to the alice in chains song 'them bones". Find the first beat. Then count every beat after it. You should count to seven.
It's usually a : 1-2-1-2-1:2:3, where the 1:2:3 goes faster than the 1-2s.
The solo sections of 'Inca Roads' (by frank) are in seven, too.
Floyd37 2 years ago
NO! Bad advice alert!
None of the notes are "faster" than the others. They are played evenly.
DarthKazi 2 years ago
7/8 basically means that if you´d have a bar consisting of 8 underlying beats (=counting the rhythm: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 ; 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8. etc.)
then in the case of 7/8 you have 7 beats repeating
(=count: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 ; 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 etc.)
trollslandan 2 years ago
7 beats to a measure, 8th note gets a beat. weird timing. beats to a measure, note that gets a beat. anything odd (5,7,9,etc) ain't yer 4/4 pop song. genesis, one of the last songs in suppers ready, i think its called apocalypse, 9/8 time. you can count it, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
RaelNYC 2 years ago
there are 7 notes in each measure and the 8th note gets the beat
topdog2328 2 years ago
listen to outshined by soundgarden... its in 7/8...im guessing reggae would be playing in all up beats
tsunami2011 2 years ago
7 refers to the number of beats in a measure, and 8 refers to how each eighth note is worth one beat. Same with 7/4, except the 4 refers to how each quarter note is worth one beat.
TheKidGuitarist 2 years ago
Haha Steve is funny yo xD
EclipseEternal 2 years ago 2
amazing story!
MileSeventySeven 2 years ago 2
Love it, only one FZ.
bustamove444 2 years ago
That was flippin' hilarious!
JLeeHaven 2 years ago
I heard linda ronstadt is still looking for a guitar player hahah that is the best ever!
moviefact1 2 years ago 16
what's 7/8 reagey(idk how to spell)? i know 7/8 is a time signature
yanmingyuyu 2 years ago
reggae is a style of Caribbean music, so saying "play 7/8 reggae" is like saying "play this rock song with a laid back feel and emphasis on the off-beats, while in 7/8"
i don't think i'd be able to pull of that audition, so i'm in the same boat as every other guitarist that doesn't play and think like Zappa
ibanez5 2 years ago 14
7/8th timing is what he means.
islandaire 2 years ago
I wonder what it was he had steve play
PeazyG420 2 years ago
Being a huge Frank Zappa fan, the more I listen to it the more I like the story and find it funny! Just like the Burger King joke in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, never too much. Has anyone out there ever seen a video of Things That Look Like Meat or Winos Do Not March on youtube? Can't find it.
intersection11 2 years ago
its a time signature
RottingWithGod 2 years ago
W Steve Vai!! the best
GiuliaBernardHerself 2 years ago
What does it mean to play it in 7th 8th ?
wassup131994 2 years ago
He said 7/8, its a certain time signature in Music theory!
eoinb57 2 years ago
7/8 time. It just means one half of a beat less per bar than your average pop song.
mrg2uson 2 years ago
7/8 is a time signature. the most common is 4/4, which is four beats to a bar. the second number tells you which kind of note. so 7/8 is seven eighth-notes (quavers) to a bar.
it's a little bit of a headfuck sometimes.
frood19 2 years ago
It's not "7th 8th" as you put it. It is 7/8. It is a time signature. It differs from the usual 4/4 time in that the eighth note gets the pulse and there are seven eighth notes per measure. Basically, it is one eighth note shorter than a measure of 4/4. Check out Tom Sawyer by Rush as I know the interlude of that song is primarily in 7/8 time. Hope that helps.
crawlthruknives 2 years ago
7/8 time signature
AndreasLuna 2 years ago
7/8 time
flipd85 2 years ago
7/8 is a meter. it means that 7 8th notes are played per measure.
Dmvizzle 2 years ago
You know how there is 4/4 time and 6/8 time? 7/8: It's a a time signature where you have to play seven notes per measure (fairly quickly as well, because of the eight). It usually has a very specific accenting to the notes and it's very rarely used, so basically he was really heavily testing Steve's ability.
McKintionary 2 years ago
i would like to know that too
carlosdlguerra 2 years ago
7/8 is a time signature. It means that a bar has seven beats in it.
Farksisten 2 years ago 4
Actually, 7/8 means there are 7 eighth notes in it. It only means it has seven beats if each eighth note is given its own respective beat. If the quarter note still gets the beat (which can happen if you switch time signatures in the midst of a song from 4/4 to 7/8), then it would be three and a half beats.
Muaguana 2 years ago
Just think 4/4. It's a different time signature...
JAustinMunn 2 years ago
wassup131994, a good and familiar example of 7/8 time: listen to Pink Floyd's song "Money." That's in 7/8 time. The beginning bass line repeats itself every 7 beats. Then at the guitar solo it changes to 4/4. Then back to 7/8.
cnychu 2 years ago
Money is in 7/4 time.
EmilAhlback 2 years ago 3
I thought it was in 7/4
bassguitarkeybordwiz 2 years ago
for instance: if you say the words "Canada Canada Cuba" putting the accent in only in th "Cu" of cuba, you can solfege a 7/8 time signature (it may sound like "CA NA DA CA NA DA Q"). Another 7/8 solfege method is to count a 4/4 and a 4/3 togeher (1-2-3-4-1-2-3 and son on). That's why Stravinsky said music is all about math !. Hope this helps you.
fernandoblanc 2 years ago 3
7/8 reagge!
That kills me!
;-)
okulary 2 years ago 2
dweezils band not franks
jimmyp73 2 years ago
More like Zappa should have been auditioning for Vai
cast390 2 years ago
Great clip....yet I am embarassed by some of these comments.....some have abolutely NO concept of conceptual thinking (7/8 reggae et al.)....methinks they need to go suck on a nitrous tank for a couple of days and get back to us :p
abaiah 2 years ago
Beautiful tale, beautifully told
Great stuff!!!
TheEmmetBear 2 years ago
Does anyone know who got the job instead of him?
PurplePlayer99 2 years ago
No matter who you are, the one thing nobody can deny about Frank zappa is that he was the single most intense musician on the planet, nobody will ever outdo him at his own game. I
f I'd been auditioning I'd have fouled myself in fear, having the best musicians in the world watching your playing is no small pressure.
PneRobinho619 2 years ago 5
So true. Not saying that Vai is worse/better as a guitarist, but nobody did things with the same mindset as Zappa, he was truly great
Sbemailer 2 years ago
Linda Ronstadt: Best Zappa quote ever. I tell people this story all of the time.
GodPlaysNintendo 2 years ago 7
Yeah, that's a great one!
Ullprutt 2 years ago