huffpuffman

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Part 2:

An article about my class this summer term showed up in one of UNT’s news articles:

DENTON (UNT), Texas — Ask someone to name great music composers, and one might think of the usual suspects – Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss, to name a few.

Add Frank Zappa to the list.

Dr. Joseph Klein, associate professor of composition at the University of North Texas, is teaching a five-week summer course about the music of Frank Zappa for the sixth year in a row. About 20 students in the class will delve beyond Dancin’ Fool and other well-known Zappa tunes to study his prolific mix of mainstream classical, avant-garde classical, jazz, rhythm, blues and electro-acoustic music.

The class is offered from 10 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. Mondays through Thursdays starting July 10 and ending Aug. 10 in Room 287 of the Music Building, located on the southeast corner of Avenue C and Chestnut Street. Past classes have included music majors as well as students majoring in art, philosophy, sociology, ethnomusicology, English and anthropology.

“It does draw a special crowd of people because the music is not easy to listen to,” said Klein, who traveled to Lodz, Poland, earlier this year to present a paper about social and political commentary in Zappa’s work. “But people who listen to his music are really fanatical about it.”

Besides studying scores and analyzing Zappa’s musical compositions, students examine the political and social implications in Zappa’s work. After forming the band Mothers of Invention in 1964, Zappa spoke before a Senate committee in 1985 about a proposal to label offensive music and traveled to Moscow and Eastern Europe for the Financial News Network in the 1990s. He died of prostate cancer at age 52 in 1993 in Los Angeles.

Students in the class have watched videos of Zappa’s concert performances and his appearances on Saturday Night Live; study his lyrics; read books and articles on his work, including his autobiography, “The Real Frank Zappa Book;” and have even interviewed a former band member, Arthur Barrow, in a conference call during class. Barrow earned a music degree in 1975 from North Texas State University, now UNT.

Pamela Ward, who is pursuing a master’s degree in ethnomusicology at UNT, took the class about five years ago to satisfy a longtime curiosity about Zappa’s music.

“As a musician, you might feel like there are boundaries to a certain genre, and he gives you permission to walk outside those boundaries,” Ward said.

This year’s class coincides with the 40th anniversary of the release of Zappa’s first album, “Freak Out.” But only in the last 10 years have composers been giving Zappa ’s work more serious consideration, Klein said.

“Conference papers are being given on Zappa; several books analyze his work; ensembles play his music,” Klein said. “His music has more relevance now. That’s one of the problems of being ahead of your time.”

What at first looks like a blow-off class is gonna turn into the most research intensive course I’ll ever take. You’ve gotta love Dr. Klein and the rest the extraordinary faculty in the College of Music.