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Frank Zappa's Influence On Linux and FOSS Development
Roblimo writes "Zappa's 'Dinah-Moe Hummm' is totally about Linux, at least in spirit, while the song 'Montana,' with its talk of zirconium-encrusted tweezers and dental floss, 'is obviously about Mac users.' Not only that: In the early '70s Zappa wrote a song called 'Penguin in Bondage,' an obvious foretelling of the anti-Linux lawsuits and threats from SCO, Microsoft, and other evildoers. Zappa was also a heavy user of the Synclavier, an electronic music machine that was a precursor to today's 'studio on a computer' recording and sound editing software. According to an article on DevX, today Zappa would no doubt be using Linux and Ardour for most of his recording and composition."
According to an article on DevX, today Zappa would no doubt be using Linux and Ardour for most of his recording and composition.
I do not agree with this statement. There is a lot of doubt in my mind. As I listen to Zappa albums, I constantly find new things mixed into them. Often I tell a friend about a great Zappa song but they haven't the patience to listen through five minutes of weirdness just to get to a great guitar lick intricately backed. Anyhow, I would wager that Zappa's thirst for this kind of mixing would lead him to the industry standard: Pro Tools. I highly doubt a professional musician would stray from that but if Zappa dumped some cash into Ardour development and increased its support then maybe. But right now, audio recording on Linux isn't the greatest. Pro Tools is often augmented with dedicated hardware ... I am unaware of how you would do this with Ardour. I also have had one hell of a time trying to get a dual core processor with plenty of ram to record in Linux and also play back what you're recording on top of several tracks without delay.
... like a lot of things in Linux it could have been a configuration error but I spent a lot of time on that. Unfortunately, all musicians are not computer savvy and they certainly do not like messing around with getting software working in the studio.
In my hobby projects, I have given up on audio recordings in Linux although I must say I was impressed with Ubuntu Studio when I was trying to layer guitar tracks a few years ago. It just seemed that the audio bus could not keep up when recording through my M-Audio USB input box
My work here is dung.
What's the magic FOSS connection to the song "broken hearts are for assholes" and in particular the lyric "You're an asshole, you're an asshole, that's right! You're an asshole, you're an asshole, yes yes!"
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Can someone explain the appeal of Zappa to me? Most of his songs seem weird for weirdness' sake, but I'm willing to learn.
Frank Zappa was one of the greatest musical geniuses that our species has ever produced. To even remotely insinuate that we could assume his intentions or possible course of action is douchebaggery of the highest order.
Show some fucking respect.
Living With a Nerd
Not only that: In the early '70s Zappa wrote a song called 'Penguin in Bondage,' an obvious foretelling of the anti-Linux lawsuits and threats from SCO, Microsoft, and other evildoers.
No.... No, I think that implies something else altogether. Something... something involving fat nerds in leather suits.
Zappa was also a heavy user of the Synclavier, an electronic music machine that was a precursor to today's 'studio on a computer' recording and sound editing software.
What does this have to do with anything at all? The synclavier was not open source or Linux based. Also, the synclavier did not lead to any FOSS music production tools. In fact, even now, the vast majority of studio work is done on mac OS or windows. How does this synclavier relate to the point they are trying to make? Sounds to me like they are drawing correlations that do not exist.
Frank would be using the best stuff in whatever format. He wouldn't be constrained by Linux, or Windows, or Mac, or whatever.
Appropriating Frank's memory to endorse anything is just wrong, man.
Actually after taking a second look at the "logic" presented in TFS, it starts making more sense.
Zappa is best appreciated when really stoned or tripping out on acid or mushrooms. That's when the connections and the lyrics in his music suddenly seem so brilliantly clever like an inside joke that nobody else in the room - or in the whole universe - can understand. Similarly, the connections and leaps of logic in the summary are the kind of thing that won't speak to you unless you just sucked back a few bowls or you're otherwise in a state where you could spend 30 straight minutes examining the wrinkle patterns on the backs of your hands.
If you don't like this submission, you're clearly not high enough.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
The tweezers in question are encrusted with "Zircon", and not Zirconium, as alleged.
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
The religious texts say a thing, such as when Jesus told his followers "Remember that all these things will happen before the people now living have all died". And they didn't.
This leaves the religious with three choices, none of them good: either:
1: Jesus was wrong
2: Jesus was a liar
or 3: the Bible doesn't mean what it says, and must be re-interpreted in order for it to remain relevant to us, who are not the audience it was written for.
Needless to say, most of the faithful pick the third option. The Revelation of John is even worse; in modern times most of the faithful read it as if it were written for a modern audience rather than a then-contemporary audience, so we turn a warning about the political power of Rome into a warning about bizarre apocalypse destined to happen in the future (ours).
This post reeks of this sort of post-hoc reasoning. Let's not do Zappa a disservice by deliberately reading him as if he were talking to us about something he clearly wasn't.
While I'm sure (I hope) it was meant as a jest, does this sort of evangelical logic really promote Linux in a way that is useful? This reads like fanboy logic written for the converted. More damning, however, is that while it is supposedly humorous, it's not actually funny.
Did this author think to even talk with some of the still living Zappa clan? This article isn't much of anything if the author isn't going to even try to get some opinions from those closest to FZ himself.
.. of Slashdot's humor stories. I'm dying from laughter, in all seriousness.
You may be posting that sarcastically but I voted this story up as "Funny" in Firehose.
It's completely absurd, of course. "Montana" had nothing at all to do with computers, it was about growing pot. In any case, Zappa would have used whatever tool would have made his job easier for him. My guess would be Pro Tools on a Mac, like most other musicians these days, but that's worth about as much as anyone else's guess--exactly nothing.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Newton - FreeBSD
Leibniz - Solaris
Donny from the Big Lebowski - QNX
Phil Hartman - BeOS
Moses - OS2/Warp
Hammurabi - MS DOS 5
Rush Limbaugh - Windows Vista
Of *course* it's all absurd.
But how about this: if you go to the forums on zappa.com and search for Linux, you get 76 results, and only 29 each for Windows and Mac.
This proves something -- something silly, no doubt, but still something (or other).
- R
Agreed.
Although, Dweezil's preference (circa 2006) "is to use the Euphonix R-1 hard-disk recording system and then bump that over to Nuendo." (http://emusician.com/tutorials/emusic_frankly_dweezil/index3.html), FWIW...
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
In many Zappa albums, there are some tracks that are all-time favorites of mine, and others that I just can't stand. There are only a few albums of his that I can play through without interruption -- Hot Rats, the Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar series, Apostrophe ('), and Over-Nite Sensation come to mind.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
Newton - FreeBSD Leibniz - Solaris Donny from the Big Lebowski - QNX Phil Hartman - BeOS Moses - OS2/Warp Hammurabi - MS DOS 5 Rush Limbaugh - Windows Vista
T.J. Schmitz - the man, the myth, the legend - o
Maybe... just maybe they can lay a claim that prior exposure to Zappa albums may make a person more likely to adopt Linux...
For instance, my early years of tripping to Billy The Mountain while playing Risk might, just might, have made it easier for me to accept software packages that sings its own tune, an os that requires text file manipulation to properly use a display adapter and made me willing to install Linux on a Sparc10 even though it took me a couple of weeks to replace the Sun bitmap with a penguin
So there you go, prepare for a career in Linux by receiving brain damage while listening to Zappa
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Weird just means art doesn't it. One of the most funny things I've noticed in this world is that "artistic" types who go to a gallery and blather on and on about the "freedom" of Picasso, and Jackson Pollock will positively run in terror from music that violates 32 bar AABA song structure. So Zappa is how much weird, he's kind of weird? But you know whenever I feel blue, I put on "Trout Mask Replica", (not Zappa but close) laugh my ass off, and am able to proceed mightily through this world which is much much weirder than Frank Zappa.
http://www.othermusic.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf8TM4CIk5g
Yes, Acquiring a taste for Zappa can be done, even for the uninitiated/unsuspecting.
When I was in college I had a cassette with "Thing Fish" on it, and my roommate accidentally took it home with him for summer break. He got a delivery job that summer. The company truck had a cassette deck in it but no CD player. Since my roommate had no cassettes, he decided to give "Thing Fish" a listen (or three). Once he started listening to it he really loved it. This is a guy who previously had pretty mainstream musical tastes.
So I'd say as long as you're open to the weirdness and not too easily offended, you should give it a shot.
"Dinah-Moe Humm" might, in fact, be about Linux. Namely, the lyric "I got a spot that gets me hot, and you ain't been to it."
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
In the early '70s Zappa wrote a song called 'Penguin in Bondage,' an obvious foretelling of the anti-Linux lawsuits and threats from SCO, Microsoft, and other evildoers.
Since Tux came into being in April-May of 1996, it is impossible for Mr. Zappa to have used a penguin reference to suggest anything about Linus in the "early '70s." See: http://www.sjbaker.org/wiki/index.php?title=The_History_of_Tux_the_Linux_Penguin
-Todd
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
Buddy Holley, Ritchie Valens, and the "Big Bopper" are Windows fans. Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison couldn't be reached for comment.
1. Take the current industry standard for PROFESSIONAL recording studios (not hobbiest or indi guys on a budget).
2. Add custom hardware and software from the top engineers in the industry.
THAT's what Zappa would be using. That's what Zappa has always used, dating back to the mid 1960s. You can find numerous references to his custom recording boards and equipment in assorted online archives. Doesn't the Zappa website have pictures of his homestudio?
Zappa was a professional, a perfectionist and a business man. He didn't waste time on fads or tolerate incompetence (in people or hardware/software). He relied exclusively on experts (musical or otherwise) to execute is particular vision.
"Arf!" she said.