Gail Zappa Quotes

Frank [Zappa] was not a big fan of having lyrics, but sometimes he had things to say that lent themselves to lyrics.

Frank [Zappa]'s music was never for the mass audience. His music contains specific kinds of information that you won't find elsewhere in rock and roll.

If you've ever had to recall your past in some way and you open a drawer of old photographs that your parents kept, there are always pictures of you smiling and charming, and then a bunch of people you don't know who they are. Could be aunts, uncles, could be the postman for all you know. Who are these people? Your parents are never in the picture, because they are the ones taking them. So you've got these unrelated images that are disconnected from your memories.

I never dreamed that my future would be my husband's past. But it's such a huge past in terms of the recorded content.

I think ingenuity is part of our DNA. That plus curiosity, plus the willingness to commit.

Musicians more than most people are in the moment. That's the dual nature of that job.

Certainly Apple has improved enormously. At the beginning, the sampling rate was an issue for me, but a bigger argument was over digital rights, which I had.

Frank [Zappa] always wanted to do a sound library - he sampled so many great musicians. For piano, for example, he sampled every octave, not just one (that you could just transpose electronically), and he did all different types of attack, with and without pedals, all that kind of stuff.

Frank [Zappa] said he probably would have been a major criminal, given his brain power and his attention to detail, had he not been a composer. But being a composer is not something you can't help.

It's the ultimate identity theft when you start messing with somebody's work. Thinking that you could edit the work, or mix it differently, or re-EQ it, or make claims about it that aren't true.

It's one thing to write the music, it's another thing to write it down, it's another thing to play it, and something else altogether again to learn how to play it. These are the elements that are fascinating, and, you know, move my world.

The problem with composers is that they are the most unrequired job in America.

I think it's okay that there's digital music out there, because that does mean more people have access. I mean, you're a student, and you're studying music, and you want to find a CD of a whole work, but there's one piece that intrigues you. It's easy to get that piece for a dollar for the most part. And it's so easy for people to carry around music digitally.

When you have a single composer writing his work, it shouldn't be doled out in singles based on the length of a piece.

Live concerts were to train the ears and to introduce, constantly, new musical ideas to the audience so the next time they showed up or the next record they would be ready and receptive.

I don't think there's a problem with people discovering the music unless there's no way to get to them. That's the problem that you always have.

It's nice to hear when someone gets something and the sincerity is enough to tickle you. They can have the wrong notes but the essence of it is there, so it makes you laugh, because even when Frank [Zappa]'s music is sad, it makes me laugh.

If you think about how long it takes to write a piece of music for an orchestra, it's outrageous to me, outrageous.

When I put out the records, when I make a distribution deal, those distributors tell me who they sell it to and how many copies. So I want nothing less.

You can't get a guitar player like Dweezil without his commitment to the work that it takes A) to be the musician that he is and B) to the music itself.

My obligation is to release the music the way Frank [Zappa] released it.