Most pop-music follows standard patterns, not specifically related to a certain style in a technical sense. It's using a rather limited number of chord types with the meter normally being 4/4, the reason why "new" albums mostly sound as if you already know them. These standards also occur frequently in Zappa's music, but they get mingled with a bewildering variety of non-standards. It makes the analysis of his songs interesting, even after some 500 examples. You still don't know for sure what the next one brings. "Jumbo go away", described beneath, knows normal chord progressions next to chromatic passages and an interlude, that's far away from pop standards.

The third sequence of songs with related subjects on "You are what you is" are tracks 17-20, this time about people who fail socially. It's part of the Zappa folklore that Moon Zappa entered her dad's business by writing him a letter about the idea of impersonating a Valley girl (included in the "Drowning witch" CD booklet). Actually she made her debut on "You are what you is" and probably Frank had asked her. She's the one doing the high vocals of Jumbo in the transcription below, like "feed me". "You are what you is" uses a wide range of singers, nine in total. As done more often, Zappa doesn't use the singers here to sing identical parts, but lets them sing in parallels and/or some devious lines. In the pick-up bar for instance you have four times a Db over the main melodic line, F-G-Ab-Bb. Next you've got staves 1 and 2 moving on via parallel thirds. In bar 11 you've a lead melody with the other singers forming two accompanying chords. Examples of the use of vocal parts in this way are numerous. The subject already came by in the examples sung by Flo and Eddie. Other examples in this study with creative ways of using vocal parts are for instance "Flakes" (2nd example), "I have been in you" (opening bars), "Doreen" (example above, bar 7), "Heavenly bank account" (opening with the gospel choir) and "The mammy nuns". The construction of "Jumbo go away" goes as follows:

- 0:00 Theme I with a I-II chord alternation in Eb Mixolydian. If you would take the G-Ab bass notes as leading it would lead to an obscurity, G Locrian, so I think most people would rather call it Mixolydian.
- 0:16 Theme II in Bb Dorian with the guitar chord progression I-IV-I-IV-III.
- 0:27 Theme I. The transcription below starts at 0:31 with this theme.

Jumbo go away, 0:31-1:02 (midi file).

Jumbo go away, 0:31-1:02 (transcription).

- 0:41 Theme II.
- 0:50 Chromatic passage with a constantly descending melody (bars 9-10 from the transcription).
- 0:55 Theme III in G Dorian with the guitar chord progression I-IV. The transcription ends here.
- 1:13 Theme III some more, now transposed up a minor second.
- 1:30 Instrumental interlude.
- 2:20 Theme I.
- 2:35 Theme II.
- 2:47 Theme I.
- 3:01 Theme II.
- 3:10 Postlude ("wash up your pie"), making the transition to the next song as it comes to the lyrics.
- 3:43 End.

The interlude is a highly irregular section, not specifically related to the other parts of this song. It used to be available via Barfo Swill, first as "Number 6". Later on, once it got used for this song, as the "Jumbo go away interlude". See below for some examples.

Number 6, bars 1-4 (midi file).

Number 6, bars 1-4 (score).

Originally this interlude was written for a wind quintet. During bars 1-4 the flute, oboe and clarinet are playing parallel, while the horn and bassoon are mostly playing sustained notes. All is obviously atonal and rhytmically irregular. On Youtube I came accross a film by Tyler Bartram (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJHIgjJFrN0), where the structure of "Number 6" is being demonstrated. In it the whole score is coming by, which almost has to be the original score in a reduced form.

Jumbo go away, 1:57-2:07 (midi file).
Number 6, section (midi file).

Jumbo go away, 1:57-2:07 - Number 6, section (score).

When you're comparing this score with the album, you'll notice that it is basically the same, but regarding details somewhat differently. Such differences between scores and actual recordings are common practice in Zappa's music. I'm giving an overview in my Uncle Meat section. On the album the score is played in different registers: the bass plays an octave lower and the descant an octave higher. The tempo is extremely high, probably sped up. As also happening during other tracks from "You are what you is", changing the speed has the effect that the pitches are getting out of tune with keyboard frequencies. Most of the time it sounds closer to being transposed a minor second up, while in some bars it can also sound closer to the pitches of the score. My guess is that this isn't happening intentionally, but as an effect of minor fluctuations. Because of this the original score is way better fit for analysing the melody than my presentation of how it sounds on "Jumbo go away". The speed, combined with being out of tune with keyboard frequencies, makes transcribing the interlude really nasty, so the original score came in very handy. The following indicates some structure building elements, as also done during the film, based upon the original score (the bar numbering is from my presentation).
- Bar 1: a figure in 6/16 that is getting varied upon during bars 2 through 13. The score notation shows the lead melody as strings, spread out over two staves, which suggests that it involves two instruments playing in hocketing manner. On the album this is handled differently by two or three keyboard tracks. During bars 1-4 I'm hearing a second keyboard part playing just a G# halfway each bar.
- Bar 2: this bar is repeating bar 1 except for it's tail, the last two notes of the lead melody are different.
- Bars 3-4: the melody is repeating bars 1-2. The bass is following a line of its own, descendingly during bars 1-6. Because of the high tempo, the bass part sounds as a counterpoint melody.
- Bars 5-8: the notes from bar 1 are getting transposed, though as subsets of notes and with the possiblity of changing the intervals. Staff two is transposed a major second down during bars 5-6, and again a minor second down in bars 7-8. Staff one knows two sets of two notes per bar. In bar 7 you can see that the following order of the sets of two notes from the preceding bars is exactly reversed. It's a mirror movement, a technique known from the Baroque counterpoint era, in this case applied in an atonal environment. This has something of a mathematic approach, as if the variations are based upon applying formulas.
Also present in the film is Brett Clement, pointing at another technique, that Zappa applied more often, namely varying the rhythm of a melody while the pitches are kept the same or transposed. I've added his example from his 2009 study below the example from above with two such examples, which Brett likes to call "isomelisms" ("same melody"). The numbers correspond with the repeating notes.



Two thumbnails of the Number 6 score.