Waltz For Guitar-1958

In October, 1958 FZ  entered Lancaster's Antelope Valley Junior College. On December 22 he had written a 12-tone serial exercise, called Waltz For Guitar.


The sheet music was published in the Guitar Player Presents  Zappa! special from 1992

Serial exercise-Waltz-guitar

"This is a 12-tone crab canon written when I was 18. There's actually another version for two guitars, so it's a double crab canon. I don't know where it is though. I'd been doing 12-tone music for quite some time before I did this, but it was the first time I'd tried to write something for the guitar. I couldn't play it, and I never got to hear it until I got the Synclavier. And because it's printed on the Synclavier, that also means I got to push the button and listen to it. It's kind of short and boring."

Frank Zappa, Guitar Player 1992, p 65-72







Listen to Waltz for guitar. Played by John Elenius.