Beefheart had no musical training and couldn’t read or write notation. He heard strange things in his head, which he demanded his Magic Band mates express instrumentally. He taught parts by hamfistedly pounding passages on a de-tuned piano, or whistling. (Years before Beefheart, this technique had been employed with perhaps greater degrees of sophistication by Raymond Scott and Sun Ra.) Zappa declared that the blues-fugitive had “trouble staying on a beat. Captain Beefheart has no natural rhythm.”
