"Secret Garden"

Last fall, I learned some parts for the middle section of "Secret Garden" (piano, Clavinet, and bass).  I kept either forgetting or not having enough time to record an example of what I'd learned, but I finally got around to it a couple days ago.

For the bass part, I referenced the rough mix that's included as a bonus track on the CD (because the bass part is much easier to hear there), but inexplicably, this middle section is eight measures longer in the final version.

I think the two hands in the Clavinet part play the same thing an octave apart, aside from a few notes that are tenths (at ~1:23 in my recording, ~3:23 in the actual track).

At some point, it also occurred to me that the structure of "Secret Garden" illustrates the title.  The middle section is slower and generally less involved than the bookending sections, and these differences hint at a sort of seclusion.  It's similar to what I wrote about in "The Tell-Tale Heart" a number of years ago, although here it's purely instrumental.

"Sirius"

A couple months ago, I watched this interview with Alan Parsons.  Starting at ~17:34, he briefly talks about how he wrote the riff in "Sirius" using a Clavinet sample on the Fairlight.  I think I figured out this part last night.  Much of it is characterized by the delay that Alan mentions, and I don't really have a way to duplicate this, so I'm not sure if what I have is the entirety of the part, but it's at least something like this:

Some of these intervals seemed familiar to me, and I realized that they're basically the same as those in "Day after Day (The Show Must Go On)," played on what the APP website calls "jangle piano."  It's also doubled with a synthesizer.  These phrases repeat through much of the verse:

The phrases in the two songs begin in different places and have a different number of notes, but each consists of a root note, the fourth, the fifth, and the octave.  In "Sirius," the order is fourth, fifth, octave, root (with the seventh substituted for the octave every other time); in "Day after Day," it's octave, fifth, fourth, root, fourth, fifth.  Obviously, the parts aren't the same, but they do have the same sort of musical vocabulary.

"Don't Answer Me"

Yester-day was the fortieth anniversary of the release of Ammonia Avenue.  I listened to the album and started wondering whether the three syllables of "ev'ryone" in the line "Run away and hide from ev'ryone" in "Don't Answer Me" are sung to all different pitches.  This turned out not to be the case (the pitches are G Ab G), but after looking into this, I had a different realization.  Under the lines "Run away and hide from ev'ryone / Can you change the things we've said and done?," the chord progression includes two Bb majors.  Since the song is in C major, the root of Bb major is an accidental, and this foreign tone provides something of a sense of the distance involved in "run[ning] away" and of that "chang[ing]."  In the vocal line above this, there are also some accidentals (Eb and Ab) that contribute to this effect.

"Don't Hold Back"

Recently, I learned the bass part for a section of "Don't Hold Back."  I'd already learned the chords, so I could put the two together and make a short recording.  This is the verse starting at ~2:31, the first half of which is the guitar solo.  The other verses are almost the same; the last two measures are all that's different.

"Damned If I Do"

I listened to Eve yester-day and noticed an interesting feature in "Damned If I Do":  after the line "But each time you walk away," there's a diatonically ascending phrase in the electric piano part (G A Bb C D Eb), and because it's step-wise, there's a musical sense of this "walk[ing]."

"Pyramania"

I listened to Pyramid yester-day and noticed an interesting feature in the verses of "Pyramania," particularly the second verse.  The meaning kind of spills over the line breaks, so I'm not sure about the best way to format it, but it's something like:

I've been told someone in the know can be sure that his luck is as

Good as gold, money in the bank, and you don't even pay for it

If you fold, a dollar in the shape of the pyramid that's printed on the back

There are a number of groups of three here.  The three-syllable clauses or phrases "I've been told," "Good as gold," and "If you fold" are each set apart from the rest of the line because they rhyme with each other and because they're sung with longer note values (usually two quarter notes and a half note, in contrast to the multiple eighth notes that follow).  Unique to the second verse, these three syllables are also three individual words, and, of course, there are also three lines in the verse (as I've formatted it, at least).

These various threes in the structure of the verses reflect the three sides of the pyramid, which is the theme of the song.

"The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part One)"

Recently, a clip from an interview with Sally Woolfson was posted on the Alan Parsons Project's social media accounts.  (Here are the links to Twitter and Instagram, and here are links to the first and second parts of the full interview [from 2020] on YouTube.)  "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part One)" is used as background music in the clip, and while listening to it, I realized that in the lines "And not all the king's horses and all the king's men / Have prevented the fall of the unwise," the phrases "all the king's horses" and "all the king's men" are sung to notes of all different pitches (F E D C A and D C Bb A, respectively).  This provides a sense of the entirety and breadth of those "all"s.

"Separate Lives"

I listened to Vulture Culture yester-day and noticed an interesting feature in "Separate Lives."  In the lines "'Cause we don't see eye to eye / And we can't stand face to face," the phrases "eye to eye" and "face to face" are sung so that the two "eye"s and the two "face"s are sung to different pitches.  (Each phrase is sung to the notes F# G E.)  Even musically, then, there's a sense of this disparity.

"May Be a Price to Pay"

This evening, I figured out the brass part at ~2:22 in "May Be a Price to Pay."  (Later, I lookt in my file and discovered that I'd already figured this out.)  In notating it, though, I realized that there are a few elements in it that illustrate how "something's wrong" (the lyrics that are sung at the same time).

I think the part is something like this:

The song is in D minor, but there are some accidentals here.  (I don't know if it's technically correct to mix the accidental signs, but I notated them as Eb and C#).  In every other measure, the brass plays on the off-beats, and this also contributes to a sense of something wrong.

"Don't Let It Show"

I was thinking about "Don't Let It Show" yester-day, and I realized that in the line "Don't tell them anything," the three syllables of "anything" are each sung to a different pitch (Eb Db Bb).  This musical span gives a sense of that breadth of possibility.

"Stereotomy"

Back in December, I figured out the lower register synthesizer part at the beginning of "Stereotomy," and a couple years ago, I'd figured out the main part.  Yester-day, I finally got around to making a recording of the two parts.  There's a bit of an introduction before this, but I didn't include that.  What I have is just the section that repeats.

I played this on my Moog Subsequent 37.  I got it recently enough that I'm still learning how to use it and don't really know what I'm doing.  My tone doesn't match at all, but at this point, I'm more concerned with having the right notes.  I don't even know what synthesizer was used on the original recording.  Specific synthesizer identification is an aspect of this project I'd never even considered before.

"Nothing Left to Lose"

I recently got a Hammond SKX.  It has more accordion sounds than I could probably ever use, and/so I felt that the first thing I record with it should use an accordion sound.

Here's the accordion solo in "Nothing Left to Lose."  I used the A-120 accordion sound, with the |:| symbol.  To give it some context, I played the bass part on the lower manual (using the SKX's Fender Piano Bass sound).  I'm fairly confident in the accuracy of the part itself and my notation, but I may have something wrong.

To-day's also Eric Woolfson's birthday.