"What Goes Up"

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Similar to what I did with "Beaujolais" a few days ago, when I wrote out the tab for what I know of "What Goes Up" last night, I discovered that I had a few errors in the bass part.  Also, I learned a guitar phrase (just three notes).

"Beaujolais"

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Last night, I wrote out a tab for the bass part for "Beaujolais," and in doing so, I figured out that part I was having problems with last week.  This is still only the first two minutes or so.

"Vulture Culture"

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I just listened to Vulture Culture, and then I figured out the repeating bass phrase at the beginning of the title track.  It's not a great deal of progress, but it's still progress.

"One More River"

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A couple days ago, I learned the opening for "One More River."  I'm not super confident in the keyboard parts though.

"What Goes Up"

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Last night I figured out a few parts for "What Goes Up."  While I was recording this, I realized that I had the bass part wrong.  I think I've fixed it, but since it was a quick correction, it might still have some errors.

Pyramid

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After I figured out the bass part for "Beaujolais" last night, I discovered that the only album I hadn't either written about or figured out a part from was Pyramid, so I listened to it this morning and came up with a few things to write about (and this afternoon, I figured out a few parts, which I'll post in the next few days).

"The Eagle Will Rise Again"

In the first part of the song, each phrase (apparently on the virginal, according to the credits on the APP website) is ascending.  So while the lyrics include a few references to falling ("I could easily fall from grace," "they fall from your open hand," and, metaphorically "They [words] fall upon the ears of those who don't know the way"), those ascending musical phrases seem to provide assurance that "the eagle will learn to fly" and "the eagle will rise again."

"One More River"

I was surprised I hadn't previously noticed that this includes the phrase "it's the time of the season."  I'm not sure if this is really the case, but I'd be happy if that were a reference to the Zombies' "Time of the Season," which includes the same phrase ("It's the time of the season for loving").  A few seconds after the first occurrence of that phrase, there's an exhalation, which is similar to an effect in the Zombies' song.

Colin Blunstone - the Zombies' lead singer - provided lead vocals on "The Eagle Will Rise Again" (the track immediately preceding "One More River") and backing vocals on "Shadow of a Lonely Man" (the last track on the album), so I'm assuming that Woolfson and Parsons were at least somewhat familiar with the Zombies.  I think there's a recent interview with Blunstone where he says something about Parsons' being a tape-op when they recorded "Time of the Season" at Abbey Road.

"Beaujolais"

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I knew I hadn't done anything for this project for a while, so last night I figured out almost all of the bass part for "Beaujolais."  At the beginning of the choruses, there are some more elaborate figures that are still a bit elusive.  This is only the first two minutes or so; the rest is just the same part repeated, which I didn't think would be too interesting to listen to by itself.

"Snake Eyes"

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Because of the new edition of The Turn of a Friendly Card that's coming out, the APP have posted a few audio clips of interviews with Eric Woolfson about the album.  A few days ago, they tweeted this one, which includes the opening of "Snake Eyes."  When I heard it, I realized that the bass part is just one note, so I thought, "That'd be pretty easy to figure out."  And the melody didn't sound too hard either.

This is just the first twenty seconds or so.

The Turn of a Friendly Card Deluxe Edition

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[source]

35th Anniversary Deluxe edition of 'The Turn of a Friendly Card' will be released on 6th November 2015. 2CD package includes re-mastered original album, 17 previously unreleased bonus tracks (including Eric Woolfson's songwriting diary home demos) plus 10 bonus tracks and new booklet with lyrics, notes on the making of the album and rare photos. 2CD and Standard Digital format will be available as well as a Limited Edition vinyl 7" of three single edits.

"One Good Reason"

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An-other one of the parts from Ammonia Avenue that I thought would be pretty easy to figure out is the bass part in "One Good Reason."  The rhythm was actually the hardest part.  This is just the first two verses, although I ended on a D note for the first bridge ("I keep making the same mistake…").  I don't think there's a "proper" bass part for the bridges, but there's a repeated D note in the bottom register of a synth part.

The bass parts during the rest of the song are pretty much the same as those that I have in my recording, so I didn't play through the whole song.

"Don't Answer Me"

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I listened to Ammonia Avenue this morning, and I tried to pick out some parts that would be pretty easy to figure out.  I started with the glockenspiel part of "Don't Answer Me" (at least I think it's glockenspiel; the credits on their website don't list glockenspiel specifically, but there is just general "percussion").  I figured out only the parts during the choruses (although I'm not too confident in the last two phrases).

The chords came pretty easily too, although I'm unsure of one in the later part of the chorus.

My recording is just the first minute and a half or so because it would have been boring otherwise, since I know only the chords and a short glockenspiel part.

I found it interesting that the verses start with a C major to A minor modulation, which is the difference of only one note (C, E, G to C, E, A) and the choruses do the same thing, albeit with C major to E minor (C, E, G to B, E, G).

"The Cask of Amontillado"

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I recently read Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," so naturally I got to thinking about the APP song.  Last night I figured out the chords (although they're not really played so obviously in the original; they're more-or-less implied by the arrangements), at least most of the bass part, and I think all of the fuzz guitar part.

This is only the first half, but the second half is pretty much the same.

"Turn Your Heart Around"

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Verulam Cover Project:

I listened to Colin Blunstone's On the Air Tonight yester-day morning, and last night I tried figuring out just the opening piano part of "Turn Your Heart Around."  I ended up getting the chords too. 

It's not that interesting to listen to though.

I figured out the opening keyboard part and the chords to "Turn Your Heart Around."  I used the version from On the Air Tonight for my recording, but I checked the version on Keats, and - while I haven't investigated to see if the structure is the same - I discovered that it's a whole-step higher.  Additionally, where the On the Air Tonight version opens with piano, the Keats version uses some type of synthesizer.

Keats

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Verulam Cover Project:

To-day I listened to Keats' eponymous and sole album because - according to Russo's Collector's Guide - it was released to-day in 1984. 

I haven't done any work yet in trying to figure out the parts (this was only the second time I've listened to it), which is actually a good thing because I've decided to switch the banner it's under.  At the beginning of the year, I started an-other one of these blogs for the Alan Parsons Project (although I haven't done as much work on that as I have on this project), and since Keats is more of an APP side-project than a Zombies side-project, it makes more sense to put it there.  The only Zombies member Keats has is Colin Blunstone, but three of the four other Keats members were mainstays of the APP session musicians - Ian Bairnson, David Paton, and Stuart Elliott.  Additionally, Eric Woolfson was involved in putting the band together, and Alan Parsons produced the album. 

Switching the blog that Keats is on is also beneficial because it avoids confusing their "Tragedy" and Argent's "Tragedy" in the tags.  However, there will be a slight complication with "Turn Your Heart Around" - a Keats song that Blunstone re-recorded for his On the Air Tonight album.

 Just an administrative note; I'm adding the Keats album here.

"The Tell-Tale Heart"

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I recently read Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," and while I was reading it, I found a few interesting APP-related things.

The source for this part of the APP song (near the end of the song):

Heard all the things in Heaven and Earth
I've seen many things in Hell
But his vulture's eye of a cold pale blue
Is the eye of the Devil himself

is actually near the beginning in Poe's story.  Poe's narrator says, "The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them.  Above all was the sense of hearing acute.  I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.  I heard many things in hell" and "One of his [the old man's] eyes resembled that of a vulture - a pale blue eye, with a film over it."  It's interesting that the APP changed "heard many things in hell" to "seen many things in Hell" - it emphasizes visual nature and eyes.  (There might also be some relation to later APP albums in that quote, specifically Vulture Culture and Eye in the Sky.)

Poe's "There was nothing to wash out - no stain of any kind - no blood-spot whatsoever" results in the APP's "And he won't be found at all / Not a trace to mark his fall / Nor a stain upon the wall."

Poe has a long section devoted to the sound in his narrator's head:

My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they [the policemen] sat and still chatted.  The ringing became more distinct: - it continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definitiveness - until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears.

There's a paragraph break, and then the narrator says, "No doubt I now grew very pale…"

In the APP's "The Tell-Tale Heart," this is rendered as:

Louder and louder
Till I could tell the sound was not within my ears
You should have seen me
You would have seen my eyes grow white and cold with fear

The narrator's "eyes grow[ing] white" is not specifically mentioned in Poe's story, merely that "I now grew very pale."  However, the addition of the eyes is interesting because it provides a sort of comparison between the narrator's "white and cold" eyes and the old man's "eye of a cold pale blue."  Both sets of eyes (or, rather, the narrator's eyes and the old man's single eye) are "cold" and pallid.

In Poe's story, the old man's eye itself isn't described as cold, but rather coldness is the effect it has on the narrator:  "Whenever it [the old man's eye] fell upon me, my blood ran cold" and later "I saw it with perfect distinctness - all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones."

Sight is important not only with regard to the old man's eye, but also to the narrator's visibility.  In Poe's story, there are the lines "But you should have seen me.  You should have seen how wisely I proceeded - with what caution - with what foresight - with what dissimulation I went to work!"  There are two "you should have seen"s and also "foresight."  Likewise, the APP song has "You should have seen me / You would have seen my eyes."

Hiatus on Cyclical Listening

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For about four months now, I've been listening to one of the APP albums every Tuesday, cycling through them chronologically.  I think I've gone through two complete cycles (although, for some reason, I seem to have started with The Turn of a Friendly Card), but I'm not going to continue that, for the foresee-able future at least.  I have a lot of other projects that I'm doing, some of which I've been neglecting, and since listening to the albums doesn't seem to have helped very much in figuring out any parts, I'm putting that part of this project on hiatus.  I'm not sure how much I'll work on this now that I'm not consistently listening to the albums, though.

"Lucifer"

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After mentioning it a few days ago, I kept thinking about "Lucifer."  Last night I figured out the guitar parts for one section (I'm pretty sure it's doubled with auto-harp).  I might have the rhythm wrong in the second half though.  I figured out an-other part too, but I'm not sure what instrument it's actually played on.  I used electric piano, but the APP website lists only "synths," so…?

In looking that up, I've discovered that the rhythm in that part spells out EVE - the name of the album - in Morse code.  I'd been suspicious of something like that.

As a basis for my recording I used the early rough mix that's a bonus track on the CD re-issue, so there might be slight differences between this and the final version.

Ammonia Avenue

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A few weeks ago, I got Ammonia Avenue on CD (with bonus tracks!), so - excepting The Sicilian Defence - I now have all of the APP albums on CD.  I listened to Ammonia Avenue to-day, and I noticed two things:

There are recurring drum parts in "You Don't Believe" that sound really similar to recurring drum parts in "Lucifer" from Eve.  The first one in "You Don't Believe" is at about 0:20, and in "Lucifer," the first one is at about 1:28.  According to the APP website, Stuart Elliot played drums on both tracks.

The other thing I noticed is a line in "Ammonia Avenue" - the title track.  After the first verse, there's this couplet:

And who are we to criticize or scorn the things that they do?
For we shall seek and we shall find Ammonia Avenue

I think that the line "we shall seek and we shall find" is a Biblical reference.  I'm not really sure how it relates to the rest of the song, but at the very least, there's a strong resemblance between that line and Matthew 7:7: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you."

"You're Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned"

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When I listened to Eye in the Sky earlier this week, I thought the glockenspiel part from "You're Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned" sounded like it would be pretty easy to figure out.  I didn't have time until last night to actually do that though.

I recorded this just on (fake) piano because the fake glockenspiel sounded weird.  Eventually, I'd like to get a real glockenspiel, but I don't have the money for it.

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

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When I listened to The Turn of a Friendly Card two days ago, I got to wondering about the "wheel in perpetual motion" that's mentioned in "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part One)" and "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part Two)."

It's in the first verses of both songs.  Verse one of Part One:

There are unsmiling faces and bright plastic chains
And a wheel in perpetual motion
And they follow the races and pay out the gains
With no show of an outward emotion

Verse one of Part Two:

There are unsmiling faces in fetters and chains
On a wheel in perpetual motion
Who belong to all races and answer all names
With no show of an outward emotion

Since the whole album is about gambling and casinos, I thought at first that that "wheel in perpetual motion" was a roulette wheel.  But then I realized that it could also be the wheel of fortune.  I first learned about this in my Shakespeare class when we were going over tragedies.  The idea is that people are on a wheel that's turned by fortune, so at one point, someone might be on the top of the wheel and in good fortune, but then the wheel would turn, and they'd be somewhere else is worse fortune.

Judging by the context in "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part Two)," specifically the "faces in fetters and chains / On a wheel," the wheel of fortune makes more sense than a roulette wheel.  The song itself deals with luck and chance (fortune) more than roulette.  Cards are mentioned in the lines "your whole world depends / On the turn of a friendly card," and while I don't really know anything about roulette, I do know that cards aren't used.

Still, within just that line, the "wheel in perpetual motion" is an ambiguous image that could be a roulette wheel or the wheel of fortune.

"Games People Play"

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Yester-day, I listened to The Turn of a Friendly Card.  I listened for parts I thought would be easy to figure out, and I think I just sussed out the phrase that cycles throughout "Games People Play."  Because of the speed at which it's played, I'm pretty sure it's a loop.  I don't think a person could play it at that speed and not mess up (which is why I'm not even going to attempt to record an example).  I'm fairly certain it's the same four notes (B, D, F#, B') for the whole song (except for when the loop is faded out in the middle).

"I'd Rather Be a Man"

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I listened to Eve to-day, and I found what I think is a self-referential line in "I'd Rather Be a Man."

According to the APP website, the last line is "I'd rather be a man cause I wouldn't wanna be like you," which has the same phrase that recurs in "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You" from I Robot.

"Breakdown"

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While listening to I Robot yester-day, I remembered something I'd noticed earlier about "Breakdown."

The second verse starts with the lines "Any time it happened I'd get over it / With a little help from all my friends," which is either a pretty obvious reference to some lines from the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends" ("I get by with a little help from my friends") or an incredible coincidence.  Since Alan Parsons had some experience working with the Beatles (as a tape operator during Let It Be and Abbey Road), I'd have more confidence in the former.

Pyramid

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I've been listening to one of the albums every Tuesday (going in chronological order and starting over with Tales of Mystery and Imagination after Gaudi), but I just got Pyramid on CD yester-day (I'd had it only as a record), so I'm switching this week (which was supposed to be I Robot) with next week.

"A Dream within a Dream"

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Listening to Tales of Mystery and Imagination earlier this week, I thought the recorder part in "A Dream within a Dream" sounded like it would be pretty easy to figure out, so I figured it out yester-day.

I actually have a recorder, but it doesn't sound like it should (I think there's dust in the fipple, and I'm either going to have it fixed or just get an-other one), so I did this with the fake recorder setting on my keyboard.  At some point though, I'm going to re-learn recorder and do it right.  This is only four notes, so it should be a pretty simple thing to start with.

"(The System of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether"

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This post contains some spoilers for the Poe story "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether."

The other thing I noticed when I listened to Tales of Mystery and Imagination a few days ago is in "(The System of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether."  I'd previously noted that the melody from "The Raven" appears near the end, but it wasn't until now that I realized the implications of its reappearance.

It's not really revealed in the APP song (although looking at the lyrics just now, I noticed that the line "At the far end of your tether" Spoonerizes "Tarr" and "Fether" to "far" and "tether" [albeit missing an R]), but in the Poe story "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether," the narrator comes across a party in a house, and he later discovers that the house is an asylum and that the party-goers are the inmates who have escaped their cells (I read it about two years ago, so I might have a few things wrong, but that's the basic story).

The significance here is that "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" involves an asylum.  Since the melody from "The Raven" reappears at the end of the APP song, it indicates either that the singer/speaker of "The Raven" was so overcome by the bird that he's now in the asylum or - based only on the APP lyrics and disregarding Poe's story - the titular system is something that the singer/speaker of "The Raven" is trying to benefit by.  Of course, it could be both too (or neither).

"The Tell-Tale Heart"

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I listened to Tales of Mystery and Imagination this morning, and I noticed that the bass part during the third part of "The Tell-Tale Heart" has a rhythm that evokes the heartbeat that the narrator of Poe's story and the singer of the song hear.  (This is not the most interesting audio example; it's pretty much just a minute of C notes, but the rhythm is the salient point.)

Last May, while doing a different project, I noted how the ABA form of the piece goes well with the mental states of the speaker/singer, but including that heartbeat rhythm makes it even better.  This isn't the only instance of a lyrically-conscious bass part on the album either; the bass part in "The Raven" has a three-note phrase that's apparently meant to resemble the three syllables of "nevermore."

Gaudi

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While listening to Gaudi earlier this week, I noticed a few lyrical/musical connections.

In "Standing on Higher Ground," some (but - interestingly - not all) of the "standing on higher ground" lines go upwards at the end.  "Ground" has a melisma, and the second syllable is higher, apparently to reflect the difference in elevation.  I actually didn't notice this until I tried to record a version of it yester-day.

In "Money Talks," after the line "You roll the dice," there are rapid hammer-ons and pull-offs in the guitar part, apparently to reflect the tumbling of the dice.

"Standing on Higher Ground"

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Like the crosses inscribed in the guitar part in "Too Late," I'd thought I'd found an-other hidden religious element in "Standing on Higher Ground."  I'd thought that the synth bass part was just three notes (three is an important number in Christianity), but then I learned that part and discovered that it's more than three notes.  So while I was wrong, I still learned part of "Standing on Higher Ground."

However, when I tried recording a version, it ended up sounding terrible.  I couldn't match the tone of the synth, plus I had to play it manually instead of programming it (I have yet to learn how to program things), so the tempo varied a bit.

So I know that synth bass part, the two four-note phrases, and the chords, but until I become more experienced with synthesizers, I won't have a recording to prove it.

"Too Late"

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I listened to Gaudi this morning and discovered a few things.  I'm going to separate them into a few posts over the next couple of days.

The Gaudi album is about Antoni Gaudi, whom I don't really know anything about, but in skimming the Wikipedia article about him, I learned that he put religious images in his work.  The Alan Parsons Project did the same thing in at least one of the songs on Gaudi.

Last year, I read John Eliot Gardiner's Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven and learned that Bach inscribed crosses in one of his cantatas.  I tried scanning the page in Gardiner's book where he has the notation, but - while legible - it didn't turn out too well:

This same type of cross inscription is present in the recurring guitar phrase in "Too Late."

I had to squish the notation a bit in order to point it out, and since I did the notation myself, it's possible that I don't have the rhythms right.

I looked at the lyrics to see if there was anything that would confirm this (instead of its just being coincidental), and while I didn't find anything, I did notice an interesting bit of alliteration in the lines:

How do you feel when the tables have been turned?
What will you do now the bridges have been burned?

These lines take advantage of the alliteration in two common phrases: "the tables have turned" and "burning bridges."

"No Answers Only Questions"

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This morning, I listened to Vulture Culture.  I have the version with bonus tracks, including "No Answers Only Questions."  I noticed something interesting in this verse:

Why do we fight?
Why do we fall?
Why do we stand there, backs against the wall?
Why don't we change?
Why don't we try?
Why don't we turn round, help the other guy?

These are the lyrics as they're rendered on the APP website, but because of homophones, that third line could also be written as "Why do we stand their backs against the wall?"  "There" changes to "their," and "stand" becomes transitive where before it was intransitive, along with other shifts in syntactical function.

I think that - rendered that second way - it still makes sense within the song.  Instead of asking "Why are we disengaged?" (or "inactive" or "passive" or whatever other word you want to use) it asks, "Why are we scrutinizing others?" which seems to be only a shade away from the first line in the verse ("Why do we fight?").

"Don't Answer Me"

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I listened to Ammonia Avenue to-day, and I noticed a small lyrical thing about the chorus in "Don't Answer Me":

Don't answer me, don't break the silence
Don't let me win
Don't answer me, stay on your island
Don't let me in

I'm pretty sure that the "stay on your island" part is a reference to and an extension of John Donne's "No man is an island."

Chris Rainbow

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The version of "Nothing Left to Lose" with just Chris Rainbow's vocal overdubs (a bonus track on The Turn of a Friendly Card) is amazing.  And it seems like a good deal of the APP songs I really like have lead vocals by him.

"Psychobabble"

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While listening to Eye in the Sky to-day, I thought the motif in "Psychobabble" sounded pretty easy to figure out, so I did that.  And then I figured out some of the bass part.  During the verses, I think most of it is just skipping between D#s in different octaves.

This is just the first minute.

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

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I haven't done much on this project recently, so I decided to start listening to the albums regularly in order to become more familiar with them, which will hopefully make learning the parts easier.

I started with The Turn of a Friendly Card because I had something I've wanted to confirm about the title track since mid-November.  Helpfully, all of the lyrics are available on the APP website.

There are melismas accompanying the lyrics "On the turn of a friendly card" in "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part One)."  The whole clause is "When your whole world depends / On the turn of a friendly card."  So the melismas (on "turn," "friendly," and "card") help to emphasize the capriciousness inherent in the situation.

In looking at the lyrics, I also found something interesting about this verse:

There's a sign in the desert that lies to the west
Where you can't tell the night from the sunrise
And not all the king's horses and all the king's men
Have prevented the fall of the unwise

The meter of the lines stresses the "un-" in "unwise," as if to further drive home the lack of wisdom.

Tales of Mystery and Imagination

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Perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier, but on 19 January, I started reading one of the two Edgar Allan Poe collections I have (19 January is Poe's birthday).

While it's not the entirety of my aim, I do hope to gain some more understanding of the Poe-centric APP songs, particularly the Tales of Mystery and Imagination album.

"The Voice"

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I'm trying to do the easier things first, like the bass part for "The Voice."  It sounded really easy to figure out, and it was.  It's pretty much just the same three notes over and over again (at one point for a whole two minutes).

I was going to do the hand-claps during the middle part because I figured the hand-claps would be pretty easy.  Yeah… not so much.  I think they're on the off-beat, so it's really difficult to keep in time.  Plus I'm bad at hand-claps anyway.  This would have been only the third time I'd done them, but I failed.

I got some of the easier phrases in the electric piano part though, so it's not just the bass part.

I also learned that this is in C minor, which doesn't seem to be a key that's used very often.

"Breakdown"

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After I learned the bass part for "The Raven" (part of it, anyway), I discovered a phrase in it that sounded familiar.  And eventually I realized that the same figure starts (and frequently recurs in) "Breakdown."  There are some parts in my recording that aren't very accurate, but most of it is pretty close.  Really, I just wanted to record a version to point out that phrase:

(I'm still not very good at reading music, but I think that's the right notation.)

What's interesting is that the bass parts for "The Raven" and "Breakdown" were played by different musicians.  Joe Puerta played bass on "The Raven," and David Paton played bass on "Breakdown."

"The Raven"

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I learned the bass part for the first section of "The Raven."  Some of the notes I'm not too sure about, and I think there's one phrase I'm missing completely (it's not as loud as the rest, so it's harder to figure out).  I also figured out a bit of the electric piano part.  While it follows the melody for most of this, there are some other notes to it that I haven't figured out yet (maybe parallel thirds?).

The rhythms sound a bit off in some places, but that's probably my fault.

I used the version from The Essential Alan Parsons Project as a template for this.  It differs slightly from the version on Tales of Mystery and Imagination in that there's a longer lead-in with the bass part.  On Tales of Mystery and Imagination, that bass part bridges "A Dream within a Dream" and "The Raven."

"Eye in the Sky"

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I remembered what chords I knew of "Eye in the Sky" and figured out the rest.  One sounds a bit weird, but I don't know if that's because it's wrong or just because the rest of the parts aren't there.

I also figured out a tiny bit of the electric piano part at the beginning.

Also, a sidenote: this was the piece that taught me about palm muting, way back in May 2013.

Introduction

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In August 2012, I start a blog where I document my over-ambitious project of trying to learn all the parts to all of the songs by the Zombies, my favorite band.  (It later expanded to include other bands the members were involved with.)  Last fall, I started thinking about doing the same sort of thing for an-other band because - while I still have a long way to go on that other project - it was progressing much better than I had expected.  Additionally, in learning the parts and how they relate, I started to appreciate the music a lot more.

In determining which band I should add next, the Alan Parsons Project was an obvious choice.  Colin Blunstone - the Zombies' lead singer - makes appearances on a few tracks, and I'd been unsure of what to do with those in my Zombies project.  But now I can go ahead and learn the rest of the APP catalogue too.

Because I'm already doing this same sort of thing for the Zombies' songs, I'm not going to put as much effort into this.  Additionally, the instrumental corpus of the APP is much more diverse and complex than that of the Zombies, and there are many instruments I have no idea how to play and don't even own (specifically, any type of synthesizer and virtually all orchestral instruments).  So, naturally, there will be lots of gaps and uncertainties, especially early in the project.  Part of my aspiration with the project is to learn how to play some more instruments and get better at music in general.

The project title (APP Stereotomy) is multi-faceted.  Obviously, there's the reference to Stereotomy and, within that, to stereo and Poe.  But this project is also a stereotomy of the Alan Parsons Project.  As they explain, "'Stereotomy' is the scientific term for enclosing scientific samples in wax and then cutting them into fine shavings."  In learning the parts, I hope to gain a better understanding of the music.  Like I do with my Zombies project, I'll probably write some posts that merely comment on a particular element in a song.

Excepting The Sicilian Defence, I have all of the Alan Parsons Project albums in one form or an-other.  Some I have only as vinyl LPs.  I just got Vulture Culture for Christmas and haven't listened to it yet, but I'm fairly familiar with most of the albums.  The first one I got was Eye in the Sky (because of Colin Blunstone's vocal appearance on "Old and Wise"), and it's probably still my favorite.  Next I got Stereotomy and then either I Robot or Tales of Mystery and Imagination.  Aside from the first ones, I don't really remember the order I got them in.

I think I know a few chords to "Eye in the Sky" - that's my entire musical knowledge of the APP's catalogue.  Not a very auspicious start.  Still, if this goes anything like my corresponding project for the Zombies, I'll be surprised at where I am in a few years.