Friday, February 15, 2019

"Nothing Left to Lose"

I recently loaded the French accordion mellotron sound on my Nord Electro 5D.  It reminded me that when I listened to The Turn of a Friendly Card back in December, I thought that the accordion solo in "Nothing Left to Lose" didn't sound too difficult to figure out.  It took a bit of effort, but I think I have it:


One of the notes in the mellotron sample (the high F) sounds a bit off, which gives a bit of credence to what Alan Parsons said about the mellotron in this interview from a couple years ago:  "I always thought that the sound was compromised by the use of mellotron over orchestration."  Still, were it not for the mellotron sounds, I probably wouldn't have learnt this part now and I certainly couldn't have recorded it because I don't know how to play accordion.  I was going to record it using melodica (which doesn't sound too different), but my melodica doesn't have the range necessary to play this part.

Along with this solo, there's also an accompaniment part (which I haven't figured out), played either with the lower register or as a second part.  I know very little about accordions, so I don't know if it's even possible to play those two parts on a single instrument simultaneously.