"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.

"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.

"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.

"The Gold Bug"

I listened to The Turn of a Friendly Card yester-day (on vinyl), and then I learned a section of the saxophone part in "The Gold Bug" (roughly from ~1:34 to ~2:06).  I'd previously figured out some of the bass part, so I felt it merited a recording:

I used the Mellotron saxophone sound on my keyboard; it's the best I could do.

"Eye in the Sky"

Aside from the introduction, my first post for this project was a recording of the palm-muted guitar chords and electric piano phrase in "Eye in the Sky," and I commented that one of the chords "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."  It turns out it was wrong.

After I listened to Eye in the Sky last month, I discovered that I'd never written down the electric piano phrase, so I re-learned it (and wrote it down).  I had written down the chords, but in revisiting the song, I discovered that what I'd thought was a Bb major is actually a G minor.  It doesn't particularly come across in my new recording because it's mostly the bottom three strings of the guitar that are played (G D G').

When I made my recording five years ago, I was limited in my keyboard sounds, but since I got a Nord Electro 5 about two years ago, I can now more accurately reproduce the Wurlitzer that Eric Woolfson played on the track.  I added some chorusing and panning too, but I'm not sure if the original has that or not.

Unlike last time where I played the chords for the whole song, this is just the introduction and the first verse.  Were it not for my previous mistake in the chord progression, I wouldn't have even recorded that much because all I know of the verses are the chords, and they're a bit boring to listen to on their own.

Here are the chords, which I still might have wrong, but which are at least a bit more accurate than what I used in my last recording:

Introduction/Coda
|: B minor | G major :|

Verses
|: D major | B minor :|
G major | G minor | D major | E major
D major | G major | D major

Choruses
|: D major | F# minor :|
G major | G minor
|: B minor | G major :|

EDIT (29 April):  YouTube deleted my video, citing it as "inappropriate content" (!?), so I posted it on Twitter:

YouTube deleted my video that goes with this post (https://t.co/uhW2MLwBPx), and while I submitted an appeal, it seems to be going nowhere, so I'm posting it here. pic.twitter.com/c92hno6wT0

— January's Cloak (@JanuarysCloak) April 29, 2020

"Old and Wise"

After I listened to Eye in the Sky a couple days ago, I learned what I think is a cello part in the introduction of "Old and Wise."  To this, I could add what I think is a flute part, which I learned a couple years ago.  I used mellotron voices for both.

"Winding Me Up"

When I listened to Eve a couple days ago, I noticed what I think is a recorder part in "Winding Me Up" (from ~2:12 to ~2:41) that I guess I hadn't been fully aware of before.  Recorder isn't listed among the instruments in the "credits" section for Eve on the APP website, but it sure sounds like one in the song.

Here's my recording, with just guitar chords for accompaniment (I doubled-tracked recorder and guitar):

Here's the notation of the recorder part (with - of course - the disclaimer that I might have something wrong):

The day after I listened to the album, I was still thinking about this song, and I realized that in the title line, the "up" is sung to a higher note than the others ("Winding me up" is sung to the phrase E E E G), musically giving something of a sense of its meaning.

In looking at the song again in order to write this post, I also noticed that "too long" is sung with melismas (G E for "too" and E D for "long"), musically giving a sense of degree and of duration, respectively.

"Heaven Knows"

I recorded some parts from Keats' "Heaven Knows" three years ago, but I never wrote them down and forgot how to play them.  Recently, I've been relearning those parts and figuring out some new ones (and writing them down).

I remembered the piano part (although I'm still missing some of it), and I relearned the bass part (and discovered that I'd had some notes in the wrong octave).  I also figured out one of the saxophone parts (which I played using a mellotron sound) and some of one of the guitar parts:

When the piano comes back in, the timing is a bit off, but I didn't feel like redoing it.

"The Ace of Swords"

Last week, I learned the clavinet part in the introduction in "The Ace of Swords," so I made an updated recording:

Since I last recorded this, I got a new keyboard (a Nord Electro 5D), and some of the sounds are a lot better (for what it's worth, I used French harpsichord D and clavinet C).  I included the bass part in the audio but not the video.

"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.

"Somebody Out There"

A couple days ago, I learned some of the guitar parts for "Somebody Out There."  I recorded just the second chorus because there are two guitar tracks there:

The first chorus doesn't have that second part, and the choruses near the end of the song are slightly different (although I haven't lookt into the specifics yet).

I also re-learned the synth parts that I recorded last October, and I'm not very confident that what I had was correct.  I played only single notes for one of the parts, and now I'm pretty sure that there are at least pairs of notes, so I didn't include those this time.

"The Ace of Swords"

Last month, I learned the bass and string parts (or at least one of the string parts) for the introduction in "The Ace of Swords," so I added them to the harpsichord and oboe parts I already knew.  Of course, after I recorded this, I realized that I played the string part an octave too low.  There's still a clavinet part I have to learn, so once I get that, I'll update this again and try to remember to put the string part in the correct octave.

Instead of trying to match the original recording, I just set up a click track and played the parts to that, which is why my recording doesn't have the ritardando at the end.

"The Eagle Will Rise Again"

Back in March, I figured out the ascending, arpeggiated keyboard part in "The Eagle Will Rise Again" (I'm still not exactly sure what instrument it's played on, but I think it's virginal).  I've been slowly writing out the notation for it (doing it piecemeal), and I recently remembered that (back in June) I figured out the high violin part in the fourth verse.  I haven't been recording examples unless I know at least two parts, and here I've had two parts for "The Eagle Will Rise Again" for a few months.

My recording is the third verse (just the keyboard part) and the fourth verse (the keyboard part and the violin part).  The closest I could get to virginal was the harpsichord setting on my keyboard, and I used the violin setting for the violin part, which is why I don't have the glissandi between some notes.

"The Ace of Swords"

I recently learned the woodwind part at the beginning of "The Ace of Swords" (I'm not exactly sure what woodwind instrument it is specifically, but I think it's oboe).  I didn't really know how to write it down (notating the trill would have given me problems), so I decided just to film the notes.  I don't have an oboe (or any other reeded woodwind) to play it on, so I used the oboe setting on my keyboard, which actually makes it easier to see what notes I'm playing.  I hadn't written down the harpsichord part either, so I filmed that for posterity too.

"Nothing Left to Lose"

Last week, I learned some of the backing vocal parts for "Nothing Left to Lose."  I didn't have an opportunity to record them until recently though, and I had to change the key to fit my range.  The original is in Bb major; mine's in F major.  I also doubled-tracked each part to make it sound better with my voice.

My referent for the parts was the bonus track on The Turn of a Friendly Card that's just Chris Rainbow's vocal parts.  Comparing that with the final version reveals that I have a lot less than I thought I did.  I have up until about 0:40 on that track (and the first ten seconds or so is just Rainbow's getting ready), but I think that's only half of the backing vocals for the verses in the final version.

Anyway, in that first forty seconds, there are four parts, and each is four measures long.  Every four measures, a new part is added.  After adding all of the parts, I sang them a fifth time too.

"A Dream within a Dream"

Last night I learned some more parts for "A Dream within a Dream."  I listened to Tales of Mystery and Imagination yester-day and discovered that "A Dream within a Dream" has slide guitar.  I mean, I'd certainly heard that part before, but it wasn't until yester-day that I realized that it's slide guitar.  I learned that first and discovered that it has the same four pitches (A, D, E, and G) as the recorder part.  They have a different order and rhythm, but they're the same four pitches.

I can't remember if I already knew the bass part or not, but it's only one note (A), so that was simple to either learn or re-learn.  I knew I was going to write a post here at least to mention that the slide guitar and recorder have the same notes, but I didn't know if I should record a version because - while I'd have the bass part - there's a lot of space between those two elements.  In order to fill out my recording, I learned the electric piano part and the acoustic guitar chords.  My recording still feels a bit empty, but I guess five parts are better than only three.

I'm pretty sure the recorders are double-tracked in the original.  One might be lower than the other, but all I have is a soprano recorder, so doubling that is the best I could do.  I'm looking into getting a tenor recorder, although I'm not sure that's what's used in the original recording.

I double-tracked the acoustic guitar and the slide guitar.  I'm not sure that's accurate; I just thought it would sound better.  I don't have the delay effect on the slide guitar because I simply don't know how to do that yet.  I briefly played around with some effects in my recording program, but even the shortest delay I could get was too long compared to what's in the recording.

"Genesis Ch.1 V.32"

Last night I figured out the electric piano and acoustic guitar parts in "Genesis Ch.1 V.32."  While recording a version to-day, I sort of stumbled across the electric guitar part too, although my guitar tone isn't even close to matching.

The sections repeat with little variation, so I just did a couple of them in my recording.

As always, I might be wrong about this, but here's the electric piano part:

It just repeats throughout the song.  The guitar chords are D minor | C major | Bb major | A major.

"Winding Me Up"

I haven't done much work on figuring out songs on Eve, so yester-day, I did some work on "Winding Me Up."  I think I have all of the electric piano part at the beginning, the bass part for the verses, and the chords for almost the entire song (there might be some differences at the very end).

This is just the first minute or so, but I'm pretty sure the sections are the same when they repeat.

"Light of the World"

Earlier this evening, I learned the opening piano part and the bass and guitar parts for the verses of "Light of the World."  In my recording, I have just one verse of the bass and guitars, but I think the other verses are the same.  If anything, there are just some differences in the rhythm of the bass part.

While learning these parts, I found an-other reference I'd missed:  in the third verse, there's the line "I can fly so close to the sun, that I cannot see it rise."  It's a reference to Icarus, who flew too close to the sun so that the wax that held his wings together melted and he fell into the sea.  I think this phrase is all there is to the reference though; there doesn't seem to be anything else about Icarus in the song.