"In The Real World"

This morning I listened to Stereotomy, and I noticed the line "Too many windmills in my way" in "In the Real World."  I'm pretty sure this is a reference to Don Quixote.  It's been a few years since I read Don Quixote (and even then, it was just excerpts in a literature class), but the episode with the windmill is pretty widely known anyway (there's a whole Wikipedia page about it).  At the beginning of the story, Don Quixote reads too many old stories about knights.  He starts to think that he himself is a knight and goes on various imagined adventures.  During one of these adventures, he attacks a windmill, thinking it's a giant.

In "In the Real World," there's the recurring line "Don't wanna live my life in the real world," which sort of describes the same situation Don Quixote is in:  living in an imagined version of the real world, rather than the real world itself.  Although, if I remember aright, Don Quixote isn't aware that what he's imagining isn't real.

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In referencing the lyrics in the liner notes of the CD, I discovered that while the title is "In the Real World" on the back of the case and on the CD itself, in the liner notes, it appears as just "The Real World":

"May Be a Price to Pay"

 A couple weeks ago, I learned the opening brass part and most of the bass part (I haven't figured out all of the subtleties) for "May Be a Price to Pay."  (I was sort of dismayed to find that - if I have it right - the opening brass part has parallel fifths, which are generally frowned upon.)  However, I didn't record what I knew because those two parts don't overlap, and I decided that from now on, I'm not going to bother recording anything unless I know at least two simultaneous parts.  So yester-day, I figured out some more parts.  First I got the brass part in the middle, which is basically the same as some of the guitar and piano parts, and then I got a few more of the guitar and piano parts.  I think the guitar and piano parts during the verses play pairs of notes, of which I have only one, but it's a start.

Of the instrumental section, I know only the bass part, so that's not that interesting in my recording.  I think I flubbed a few notes there too, but when I tried to re-record that part, I was doing even worse than what I was trying to improve upon, so I just left it.  I had problems with matching the rhythm of the opening brass part too.  It's probably pretty obvious, but I used the fake trumpet setting on my keyboard.

Re-Establishment

About two years ago, I started a project in which the goal was to learn every part to every song by the Alan Parsons Project (later I added the side-project Keats too).  I don't think I ever thought I would actually achieve this (and I still don't), but I thought it a worthy objective all the same.

I started this project on tumblr, but recently I've started to feel dissatisfied with it.  I felt I should have a cleaner, more professional-looking platform.  (I found some aspects of tumblr's interface less than ideal too.)  Initially, I went with tumblr only because I could directly post audio files of my own recordings of the songs, as a way to demonstrate that I had in fact learned the parts I said I had.  But I can achieve the same thing just with embedded YouTube videos.

So essentially, I'm jumping ship.  I'm going to continue doing everything I would normally do for this project, just on Blogger rather than on tumblr.  I'll be going back and copying my old posts over to this blog, so I'll have the complete archive, but it'll take a while to transfer everything.

"Dancing on a Highwire"

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Yester-day I learned the guitar arpeggios and the bass part for the introduction of "Dancing on a Highwire" (on Ammonia Avenue).  I tried figuring out these guitar arpeggios a few months ago without any luck, so it was good to finally get them.

"In the Real World"

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I was recently thinking about "In the Real World" and thought that it sounded like it would be pretty easy to figure out, completely forgetting that I already figured out some parts for it about a year ago.  Of course, I neglected to write those down, so I basically had to re-learn it (I wrote the parts down this time).

In re-learning it, I figured out the fuzz guitar part, and - while recording this, actually - I discovered that I was missing some notes in the glockenspiel part during the chorus.  I'd thought it just doubled the synth part, but it has two notes to itself too.

"Nothing Left to Lose"

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Last night I learned the bass part in "Nothing Left to Lose," up until the tempo change, at least.  There's a minor difference in rhythm during the second chorus, but my recording doesn't encompass that; it's just the first two verses and the first chorus.

After eight measures of Bb notes in alternating octaves, there's a section in the verses that descends diatonically, skipping octaves after every pair of notes and then going back to single note octave-skipping:

I'm not sure if it's intended as a sort of reference or homage to it, but Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 has this same feature in the second movement (the Air):

(notation found here)

I've found that same feature in some other pieces too (like Grieg's Holberg Suite, Op. 40), but because I first encountered it in that Bach piece, that's what I thought of first.

"Let Me Go Home"

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Last night, I figured out some parts from "Let Me Go Home" from Ammonia Avenue.  The part that's doubled on guitar and bass is played during the other verses too.

I might have some of the bass part in the wrong octave; it's hard to tell.

"Somebody Out There"

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I meant to record this yester-day, but I was too busy.  After I listened to Vulture Culture a few days ago, I figured out some of the synth parts during the chorus of "Somebody Out There."  There are two phrases after the chorus, and they're the same after the second iteration (just in different octaves), but they're different after the first occurrence.  I'm not sure I have that second phrase right.  On the whole, my recording doesn't sound that great because I still know virtually nothing about synths.

"Separate Lives"

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I listened to Vulture Culture yester-day, and I learned a couple parts.  First, I have what I guess is a synth part from "Separate Lives."  The closest match on my keyboard is actually calliope.  I'd thought that this is just the same phrase repeated (so it's played four times), but the third iteration has a different rhythm, and the fourth iteration (which I don't have yet) has different notes.

I also figured out that the synth part that begins the song is just A notes an octave apart.  I'm not sure how long that lasts though or if the notes change later on.

"The Fall of the House of Usher: IV. Pavane"

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I listened to Tales of Mystery and Imagination yester-day.  When I listened to it a while ago, I thought the bass part in "The Fall of the House of Usher: Pavane" sounded like it would be pretty easy to figure out.  I also discovered that there's mandolin in this, and since I have a mandolin, I wanted to figure out that part.  I also got some of the keyboard parts.  Based on the credits on the APP website, I think there's harpsichord and (in the 1987 version) a synth that plays almost the same part; it's just the final note in the phrase that's different.

I don't have an upright bass, so I just played the bass part on electric bass, and I'm still not very good at mandolin tremolos, so those aren't that great.

Also, this is only one section of the song.  However, I did learn a couple guitar chords for a later iteration of the other section.

"Heaven Knows"

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I don't think I've done much on this side of the project, but here's a reminder that I'm including Keats (an APP side-project) with the APP stuff.  I listened to the Keats album a couple days ago, and I was just going to try to figure out the bass part during the verses of "Heaven Knows," but I think I got the whole thing, plus a bit of the piano part.

I did the guitar chords as a last-minute thing, and it might have been better without them because 1) my guitar tone doesn't really match (it never does) and 2) I played a G major where now I think it's a G minor (the song's in F major, so the B would be flat).

This isn't the whole song, but the parts I didn't include just repeat parts that I did record.

"Don't Let It Show"

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I recently listened to I Robot for my Collection Audit project (twice actually, since I have the CD reissue of the original album and the Legacy Edition).  I felt like I should do some more work on this project, so I figured out the piccolo trumpet part in "Don't Let It Show."  It's just a small part, and I don't even know how to play piccolo trumpet (I recorded this with the fake trumpet on my keyboard); I was hoping that learning this part would help in figuring out what key "Don't Let It Show" is in, but all I know is that it has a lot of sharps or flats.  There are a lot of accidentals in this part.