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

I learned some of the flute phrase at the beginning of "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part One)" to-day, and I noticed that it has some similarity with a section of the bass part in "Nothing Left to Lose."  Here's the flute phrase (I think I have all but the last two measures):

(I'm not sure of the extent, but at least some of this is doubled on harpsichord.)

The majority of this phrase is just a diatonic descent that skips between octaves.  This same sort of feature is in a section of the bass part in "Nothing Left to Lose":

(Of course, there's the disclaimer for both of these that I might have the part wrong.)

The rhythms are quite different, but they're both diatonic descents that skip between two octaves.  To some degree, using this same technique in two songs gives The Turn of a Friendly Card album a bit of cohesion.  I feel it worth mentioning that "May Be a Price to Pay" and "The Gold Bug" are also musically related as are - of course - "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part One)" and "The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part Two)."

[For what it's worth, I've previously written about this section of the bass part in "Nothing Left to Lose" and its resemblance to one of Bach's orchestral suites.]

"Lucifer"

I learned a part for "Lucifer" to-day, and while it's not listed among the instruments in the credits on the Alan Parsons Project's website, I think it's kantele.  It first appears at ~1:42 and is repeated at ~3:02.  I was writing out the notation as I learned the part, and it reminded me of the kantele part in "I Robot," so I found my notation for that and compared the two.

Here's what I think is a kantele in "Lucifer":

And here's the kantele part in "I Robot" (starting ~4:26):

There's a bit of similarity in the melodies, but only in that there are a fair number of conjunct note groups (more in "Lucifer" than in "I Robot").  The main similarity is rhythm.  In both, almost every other measure consists of a whole note that's tied to a note in the following measure.

Of course, both "Lucifer" and "I Robot" are also instrumental tracks that start their respective albums, so this might be an intentional resemblance.

"Children of the Moon"

The Alan Parsons Project page on Facebook posted scans of an article about the new Eye in the Sky boxset.  One of the pictures in the article shows some of Eric Woolfson's hand-written lyrics, including those for "Children of the Moon."  I realized something about the first line ("Pay no attention to the writing on the wall") that should have been obvious a long time ago.  While the phrase "the writing on the wall" has taken on a broader application, it ultimately comes from the Bible, specifically Daniel 5, in which a hand writes on a wall in the king's palace and Daniel interprets the writing.

"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.

"Since the Last Goodbye"

Last night I learned the bass part for one section of "Pipeline," so now I know at least a little bit of a part for every song on Ammonia Avenue (although I haven't recorded all of them because many are fragmentary).  I listened to Ammonia Avenue to-day and noticed a small thing about "Since the Last Goodbye."  The "falling" in the line "Remember all the leaves were falling" is sung to the notes C# B B, so there's a descent in the music (albeit a small one) to mirror the descent mentioned in the lyric.

"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.

"The Tell-Tale Heart"

This evening I figured out a couple guitar phrases in "The Tell-Tale Heart."  While doing so, the lines "So for the old man / Ashes to ashes, earth to earth, and dust to dust" caught my ear.  It's from Ecclesiastes 3:20:  "All go to one place.  All are from the dust, and to dust all return."

"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.