Wednesday, December 12, 2018

"Conversation off Floral Street"

When I listened to the second disc of Zombie Heaven last week, some of the keyboard parts in the middle of "Conversation off Floral Street" sounded fairly easy to figure out.  A couple days ago, I learned some organ and piano (the two parts are very similar, which helpt), and I re-learned the bass part.  In this post (from five years ago!), I claimed that the bass part is only three pitches, but there are actually four.  In this section, though, the bass plays only one (C).


A couple times over the last few months, I've done some research into what specific drawbar settings Rod Argent uses on his Hammond organ, but I haven't been able to find anything.  I tried to match the original recording and used 8', 4', and 2' all at 8.

For the piano, I used a sample of a Steinway Model D.  I don't know if that's accurate for this specific track, but in a few interviews in recent years, Rod Argent has mentioned that he bought a Steinway concert grand.  In this article from Keyboard Magazine, he confirms that it's a Model D.  Unless I can find specific information about what brand of piano was used on a particular track, I'm probably going to use this sample as a default.