Last month, I was thinking about one of the sound effects in "Butcher's Tale." In the liner notes to the fiftieth anniversary edition of Odessey and Oracle, Andrew Sandoval describes it as "added intrigue from Rod on electronic oscillator." Chris White confirms this in Claes Johansen's book The Zombies: Hung up on a Dream: "There were no synthesizers in those days... the thing at the end is just an oscillator which Rod played on another track" (p. 171). I think it's basically a glissando from A to D an octave higher.
Last night, I made a recording of the harmonium and oscillator parts. I used my Hammond SKX for the harmonium (specifically Reed Organ 2 with Hall 2 reverb set at 26) and my Moog Subsequent 37 for the oscillator. I'm still way out of my depth with the Moog, but I tried to use a simple setting.
I played the harmonium part from memory, and I didn't use a click track, so it may vary in accuracy and tempo.
I'm not sure this was really worth doing because it's so short, but here's the Hohner Pianet solo in the Zombies' "I'll Keep Trying." The guitar plays basically the same thing, just an octave higher and articulated slightly differently (there are some glissandi between the notes, and the C in the third measure is held longer). For a bit of context, I also included the bass part.
Earlier this year, I was thinking about the Hohner Pianet solo in the alternate take of "Nothing's Changed" (available on the third disc of Zombie Heaven), and I realized that most of it is triplets. I re-learned it, notated it, and made this short demonstration of it. The Vox Continental part, which I included in the audio but didn't show in the video, is the same except for an arpeggiated A major at the end. On their own, the two keyboard parts sound a bit odd; for some context, I also played the guitar chords. I used The Zombies Greatest Hits, published by Alfred, as a basis, but I didn't follow exactly what the book has (because I don't think it's entirely accurate). I played C major | C major 7 | D minor 7 | E minor | F major | G major | A major. Of course, there's the standard disclaimer that I may not have this entirely accurate either.
Recently, I learned the Fender Rhodes part at the beginning of Argent's "Sweet Mary." (What I have is probably not entirely accurate, but it's pretty close, at least.) It's well beyond my level of notational ability, so I made a video in order to have some record of it.
I used one of the Rhodes sounds (EPiano Rd2) on my Hammond SKX, which I got a few months ago.
About a month ago, I got a Moog synthesizer (the Subsequent 37). I still have a lot to learn, but the first thing I did was try to replicate a little tune that Mike Vickers played on the BBC in 1969. (I don't think he ever gets enough credit for this, so I'll mention it: Vickers set up the Moog synthesizers for the Beatles' Abbey Road and for Emerson, Lake, & Palmer. In December 1968, he did some orchestral overdubs for Zombies songs, as heard on Into the Afterlife and the second disc of Zombie Heaven.)
This was my second objective: the first bit of "The Coming of Kohoutek."
I'd noticed before that the Moog and the Mellotron violins play the same thing (a loose quotation of "Dies Irae"), but I don't think I'd noticed the lower Moog part (panned right) until I started examining the song more closely. My audio example is just those three parts plus some guitar arpeggios. I played to a click track, not to the original Argent recording, so the tempo might not be very accurate.
Partially because I felt I should be doing more on this project and partially because I've been doing these sorts of videos lately, I made a video about the Mellotron flute part in "A Rose for Emily," which actually wasn't used in the final version.
I played the Mellotron part and the piano part on my Nord Electro 5. For the piano, I used Nord's Steinway sample. I intentionally mixed the piano part a bit lower than I normally would have so that the Mellotron part is easier to hear.
The Mellotron occurs only in the second and third verses, so that's all I included (also because I don't know the piano part for the entire song). For the piano part, I referenced a book published by Alfred (The Zombies' Greatest Hits), although I didn't follow exactly what that has. As always, there's the disclaimer that what I have may be wrong.
Last night, I figured out the guitar chords for "Goin' out of My Head."
Here's a recording with guitar, bass, vibraphone, and some of the trumpet part:
I'm not sure the bass part is entirely accurate, but it's pretty
close at least. Some of the vibraphone part may consist of two simultaneous
notes, but I have only single notes. I used a mellotron sound ("2
Brass") for the trumpet part.
While learning and verifying the chords, I noticed a couple things.
There are quite a few odd chords in the song, to the point that I'm not
even sure what key it's in, and that erratic nature mirrors the title
sentiment.
During the line "I must think of a way into your heart," the chord
progression is F# major | A minor | E major | G minor. This too is
quite an unusual group of chords, and it gives the impression of the
speaker/singer's use of various techniques to win the girl's affection.
"Apart" in the following line ("There's no reason why my being shy should
keep us apart") is sung with a melisma (A# A# B), musically giving
something of a sense of its meaning.
I realized recently that I hadn't made any recordings for this project this year, so I did the first section of Rod Argent's A 4th gymnopédie. (On Red House, it's called "A 4th Gymnopedie," but on Classically Speaking, it's called "A fourth gymnopédie." If Satie's pieces are to be followed, I think A 4th gymnopédie would be the best format.)
I set a click track and recorded my excerpt based on that, but I think it's a bit faster than Argent's tempo. I was going from memory, and it turns out I was a bit late for a few notes; otherwise, I think this is accurate.
I used the Bösendorfer Grand Imperial voice on my Nord Electro 5 because it's the closest I could get to Argent's Bechstein (which he uses for this piece in this excerpt from A Keyboard Approach and which is mentioned in thesetwo interviews).
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.
Yester-day I listened to the second disc of Zombie Heaven in order to listen to the Decca era songs to which the Zombies added overdubs in December 1968. The French horn part in "Walking in the Sun" sounded easy to figure out, but while I was figuring that out, I discovered that I'd forgotten all of the other parts I'd learned for the song and that I hadn't written them down.
I re-learned the guitar part pretty easily, and in comparing it to my old recordings of the song, I discovered that I'd been missing a few things. There's a little phrase in the transitions from C major to A minor, and I'd missed an F minor.
Here's my updated recording, with (fake) French horn, guitar, and electric piano. I'm sure the electric piano part isn't that accurate; mostly I included it to fill out the sound a bit more and to demonstrate the Hohner Pianet sound I can get on my Nord Electro 5.
I notated the French horn part. At the beginning of each verse, it's:
And then it doubles the title phrase (note that this is repeated):
---&---
Here's the guitar part, a combination of tabs and chords.
The third time through, the song fades out during this repeated section.
Bridge
A minor | C major
A|---3---0-|
E|-3---3---|
A minor | F major | F minor
B|:-5-5-3-5-5-5-:|
G|:-5-5-5-5-5-5-:|
Repeat from the beginning of the verse
---&---
There are C majors under:
B|-5-5-3-5-5-5-| G|-5-5-5-5-5-5-|
and F minors under:
B|-6-6-5-6-6-6-| G|-5-5-5-5-5-5-|
---&---
As I mentioned above, in my previous recordings, I'd missed the guitar phrase in the transitions from C major to A minor. I'd like to point out that in one transition from a C major to an A major in "I Don't Want to Know," Paul Atkinson plays this same phrase (albeit an octave lower).
Last night, I figured out two parts for the first section of "In Memory" from Rod Argent's Red House. I was surprised to discovered that - apparently - these are the first parts I've figured out from Argent's solo material. I was also surprised to discover that this is the first recording I've made for this project since last May.
I figured out what I think are two synthesizer parts: one sounds like a clarinet, and one sounds like an upright bass. I used the clarinet voice on my keyboard and electric bass.
I thought I'd mentioned this before, but apparently not: "In Memory" seems to be just a different arrangement of Argent's "A 4th Gymnopedie."
I haven't been recording much lately (for this project or any others), but I've been practicing my recently acquired flute almost every day for about a month, so I thought I'd record "I Know She Will" with an actual flute (rather than the fake flute setting on my keyboard like I used to do). There are only seven pitches in the flute part in "I Know She Will" (F#, G, G#, A, B, C#, and D), so it's relatively simple. Because it's simple and because I'm not very good at flute yet, I've been playing it a lot. In my recording, I don't play the A G# F# phrase very cleanly because that's not the easiest transition to make at this tempo (at least not for me because I'm still a novice). This was the first time I recorded my flute playing, and I think I placed the microphone too close because my breathing is audible in between a few phrases. I feel I should also mention that I combined three takes. So my recording isn't the best, but the genuine instrumentation makes it feel like I'm a step closer in accuracy.
Yester-day, I learned the unused mellotron part for the second verse of "A Rose for Emily" (it's a bonus track on the 30th anniversary edition of Odessey and Oracle). I'd read about the song in The "Odessey": The Zombies in Words and Images, which reminded me that at some point I was going to figure out that mellotron part.
Figuring out the mellotron part actually helpt in figuring out the one piano chord I was missing for this section. For the most part, I learned the piano part from a vocal/guitar/piano book of Zombies songs from the Alfred Publishing Company. They said it's a Ddim7, but this didn't sound right to me. I knew the note in the bass register was a D, and this mellotron plays a G# on top of it, so while I'm still dubious about the 7th, I guess it really is a Ddim chord.
The mellotron part for the third verse is a little different, and I don't have that yet. I think the first half is the same though.
In archiving my old recordings of "The Way I Feel Inside," I discovered that I'd never recorded an updated version after discovering a month or two ago that I had been playing a wrong chord (what I'd been playing as an E major is actually a C# minor).
I suppose to-day was an appropriate day to record this since it's Bach's birthday and - as I mentioned in this post - the BACH motif is in the melody of "The Way I Feel Inside."
About a week ago, I learned a mellotron phrase near the end of Argent's "Losing Hold." I'd thought that after that one stand-out phrase, it just plays the same part as the electric piano, but as I was recording my own version, I discovered that that's not that case. It plays its own phrase, doubles the electric piano, but then there's a second phrase. While that second phrase has some similarity with the first, it's not exactly the same. So while I thought I had the whole mellotron part, all I have is one phrase, which I guess is better than nothing:
This morning I listened to In Deep. Among some other things (about which I hope to have a post to-morrow), I noticed that there's a glockenspiel in "God Gave Rock and Roll to You." I'd completely missed that before. It's only four notes, so I thought I could figure those out. But then I also got the bass part and - surprising myself - the guitar part for almost all of the introduction:
I can't play the guitar part accurately in tempo yet (I learned it just to-day), so I left out the tremolo part. I tried to overdub that on a second track, but it didn't seem to work.
The song is mostly in D major, but there are some weird accidentals so that one section of the bass part has the same intervals as the glockenspiel part.
The glockenspiel part consists of the notes F#, G, A, and A#:
In one section of the bass part, there's a string of notes (B, C, D, D#) with the same intervals:
It's a half-step, a whole step, and then an-other half-step. The phrases aren't played in the same rhythm (I just put all of the notes in one measure to save space), but because they have the same intervals, it gives a bit of cohesion to the song.
A few days ago, I listened to the first disc of Zombie Heaven, and I noticed a chord change in "I Must Move" that I'd missed. Initially, I thought it was Asus4 to A major, but after playing around on the guitar I discovered that it's actually A6 to A major. I was close.
I'd forgotten some of the bass part, and in re-learning that, I discovered that I actually had a lot wrong. I'd been playing notes in the wrong octaves and neglecting some other notes. But then my more accurate bass part didn't sound right with my guitar chords, so I discovered that I was playing a few of those wrong too (I'd been playing an A major that should be an A minor, and I totally missed a C major). I think I have it now, although I won't make any guarantees.
The guitar part is somewhat difficult, and between that and my being so used to playing the wrong thing, I had a lot of problems in recording this. (I'm still not very good at using reverb either, and it's something of a feature in this song.) Eventually, I just recorded each segment separately. The bass is one complete take though.
I'd actually forgotten about this, but two weeks ago I learned the bass part for the verses of "Call of the Night." The bridge is still giving me some problems.
At the beginning of the year, I started looking into one of the Zombies' Decca-era tracks every week, either trying to learn an-other part or write down parts I already learned before I forget them. For "Call of the Night," I notated as much of the bass part as I know (I'm missing only twelve measures!), and I wrote down the chords.
It's been almost a month since I recorded anything for this project; it's been too long.
After I wrote about "Smokey Day" recently, I figured out some more of it. At first, it was just the introductory flute phrase, but then I got the rest of the guitar part (it turns out I already had the difficult part with the 6th chord and the weird E7; the part I was missing was much easier). Like last time, I got a blister from playing this, but it took only two takes this time, rather than seventeen (it's not perfect though).
Before I recorded this, I got thinking about the bass part and realized it sounded pretty easy. As it turns out, it's only, like, five notes. That should have been pretty obvious, because it was after listening to Colin Blunstone's version and noticing the simplicity of that bass part that I figured out the first section of the guitar part in the Zombies' version (although it was recorded with Argent personnel, plus Mike Vickers).
My recording ends just before the line "Hear the call of plaintive voices" because at that point, the rest of the instruments stop, and it's just harpsichord for eight measures. And I still can't understand what the line after that is. It picks up after that section with the same parts, but it resolves to Bb major, which is weird since the rest of the song is in either F major or A minor (I haven't figured out enough to be certain).
Since I figured out a flute part for this, it seems relevant to say that I'm about halfway to having enough money to buy one. I could actually buy one now, but I'd like to have some money left in my bank account, so I'm doing the fiscally responsible thing and waiting until I have twice as much as it costs before buying it. I'm hoping that the price will go down a bit after Christmas (when I'll probably reject responsibility and buy one anyway). That's what happened with my twelve-string guitar. On Christmas Day 2012, the price dropped something like 30%, and that's how I got my Burns Double-Six, which is the same guitar Paul Atkinson had.
Yester-day I watched the Zombies' concert at The Water Rats (be aware that there are a lot of quickly flashing lights in the video). It's a great performance. Tom Toomey and Steve Rodford both have brief solos in "She's Not There," which is a new feature, and it was good to see Jim Rodford playing his Mustang bass. The last time I saw it was during the Breathe Out, Breathe In sessions. And Rod Argent includes a quotation of Bach's Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147 in the solo in "Hold Your Head Up."
Anyway, I was reminded of the guitar riff that's been included in live versions of "She's Not There" since at least 2011. There were a couple times I'd thought it sounded pretty easy, and I finally figured it out last night.
In my recording, I have just the bass part that links the first chorus and the second verse and that guitar riff.
Here's the tab:
I referenced four different videos of live performances (on KEXP, SummerStage, the first Vintage TV appearance, and this second Vintage TV show at The Water Rats) to be as accurate as possible in that tab. (There's also the DVD of Live at Metropolis Studios, which I think may be the first appearance of that riff, but I didn't feel like digging it out.) I figured it out from audio recordings, and I was playing the last note in the third phrase (an A) as an open string, but in each of those videos, Tom Toomey plays it on the fifth fret of the E string.
I hadn't really considered the origin of this phrase before, but after figuring it out, I have a suspicion that Rod Argent's behind it. He wrote the song, so it makes sense, but there's also one of his trademark three-note chromatic phrases at the end (G G# A).
