"Goin' out of My Head"

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I recently remembered that I know the first half of the bass part for "Goin' out of My Head."

I also tried recording bass differently.

Update

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As part of my Collection Audit project, I'm listening to The Decca Stereo Anthology (& I wrote a short post about "Woman").  The enormity and impossibility of this project hit me while I was listening to it this morning.  Realistically, there is absolutely no way that I'll ever be able to play every part of every song exactly how the Zombies did.  Partially because I'm not as good of a musician as they were/are, partially because no matter how closely I listen to the songs, I won't be able to figure out every single note (especially in the keyboard parts), and partially because I'm obviously not them.  Probably other reasons too.

But despite all of that, I'm still going to try.  Because doing this project does make me a better musician and it's made me discover things about the Zombies' music that I probably would never have found out otherwise.

"I Must Move"

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I've been pretty Odessey and Oracle-centric lately, so I decided to learn something from the Decca era.  So I learned the bass part from "I Must Move."

I had all of this worked out last night, but I wanted to check it to-day before I posted it.  Sometimes it helps to check the studio recordings against live versions, and there is a live version of "I Must Move" on Zombie Heaven.  (I think it'll be easier to learn the guitar parts from that since Paul Atkinson uses an electric guitar there.  On the studio recording, he uses an acoustic, and at times it's hard to hear distinctly.)

While I was practicing this, I realized that it's an-other instance where Chris White uses a variation of D F#(m) G A (see also "Don't Go Away," "I Don't Want to Know," "Don't Cry for Me," "Brief Candles," and "The Feeling's Inside").  This is closer to D F#m A G though, but I'm not sure of the chords yet (most of the guitar part isn't straight chords, which makes it a bit harder to figure out).  In any case, the bass part includes that D F# A G variation.

"Butcher's Tale"

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I've been trying to practice piano more because so much of the Zombies' canon is dependent on keyboard instruments.  One of my problems is that I'm very inexperienced/under-practiced in making chords with my right hand.  (It doesn't help any that playing guitar has sort of solidified the left-hand-makes-chords paradigm.)

This was a big problem with "Butcher's Tale."  On all of the versions I've posted here, I multi-tracked the chords and the bass part so I could play them separately.  And when I did play the two parts at once (just for my own enjoyment), it was with this terribly awkward right-arm-over-left-arm position so that I could still play the chords with my left hand.  But I'm starting to be able to play it with more normal arm positioning, playing the chords with my right hand and the bass part with my left hand.  This also involved using different chord inversions.  I haven't compared this new way of playing it to the original recording yet, so I don't know if those inversions make a big difference or not.

Regardless, I'm slowly getting better at keyboard instruments, which will certainly be an advantage for this project.

Tremolo Pedal

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This is what I was referring to in my last post.  I bought a tremolo pedal.

Mostly, this was so that I could get the guitar effect on "Beechwood Park," but I'm sure I'll find ways to use it with my own music too.

The date I ordered this was significant as it was Paul Atkinson's birthday, and he was the Zombies' guitarist.

Update

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I just did a thing that will positively affect this project, but I'm not going to say what it is yet.

I will say that it's significant that to-day is the day I did this.

"A Love That Never Was"

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I've tried doing my own version of "A Love That Never Was" a few times, and I always got hung up on the first note of "Thinking of a love that never was."  Or, as it appears in other instances, "Memories of a love that never was."

I figured out yester-day why that note is so difficult:  it's a C and the rest of the song up to that point is in A major.  That C is an accidental.

I didn't realize it until writing this post, but that C kind of throws out the key that Rod Argent had been using.  In a way, that C transforms the song from A major to A minor - sort of the opposite of what Chris White does in "This Will Be Our Year."  But the rest of "A Love That Never Was" doesn't really even follow A minor.  Because, after that, the chord progression is weird.  It's something like D Dm A / B Bm / A Am / E.  And, to some degree, that constant key shifting musically illustrates the despair about the titular love that never was.

"Nothing's Changed"

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My first real Zombies cover of the year - "Nothing's Changed"

Falling Fifth

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I'm going to start posting some more analytical things here too, besides just my trying to figure out how to play the songs.  Because often in learning how to play the songs, I discover other interesting things about them.

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A few months ago, I noted that "Hung up on a Dream" and "I'll Call You Mine" both start with a falling fifth (from D to G).

For whatever reason, I was thinking of this last night, and I realized that "She's Not There" also starts with a falling fifth, in the bass part.  Although that's E to A.

The falling fifth was something that Robert Schumann apparently used often and in reference to his wife Clara.  Rod Argent listened (and probably still does listen) to a lot of classical music, but I don't know if Schumann's falling fifths are where he got the idea to start those three songs with falling fifths (or if he listened to Schumann at all).  I'm sort of disposed to think not because they don't function in the same way.  Argent's falling fifths start the pieces with something of a jolt.  But I think the connection is still worth noting.

"Beechwood Park"

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I learned most of the bass part for "Beechwood Park."  A majority of that "most" wasn't too difficult, since it follows the organ part.

I am missing some parts in a few places, but I figured I would upload what I have so far.

"Beechwood Park"

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Last time I did a version of "Beechwood Park," I thought it sounded weird because "I played a B major on guitar and an E note on the organ, and they don't go to-gether."  (This is why I didn't play those guitar chords when I did a rough version of the whole album in January.)  That specifically was not the problem.  I was right in thinking it's not a B major, but the problem I had in December was that erroneous B major conflicting with a G note, not an E.

In any case, I was playing some Zombies songs last night, and "Beechwood Park" came up on shuffle on my practise playlist, and I just happened to play a G major where I had that trouble spot, and it worked.

And then later I felt really stupid because the chord progression in that section is Em D C G, which is a really simple (perhaps even over-used) chord progression, and had I realized that I already had third fourths of it, maybe it wouldn't have taken so long to get that G major.

Also, I fixed some tempo problems in the "summer world" section.  I had been coming in too early with the partial organ chords.  Still, this particular recording isn't as tight as I'd like it to be.

The little organ parts I added as a rough approximation don't seem to go with the rest of the parts, so I guess that's the next thing to work on with this song.  Although I think the bass part follows the organ part through half of the song, so maybe that would be easier to learn first.

"Nothing's Changed"

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I haven't been doing much on this project recently because I've been working on FAWM, but I did just play through "Nothing's Changed" a few times, and I found a better way to play the G major 9th in it.  I had just been playing it the way it's diagrammed in the book I have, but I don't think Paul Atkinson played it that way.  The new way I figured out sounds closer to the record.