Entertainment For Lively Minds
Unusual Timbre On Pop Records
Posted by David Wright on 10 November 2010 - 12:17pm.
To many people, the bagpipes are not a sound you would normally
associate with pop records, but I think they work beautifully on Mull Of Kintyre, as does the oboe on a few Roxy Music songs.
Any other unusual timbres/instruments on pop/rock records?
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Sailor
Had a Nickelodeon. Very unusual.
Not an instrument though
More a contraption
Bagpipes
are never justifiable in any genre, in my opinion.
But back to your thread. Corporal Clegg by Pink Floyd features are rather unexpected kazoo break. And David Bowie's Space Oddity has a stylophone refrain.
I've mentioned this before
Caravan's use of hedgeclippers to create a rhythmic effect on the song Hello Hello (from If I Could Do It All Over Again...) is the only instance I know of where gardening implements have been used in rock music. Or any music.
"Me?
I'm just a lawnmower - you can tell me by the way I walk."
(Lawnmower on 'I Know What I Like')
Gabriel also used hairclippers/electric razor on 'Fear is the Mother of Violence' on PG2/Scratch.
That noise is definitely locusts
I remember him going on about it in interviews at the time, as being an unusual way of conveying something really immense and terrifying in an unexpected way. Maybe the locusts were shaving though...
Is it really?
There you go!
I always heard it as a razor and assumed the point was that something that initially sounds very ominous was actually extremely mundane.
Garden implements in pop...
...there are an innumerable amount of 'hoes' in gangsta rap.
The xylophone solo on 'Looking for Clues' by Robert Palmer...
was a great idea.
Wasn't it a marimba?
Buggered if I know...
I got "xylophone" from Wikipedia. I'll stick to guitars from now on... :-)
The marimba
is unusual timber
The bicycle bell
On Pet Sounds You Still Believe In Me.
I even do an 'air bell' when it comes in.
Silly
Scott Walker has a donkey solo on one of the tracks from The Drift. But that's not a pop record.
The Drift
also has punching a side of meat for percussion.
And I would agree this is not a pop record.
Go On Then
You can have that one. I did say pop, but feeling generous!
The steel drum solo...
... on the Hollies 'Carrie Ann.' One would have expected a rockin' guitar solo.
According to Danny Baker
Only two records in popular music feature the bass saxophone.
They are The Intro and the Outro by the Bonzo Dog Band and The Teddy Bears Picnic by Henry Hall and His Orchestra.
Not true!
Hot August Night features Neil Diamond playing an invisible bass sax.
That cover was shot at his famous one man show...
"Neil Diamond's Fantastical Crotch Shadow Triceratops and Other Delights".
Actually...
... he's only looked down and gone "Someone's been gorn and had it away on their toes with me mike - nightmare"
They Might be Giants
Quite a few tracks on the first few albums by They Might Be Giants feature John Linnell on bass saxophone. Indeed, I recall seeing him play it on stage at the Village Gate, NYC on New Year's Eve 1990. A memorable evening.
Morphine
There's some very deep sax on a few Morphine songs. Whether it's a bass sax or not, I'm not qualified to say.
I'm Shakin'
By the Blasters? And didn't the sax player end up in Los Lobos? Apologies if it isn't actually a bass sax
I'm sure that's a baritone Steve Berlin plays.
If I'm not wrong a bass sax is a big tall bugger that needs to be played on a stand.
Pretty sure bass sax is on Bix Beiderbecke records, in place of tuba/string bass (for ease of recording, maybe). Seem to recall guy who played it being called something like Frankie Trumbeau (not, sadly, Trombone). Possibly completely wrong but too lazy to Google at moment.
Cheers.
Frankie Trumbauer, Iain.
Frankie Trumbauer, Iain. Known colloquially as "Tram."
Adrian Rollini was probably the most prolific bass saxophonist of the 1930s onward. Discographers are still trying to compile the definitive list of the man's session appearances.
Deep Saxes.
The bass saxophone is just about manageable without a stand. As it's an octave lower than a tenor sax the tubing is exactly twice the length of that of a tenor sax. It was used in many early jazz recordings due to the fact that it was easier to record acoustically than other bass instruments, and is still used by some jazz musicians. It has also turned up in classical music, particularly the works of Berlioz.
There was an even deeper model, the counterbass saxophone, which was even longer, and certainly needs a stand. These instruments could only be played at an angle. They never really took off when introduced, only turning up sporadically in the classical repertoire. The few existing models today get used occasionally in contemporary jazz and improv.
The deep saxophone found on most records is the baritone, which fits in between the bass and tenor.
Two other bass reed instruments are the bass clarinet and bass sarussophone. The former is fairly common, noted players in jazz and rock include Eric Dolphy, Bennie Maupin (Miles Davis' Bitches Brew) and The Mascara Snake. The sarussophone is lesser known, but Zappa used them on Waka/Jawaka.
My life is complete
Thanks for your erudition and kindness in sharing it, chaps
The contrabass sax
Is indeed a bit of a big bugger.
Could be a problem transporting one of these to and from band practice..
Stone me, THAT'S what I call an instrument!
But - is it metal?
On reflection a rather redundant comment
The bass sarrusophone, mentioned by JQW,
is an interesting-looking thing, too:
Not as huge as the contrabass saxophone, but still fine in its own way.
good lord
I believe I was at that show too.
The wine glass...
Lone Pigeon of The Beta Band and The Aliens on "King Creosote's Wineglass Symphony" from his Concubine Rice album.
Or the slightly better known
"Shine on you crazy diamond" for another example
I'm a Believer
The squelchy farfisa organ solo is deeply odd, but so ubiquitous you don't even notice it anymore.
The Hapsichord
Works brilliantly on the HJH very beautiful 'In My Life'
(If it is indeed a Harpsichord)
I've just discovered
It's not a Harpsichord. It's George Martin playing a piano at half tempo and then sped up to twice its speed in order to match the tempo of the song - hence the unusual timbre.
I never knew that.
Sunday Morning
by the Velvet Underground features a celeste. And Under My Thumb by the Stones has a marimba.
And, of course, The Troggs...
... had an ocarina solo on 'Wild Thing.'
There's probably an album with Roy Wood playing all these instruments on it!
Boulders
Roy Wood's bonkers first solo album. In fact, on one track he uses buckets of water for percussion. I love the fact that such a wilfully left field artist was also a master of pop melody.
Ocarina
Wasn't there an ocarina solo on one of Strawberry Switchblade's less successful singles? I seem to recall Smash Hits making a thing of it back in the day.
Most Kids try the recorder
It's nice to hear it played properly in the Fool on the Hill, but also like in a school ensemble on My Name is Jack by the Manfreds.
Fool on the Hill - also Jew's Harp on it.
Up on Cripple Creek sounds like it features one as well, but it's a clavinet with wah-wah, I think. That must be easier - the only tried I tried a Jew's Harp it nearly shook out my fillings.
Paul McCartney played the recorder on Fool on the Hill. Was it also him playing it on I'm the Urban Spaceman by the Bonzos, which he produced? The track also featured that strange thing Viv Stanshall played in the break - it sounded like a kazoo, but seemed to be a trumpet mouthpiece attached to a length of hosepipe which he waved round his head.
Steve Hackett included an optigan
on the track Sentimental Institution from his album Defector
Perhaps the only appearance of a Tannerin on a record was
of course, Good Vibrations.
I've just had to look that up.
A Tannerin. Blimey. Never heard of one of them before..
Truly you are a fund of obscure cobblers, Stimpy. But very high-quality obscure cobblers.
Now how am I going to work Tannerins into the next conversation down the pub?
"how am I going to work Tannerins...
... into the next conversation down the pub?"
You could say 'scuse me, love, have you got any change so I can put a tanner in this old fashioned jukebox?
I don't think Peter Tanner made many
In fact, I don't think he made more than one. The idea always appealed to me as more playable than a Theremin which, to be honest, I struggle to get anything out of.
On 'The Snow Goose'
by Camel, the bass player is also credited with playing a duffle coat
Ringo plays
..."the suitcase" on one of the Fabs records, if memory serves.
And the drummer in the Crickets
played a cardboard box on Peggy Sue
Mick Fleetwood played a chair on Second Hand News
It's the insistent 'budda-budda-budda'* rhythm throughout.
*(c) Reg Presley
my dear Stimpy
I think you'll find Reg was looking for something more along the lines of 'dubba dubba dubba cha'
you have played it tonight....
You are, of course, correct Monsieur Duvet
"What about, trying it, not only, not on that top, just on that top skin floor, and then your floor tom-tom."
Top skin floor??
split your 'ands Ronnie...
classic - painful but true
Drummers. I shit 'em.
Thank you for bringing these back to mind. It never fails to crease me up when I hear TTT.
Unusual Timbres
The way that Ivor Cutler pronounces the word "Timbre" in Big Jim is a most unusual timbre.
Sandinista by the Clash is ALL unusual timbre. An underrated record with a unique sound, distinctly oddball, it's hard to even know what most of the instruments are. Great and refreshing for the ears.
The Rooster
On "I'll be gone", off Tom Waits's "Franks Wild Years", old Tom plays the rooster.
That must've been a bit awkward, what with it clucking and flapping about and everything.
Go on Dyson!
A vacuum cleaner features quite heavily on Swell Maps 'A Trip To Marineville' long playing record.
Clint Eastwood
Augustus Pablo seemed to use it on every track he recorded
Everything Counts - Depeche Mode
The melodica features heavily in their 1983 No 6 smasheroo.
The You And Me Song
By The Wannadies. Much melodica-ing.
Mercury Rev
The opening song from Deserter's Songs, Holes, features a bowed saw - not unique, but fairly unusual. Mara Carlyle's lovely album has quite a bit of bowed saw.
XTC
I vaguely remember a short film clip of XTC in the studio and iirc Terry Chambers was hitting a fire extinguisher. It might have been whilst recording Towers of London.
Rick Wakeman's "No Earthly Connection"
has an unusual sound:
---http://www.planetmellotron.com/revwakeman.htm
Hard to reproduce on the road, I'd have thought ...
[*and one of his books]
Wakeman also played another odd instrument, the Birotron
Designed and built by Dave Biro and funded largely by Wakeman, it was, in essence, a Mellotron that used 8-track tape cartridges, one per key.
The advantage of a Birotron over a Mellotron was that the carts were less likely to fail than the Mellotron's complex and fragile tape frame and it was supposedly easier to change a bunch of carts when you wanted a new sound.
In addition, being a continuous tape loop, the Birotron wasn't restricted to the 8 second limit on note length of the Mellotron.
The musical downside was that each note cut in and out abruptly, whereas the Mellotron was able to do a fade-in and fade-out.
Biro made about 20 units before giving up. I gather Wakeman still has a couple. It was all over the Yes album Tormato.
A electric sitar
was used for the solo on Steely Dan's Do It Again.
Cross Town Traffic
I'm sure I heard somewhere that the main riff is part guitar, part comb and paper.
The answer as usual is
Frank Zappa.
Didgeridoo played through a pot of coffee on "The Yellow Shark"
Mark E. Smith is, of course, a virtuoso
on the kazoo. Nice instrument - ah!
What did the...
composer turned tree feller shout in the forest?
"TIMBBBRRRE!"
I am truly sorry.
Rob Halford...
...of Judas Priest confided in the Classic Albums doc on 'British Steel' that whehn they wanted to create the terrifying sound of an army of metal gods marching on one track it was eventually found that the best way to achieve this was for Rob to shake a drying tray of cutlery, like a giant steel maracca. [insert joke about Rob being 'all washed up' here...]
Folk-baroque survivor Steve Tilston has a pretty unusual instrument in his armoury - an arpeggione: a cross between a cello and a guitar, which he had specially made after researching the plans for the few models built in the 1800-1810 period when it was briefly in vogue as an orchestral instrument. Schubert's 'Arpeggione Sonata' (nowadays performed on cello) is just about its only footprint in classical repertoire.
Unidentified sound
The Poets' 'I am So Blue' is a great song, but the weird, percussion noise throughout the track makes it unique.
Great Song
Thanks for sharing it.