Friday, October 19, 2007

Mellotron Demos and Other Audio Treasures

I have a lecture tape from a guy called Mark Cunningham (he wrote a fascinating book on the history of record production called Good Vibrations)and I've been playing it to the students this morning. I had the cassette converted to CD and unfortunately just before we got to the 10-minute out-takes fom the track Good Vibrations (all the mistakes, it's hilarious!) the CD stuck and refused to proceed any further. So we missed the Mellotron demo, even more hilarious, though not as funny as that EQ thing they used to play in studios about Nanawebbas or however you spell it.
The organ-player on Good Vibrations plays a take completely out of time, which I find hugely reassuring, as sometimes my studio sessions consist entirely of cock-ups.

I write on the back of my hand. Before I wash my hands, I either have to do the things written there, or transfer them to a diary. Currently, I have two door-codes for University studio doors; the word 'choir' to remind me to gather a choir from my friends; the word 'header' because I need to find out how much water should be in a central heating header tank, and put more in 'cos our heating is deafeningly noisy (does anyone know? Help!); the word 'amend' because I need to improve what I'm teaching next year by amending it now while I'm doing it; and, faded, the words 'consequences' and 'cover', which are little exercises I want the songwriters I'm working with to do- making songs line-by-line, and also doing instant cover versions of each others songs to see how catchy they are!
There are also faded words from a few days ago, underneath. I don't know what they say now, but they can't be that important, I hope.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I also think this blog is very nice.


Paul G (Succinct & to the point) :P