“Theremin”! I always wondered what that thing was called where Jimmy Page moves his hand near the antenna in the live version of “Whole Lotta Love.” I didn’t know it was a formal instrument. Cool.
And yes, “Hocus Pocus” contains some fine yodelin’, as well as some awesome rock guitar. Several years ago, a friend of mine bought a Focus CD based on the one song. Boy, was he disappointed, as the rest of the album was what you might call “classical” guitar. Well played, but certainly not the rock he was looking for.
On the song ‘Big Bad John’ by Jimmy Dean, pianist Floyd Cramer played a weight used to hold television cameras steady suspended from a coatrack. He hit it with a hammer in time with the music to make that “ping” sound you hear in it.
On ‘All Shook Up’ by Elvis, the percussion was provided by Elvis tapping on the back of his guitar while singing.
Edward also double-tracked the solo in “Ain’t Talkin’ 'Bout Love”, playing the first track on guitar and then duplicating the riff on a sitar.
He also scraped the tremolo springs on the back of the guitar for some of the “Intruder” effects. Oh yeah, that noise that leads in to “Runnin’ With The Devil”? All of the band members removed the horns from their cars and hooked them up to a battery in the studio. They recorded the noise of all of them sounding at once and then slowed down the playback right at the end.
Well, it isn’t ROCK, but if you’re looking for weird instruments, you need look no further than P.D.Q. Bach featuring, among other things, such oddities as a bicycle, the “mailing tuba”, and a horrific hybrid known as a tromboon - an instrument that combines all the worst properties of both the trombone and bassoon… I highly recommend P.D.Q. Bach for any who are looking for comedy of a truely different sort…
On “In My Life” Martin played a piano, not a harpsichord.
“The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” is the only rock song I ever heard of that features a solo bassoon.
Piledriver did a nasty song featuring the sound of a guillotine.
“We’re the Metal Inquisition
We sentence you to death …
<slide> <chop!>
…By guillotine!”
The use of a typewriter as rhythm instrument was first pioneered by novelty composer Leroy Anderson in his tone poem “The Typewriter” back in the 1930s.
The first composer to incorporate recorded sound into a piece of music was Ottorino Respighi in the 1920s. In “The Pines of Rome” (the section titled “The Pines of the Appian Way”), he scored a phonograph recording of a nightingale. When I saw an orchestra performing this on TV, the phonograph operator lowered the needle onto the record on an old Victrola—with the huge trumpet speaker. Talk about “authentic period instruments”!
By golly, every time I get to feeling smartass about my rock trivia knowledge, I blow something so freakin’ simple I wonder just how many brain cells I damaged back in the 60s. My thanks to you and pldennison for the gentleness of your corrections when a flame would have been richly deserved.
::hides head in shame, runs off to listen to his Beatles #1 CD again::
Darling Violetta, the group that recorded the theme song to Angel, has the cello player as a regular part of their group; it wasn’t just for the theme song.
no prob hometownboy. I fell in the same pit thinking In My Life had harpsichord. Thanks for that correction, Jomo.
I always remember that part as a harpsichord (and played it with harpsichord sound in my beatles band). Perhaps it’s the screwy tone from being speed doubled, combined with the baroque nature of it. Whatever, it sounds totally appropriate on harpsichord.
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I tried to get the bass player from the band to razz Sir George about playing at half speed when he’d visited Martin at home in England, but he’d have none of it. coward
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Didn’t some jackoff use a chainsaw on a heavy metal record recently. I seem to remember that guy nearly lopping his leg off performing that song live a few years back. This gets my vote for biggest douce-bag in the history of rock
The banjo on The Who’s Squeeze Box
The “jew’s harp imitating” clavinet on The Band’s Up on Cripple Creek
The slide whistle (and God knows what else) on Bob Dylan’s Rainy Day Women #12 and 35
No, audient, you’re right, that tune should have had a harpsichord. It would have sounded exactly right since Martin played it in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach. But don’t get on his case for playing it at half speed. Doing that and then doubling the tape speed achieved an unusual sonority that you would never hear on a piano otherwise. It most closely resembled the sound of the early 18th-century fortepiano invented by Cristofori—it had that delicate tinkly sound because cast-iron sounding boards for the piano were not invented until Beethoven’s time by Broadwood & Sons, allowing far more tension to be put on the strings, making for a heavier, fuller, more brilliant tone. Beethoven helped push piano technology forward because he insisted on the bigger sound for the kind of pieces he was composed. 18th-century little fortepianos were closer to the harpsichord in sonority than to the big huge hairy Steinway concert grands of today.
but are you saying you think Sir George did the speed doubling because of the timbre change? I’ve always thought of it as an apropos artifact.
i agree it shoulda had a harpsichord. so if i can’t criticize their laziness for playing it half speed, i’ll just complain they were too lazy to wheel in a harpsichord. they could have afforded it : )
and well well, if we’re going to talk piano tech, perhaps we should open up a whole new thread. : )
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i’ll nitpick your otherwise excellent historical summary to point out that it’s not a cast iron sounding board, as you probably know. Of course the soundboards have always been wood, it’s the cast iron plate which is essentially the skeleton of the piano holding the 18 tons of tension on a modern grand. And even that is only possible because it’s bolted to the strong laminated wood outer case.
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Harmonica:
Not really so much of a rock oddity except it was the dominant instrument in 'Whammer Jammer", by J. Geils Band. Easily the kick-assenest harp solo ever.
Harry Neilson used a gargle (then spit into a glass) in one of his songs. ‘The Most Beautiful World in the World’?
Great banjo solo on '16 Dead roses and a Horse that stinks" - Jim Stafford
Dijon just beat me with Uriah Heep.
And I looooved ‘Don’t Call Us/WCY’.
ElvisL1ves, are you sure that was cardboard? Sounds like sheet-metal to me…
And, yeah, not really rock, but somebody should mention Spike Jones. Cause not only did he use weird things for music, he was DAMN good at it! I’m thinking of one song where he used a gunshot very effectively.
OK, two or three people have mentioned the chainsaw solo now (by Jackal, or do they spell it Jackyl?–I’m too lazy to find out). Please see the original post. It was pretty cool, though, and it fit in with the content of the song.