THE LAST WORD INMI PRO
MI Pro is the only place the UK’s MI trade turns for the news and analysis of everything going on in the industry. Aside from that, we appreciate the fun that lies at the root of everything we do, so this is the section to crack open a beer, put your feet up and have a laugh. If you have any pictures you’d like us to include, send them to
mipro@intentmedia.co.uk...
RETRO HOW DID THEY DO THAT? OCTOBER 2005
Cover Stars: Gremlin’s Pete McClelland explains how he built a £1 million business by staying focused on the roots of folk music
News: Lloyds abandons £9 million musical instruments for schools initiative due to lack of interest, General Electronics buys Formula Sound, Percy Priors in Wycombe changes hands, hedge fund bids for Kaman
Features: PLASA 05 report, MIA Awards report, Yamaha Expo, Drummer Live, Stewart Ward talks internet potential
Products: Kemble Cambridge 10 piano, Fender Jazz King combo, Peavey 6505 Plus amp, Fender 50s Precision, HK Audio Elias, Peavey Studio Pro CM1 mic
Number one singles: Sugababes: Push the Button, Arctic Monkeys: I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
Number one albums: Franz Ferdinand: You Could Have It So Much Better, Sugababes: Taller In More Ways, The Prodigy: Their Law: The Singles 1990-2005
THE BEATLES: A DAY IN THE LIFE The impact that Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band had on popular culture has only now begun to be questioned, but for 40 years it was universally recognised as the album that changed modern music. The album comprised mostly McCartney songs (thus the growing perception that it’s not as good as we think), but kept its feet on serious ground thanks to groundbreaking contributions from Lennon and Harrison. The killer ‘hook’, though, came with the stunning A Day in the Life, that had within itself a dramatic crescendo that makes both the song and the album what they are. Although Lennon and McCartney had not really collaborated directly on songs for a few years, this piece perfectly illustrates the chemistry between them, with Lennon writing the ‘main’ verses in a moody, wistful manner, while McCartney adds a boppy ‘middle eight’. The two sections are stapled together with a 24-bar orchestral crescendo that stopped the world in its tracks at the time. After the band had finished
recording the basic track, there was a 24-bar bridge with a repeated piano
PICTURE OF
THE MONTH HIGHLY STRUNG Danish guitarist and composer Henrik Anderson has had himself made a 52- string instrument, the Manzer Medusa, combining the necks of a veena, a sitar and a conventional guitar, on which the the instrument is based. Following on from Pat Metheny’s
Picasso guitar, also made by Linda Manzer, that featured in these pages a few months ago, the Medusa focuses on Indian instruments. The nightmare of amplifying the instrument fell to DPA, which supplied the two 4061 miniature omni mics. Next month, Slartibartfast’s Octiventral Heebiephone…
chord sequence and the voice of studio assistant, Mal Evans, counting the bars and setting off an alarm clock at their conclusion. The band and producer, George
Martin, had no idea what to do with the bridge, other than McCartney’s desire to bring in an orchestra and Lennon’s wish to create what he called ‘a musical orgasm’. The three were concerned that an
orchestra would have trouble improvising, so Martin wrote out a ‘score’, which started with the lowest note of each instrument on the first beat of the first bar and the highest note in E major on the last beat of the last bar. He joined the two notes together with a squiggly line. With Martin and McCartney conducting, the players climbed
through scales in any way they wished, ending with the huge spike of sound that can be heard on the album. This was done four times and the takes were placed over each other. The sections were then spliced to repeat after the final verse. The final (E major) chord was
played by Lennon, McCartney, Evans and Ringo Starr on three pianos and Martin on a harmonium and rings out for some 40 seconds, with the engineer raising the recording level as the notes decayed. At the end, the recording level is set so high, that incidental noises in the studio can also be heard.
A stunning conclusion – and one
that prompts one to ask where that sort of imagination in the studio has since gone.
80 miPRO
OCTOBER 2010
WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
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