One of the subtler throughlines of my novel Gilly Frank's Record Collection involves an early piece of musical equipment, a Mellotron. Leading up to and during the writing of GFRC, I learned a lot about electronic music of the late 60s and early 70s, and it's been a lot of fun picking out the sound of different electronic instruments. Before, my concept of a synthesizer was pretty basic - I thought it was an electric keyboard that could make other sounds, too. Like one of those little Casio keyboards everyone had in the 80s, with four drum machine buttons and buttons for "Trumpet" and "Xylophone" or whatever. That's not actually the case, and the more I learn, the more I really love these fascinating musical instruments and the impact they've had on modern music.
Anyway, have fun exploring old electronic prog - there's a wealth of rock music history just in the instruments. Go over to wikipedia and read up on
mellotrons, check out this list of the
Top 10 Mellotron songs, and listen to a few tracks to pick out it's unique qualities. Here's a couple of my favorites:
What are those opening notes in "Strawberry Fields Forever?" A mellotron:
Here it is again, sounding very different, in "And You And I," by Yes. It comes in at about 1:27, but there's another great use of it at around 4:25 or so.
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