Brian Wilson called this song a Pocket Symphony, and experimented with it over the course of 17 recording sessions. At the time, it was the most expensive pop song ever recorded, costing about $50,000 to make. Brian Wilson worked on this obsessively. At the time, he stayed home and wrote music while the rest of the band toured. Wilson was just starting a very bizarre phase of his life where he would spend long periods in bed and work in a sandbox. During this period, many considered him a genius because of the groundbreaking songs and recording techniques he came up with. This was recorded over a two month period using top Los Angeles session musicians - the Beach Boys didnt play any instruments on the track. About 90 hours of studio time and 70 hours of tape were used, and at least 12 musicians played on the sessions. Its hard to know whose performances ended up on the record, but some of the musicians involved were Glen Campbell (lead guitar), Hal Blaine (drums), Larry Knechtel (organ) and Al de Lory (piano). The unusual, high-pitched sound in this song was produced using a theremin, which uses electric current to produce sound. You dont touch a theremin to play it, but move your hand across the electric field. The instrument was invented in 1919, but was very hard to play, and ended up being used mostly as a sound effects device. Brian Wilson was familiar with the instrument, as it was used to create eerie sounds in low budget horror movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still and It Came from Outer Space. When he put cellos on Good Vibrations, he envisioned an unusual high frequency sound to go along with them, and he thought of the theramin. Wilson couldnt track down a real theremin, but found an inventor named Paul Tanner whod been a trombonist with the Glenn Miller Orchestra between 1938-42. He had developed a similar device with Bob Whitsell called an Electro-Theremin, which had just one antenna instead of two. Tanner was brought in to play the device on the recording. https://youtube/watch?v=B0yoiBYbT2I
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 09:38:03 +0000
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