Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Mellotronists

Okay gang. I spent some time with Scott Paterson today and here's the
birdseye lowdown on the recorders in "Stairway to Heaven" from one of
Canada's finest players and teachers.

First thing Scott told me was that he heard it was all bass recorder!
Upon further questioning from moi, it turns out that he had read the
same article Mark first quoted. (Score one for the journalists.)

We sat down with good headphones and listened very carefully several
times through. Scott's opinion is that the bottom voice is definitely
bass recorder. (He demonstrated on one with a bit of a playalong.) You
can hear it a lot on its own underneath the vocal in the first verse.
The upper voice is probably soprano although it could be alto played in
the second register. The middle voice is probably tenor recorder
although it could be bass in the second register.

Now for that arrangement Mark sent the link to, it's very nice but it's
not what's on the record. There are definitely only three voices. You
can hear that quite clearly. We all agreed. (Scott kept the music.)

So, I humbly admit that I was wrong on several points, but thank God,
not all! (I should have listened through headphones.) In recompense,
when I get a chance, I will write out the parts (They're a pretty easy
lift from the recording because they're very clear in the recording).
Then you can all go out and buy a set of Scott's recorder that I did up
for Streetly or the nice set that MA has and have a wonderful time with
a Led Zep moment right in your own livingroom -- assuming you have a
mellotron to play them on. By the way, Scott hadn't heard the results
of his work so I turned him loose on my machine for awhile and we even
did a run through of the "Stairway" arrangement. Scott seemed quite
pleased with the sound of the tapes.

Rick (SFX 10030 -- I have all the sounds!)