The Beatles- A Day in the Life

[Mike Money]

Discuss.

That 15 bar swell always gets me...

I guess they had 15 bars to get from their lowest note to their highest note...

[nathan]

the story i heard is that they recorded an orchestra and told each person to play whatever scale the song is in at whatever speed they wanted and in different rhythms. Seems like that would get the same sound. It really makes the song though.

I always called it the "Orchestral Climax"

[EddieG]

I saw a documentary on the making of Sgt Pepper once. In an interview with George Martin, he said he'd given the half-orchestra the instruction that they had to have played their lowest and highest note, and that he'd written them little signposts to let them know where they were. It didn't matter how quickly they got to the highest note they each could play, but they had to have done that by the time that section was over.

Paul apparently found it funny that certain sections of the orchestra had a herd-like mentality. The violins would all invariably follow each other and go up together, while the trumpets (who, according to Paul are always "well-oiled") were rather more carefree!

[JimK]

Originally Posted by Mike Money

Discuss.
That 15 bar swell always gets me...

Me, too.

IIRC, the price of a full orchestra was too steep; it was Ringo who blurted out "Why not have 1/2 play the section twice"?
It looked like a party in the studio when that was recorded.

[GM60466]

Many years ago I read that EMI was outraged when Sgt. Pepper was delivered close to 900 pounds over budget. In 1967 that would have been around $1900. How sad is the music bussiness when the record company worried about the Bealtes cutting into their profits. It was one reason that the "lads" formed Apple Records.

g