{"id":2205,"date":"2019-12-30T18:17:04","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T00:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/read.streamapse.com\/?p=2205"},"modified":"2024-10-03T14:55:35","modified_gmt":"2024-10-03T19:55:35","slug":"the-beatles-revolutionary-use-of-recording-technology-in-abbey-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/?p=2205","title":{"rendered":"The Beatles’ revolutionary use of recording technology in ‘Abbey Road’"},"content":{"rendered":"

With its cheery singles, theatrical medley and iconic cover<\/a>, The Beatles\u2019 11th studio album, \u201cAbbey Road<\/a>,\u201d holds a special place in the hearts of the band\u2019s fans.<\/p>\n

But as the album celebrates its 50th anniversary, few may realize just how groundbreaking its tracks were for the band.<\/p>\n

In my forthcoming book, \u201cRecording Analysis: How the Record Shapes the Song<\/a>,\u201d I show how the recording process can enhance the artistry of songs, and \u201cAbbey Road\u201d is one of the albums I highlight.<\/p>\n

Beginning with 1965\u2019s \u201cRubber Soul<\/a>,\u201d The Beatles started exploring new sounds. This quest continued in \u201cAbbey Road,\u201d where the band was able to deftly incorporate emerging recording technology in a way that set the album apart from everything they had previously done.<\/p>\n

Sound in motion<\/h2>\n

\u201cAbbey Road\u201d is the first album that the band released in stereo only.<\/p>\n

Stereo was established in the early 1930s<\/a> as a way to capture and replicate the way humans hear sounds. Stereo recordings contain two separate channels of sound \u2013 similar to our two ears \u2013 while mono contains everything on one channel.<\/p>\n

Stereo\u2019s two channels can create the illusion of sounds emerging from different directions, with some coming from the listener\u2019s left and others coming from the right. In mono, all sounds are always centered.<\/p>\n

The Beatles had recorded all their previous albums in mono, with stereo versions made without the Beatles\u2019 participation. In \u201cAbbey Road,\u201d however, stereo is central to the album\u2019s creative vision.<\/p>\n

Take the opening minute of \u201cHere Comes the Sun,\u201d the first track on the record\u2019s second side.<\/p>\n

If you listen to the record on a stereo, George Harrison\u2019s acoustic guitar emerges from the left speaker. It\u2019s soon joined by several delicate synthesizer sounds. At the end of the song\u2019s introduction, a lone synthesizer sound gradually sweeps from the left speaker to the listener\u2019s center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Harrison\u2019s voice then enters in the center, in front of the listener, and is joined by strings located toward the right speaker\u2019s location. This sort of sonic movement can only happen in stereo \u2013 and The Beatles masterfully deployed this effect.<\/p>\n

The introduction to \u2018Here Comes the Sun\u2019 showcases stereo\u2019s range.<\/div>\n

Then there are Ringo Starr\u2019s drums in \u201cThe End,\u201d which fill the entire sonic space, from left to right. But each drum is individually fixed in a separate position<\/a>, creating the illusion of many drums in multiple locations \u2013 a dramatic cacophony of rhythms that\u2019s especially noticeable in the track\u2019s drum solo.<\/p>\n

\u2018The End\u2019 peppers listeners\u2019 ears with a panoply of drums.<\/div>\n

Enter: The synthesizer<\/h2>\n

In the mid-1960s, an engineer named Robert Moog invented the modular synthesizer<\/a>, a new type of instrument that generated unique sounds from oscillators and electronic controls that could be used to play melodies or enhance tracks with sound effects.<\/p>\n

Harrison received a demonstration of the device in October 1968<\/a>. A month later, he ordered one of his own.<\/p>\n

The Beatles are among the very first popular musicians to use this revolutionary instrument. Harrison first played it<\/a> during the \u201cAbbey Road\u201d sessions in August 1969, when he used it for the track \u201cBecause.\u201d<\/p>\n

The synthesizer ended up being used in three other tracks on the album: \u201cHere Comes the Sun,\u201d \u201cMaxwell\u2019s Silver Hammer\u201d and \u201cI Want You (She\u2019s So Heavy).\u201d<\/p>\n

The Beatles didn\u2019t incorporate the synthesizer for novelty or effect, as the Ran-Dells did in their 1963 hit \u201cMartian Hop<\/a>\u201d and The Monkees did in their 1967 song \u201cStar Collector<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, on \u201cAbbey Road,\u201d the band capitalizes on the synthesizer\u2019s versatility, creatively using it to enhance, rather than dominate, their tracks.<\/p>\n

In some cases, the synthesizer simply sounds like another instrument: In \u201cHere Comes the Sun,\u201d the Moog mimics the guitar. In other tracks, like \u201cBecause,\u201d the synthesizer actually carries the song\u2019s main melody, effectively replacing the band\u2019s voices.<\/p>\n

In \u2018Because,\u2019 the synthesizer mimics the voices of band members.<\/div>\n

A dramatic pause<\/h2>\n

In 1969, the LP record still reigned supreme. The Walkman \u2013 the device that made music a more private and portable experience \u2013 wouldn\u2019t be invented for another 10 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So when \u201cAbbey Road\u201d was released, people still listened to music in a room, either alone or with friends, on a record player.<\/p>\n

The record had two sides; after the last song on the first side, you had to get up, flip the LP and drop the needle \u2013 a process that could take about a minute.<\/p>\n

The Beatles, conscious of this process, incorporated this pause into the album\u2019s overall experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI Want You (She\u2019s So Heavy)\u201d ends side one. It\u2019s full of energetic sounds that span the entire left-to-right spectrum of stereo, bounce from lower to higher frequencies and include sweeps of white noise synthesizer. These sounds gradually amass throughout the course of the song, the tension growing \u2013 until it suddenly stops: the point at which John Lennon decided the tape should be cut.<\/p>\n

The end of \u2018I Want You\u2019 is like the climax of a speech being cut off.<\/div>\n

The silence in the gap of time it takes to flip the LP allows the dramatic and sudden conclusion of side one to reverberate within the listener.<\/p>\n

Then side two begins, and not with a bang: It\u2019s the gentle, thin guitar of \u201cHere Comes the Sun.\u201d The transition represents the greatest contrast between any two tracks on the album.<\/p>\n

That gap of silence between each side is integral to the album, an experience you can\u2019t have listening to \u201cAbbey Road\u201d on Spotify.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbbey Road,\u201d perhaps more than any other Beatles album, shows how a song can be poetically written and an instrument deftly played. But the way a track is recorded can be the artist\u2019s final stamp on the song.\"The<\/p>\n

William D. Moylan<\/a>, Professor of Sound Recording Technology and Music, University of Massachusetts Lowell<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With its cheery singles, theatrical medley and iconic cover, The Beatles\u2019 11th studio album, \u201cAbbey Road,\u201d holds a special place in the hearts of the band\u2019s fans. But as the album celebrates its 50th anniversary, few may realize just how groundbreaking its tracks were for the band. In my forthcoming book, \u201cRecording Analysis: How the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[31,19,32,33,34,35],"class_list":["post-2205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-streamapse-reports","tag-abbey","tag-article","tag-beatles","tag-recording","tag-revolutionary","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5752,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205\/revisions\/5752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}