Musical Structure and Recording
The Beatles began recording the song, with a working title "In the Life of ...", on 19 January 1967, in the innovative and creative studio atmosphere ushered in by the recording of "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" over the preceding weeks. The two sections of the song are separated by a 23-bar bridge. At first, the Beatles were not sure how to fill this transition. Thus, at the conclusion of the recording session for the basic tracks, this section solely consisted of a simple repeated piano chord and the voice of assistant Mal Evans counting the bars. Evans' guide vocal was treated with gradually increasing amounts of echo. The 23-bar bridge section ended with the sound of an alarm clock triggered by Evans. The original intent was to edit out the ringing alarm clock when the missing section was filled in; however it complemented McCartney's piece well; the first line of McCartney's song began "Woke up, fell out of bed", so the decision was made to keep the sound. Martin later said that editing it out would have been unfeasible in any case. The basic track for the song was refined with remixing and additional parts added at recording sessions on 20 January and 3 February. Still, there was no solution for the missing 24-bar middle section of the song, when McCartney had the idea of bringing in a full orchestra to fill the gap. To allay concerns that classically-trained musicians would not be able to improvise the section, producer George Martin wrote a loose score for the section. It was an extended, atonal crescendo that encouraged the musicians to improvise within the defined framework.
Read more about this topic: A Day In The Life
Famous quotes containing the words musical, structure and/or recording:
“Then, bringing me the joy we feel when wee see a work by our favorite painter which differs from any other that we know, or if we are led before a painting of which we have until then only seen a pencil sketch, if a musical piece heard only on the piano appears before us clothed in the colors of the orchestra, my grandfather called me the [hawthorn] hedge at Tansonville, saying, “You who are so fond of hawthorns, look at this pink thorn, isn’t it lovely?””
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Communism is a proposition to structure the world more reasonably, a proposition for changing the world. As such, we have to analyze it and, if we deem it reasonable, act upon it.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“I didn’t have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let’s say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)