"Wind Chimes"

I recently listened to the two-albums-on-one-CD re-issue of Smiley Smile and Wild Honey and noticed in "Wind Chimes" what might be a reference to the Christmas song "Silver Bells."  In the section starting at ~1:32, the phrase "ting-a-ling" is repeated a number of times.  In Mike's part, it's sung to an ascending group of notes (F# G A).  In the chorus of "Silver Bells," the similar phrase "ring-a-ling" occurs, sung to the same intervals (in Bing Crosby's version, the notes are A Bb C).

"Wind Chimes"

I've been listening to The SMiLE Sessions box set again, and when I listened to disc four a couple days ago, the clarinet and saxophone parts in "Wind Chimes (Version 1)" (track 4) sounded (and were) easy to figure out.  When I referenced the recording on disc 1 (track 16), I discovered that the clarinet and saxophone parts are present there too, although the marimba in the first half of the track isn't present in disc 4, track 4.  Like I mentioned last time I recorded "Wind Chimes," I think there's an edit there.  It seems that disc 1, track 16 is comprised of disc 4, track 5 (first half) and disc 4, track 4 (second half) and maybe even some others.  In any case, I followed disc 1, track 16 for my recording.

Since I recorded this last time, I got a new keyboard, and the marimba voice on it sounds a lot better.  I also used keyboard voices for clarinet and saxophone because I don't (yet!) know how to play those.  Like last time, I used electric bass in place of upright bass (because I don't have one).

"Wind Chimes"

Last week I listened to the fourth disc of The SMiLE Sessions, and over the next few days, I learned the bass part and some of the marimba for "Wind Chimes."  (A couple years ago, I thought "Wind Chimes" had xylophone, but it's marimba.)

Here's the first section.  The original track has upright bass, but since I have only electric bass, I used that instead:

I also wrote out the notation for the parts I learned (as always, there's the disclaimer that I might have something wrong).  Here's the marimba:

When I lookt at the sessionography later, I learned that there are four marimba tracks, all played by Van Dyke Parks.  I inadvertently combined two parts in my notation.  In track 5 of disc 4 of The SMiLE Sessions, Brian Wilson tells Parks to "hit 'em both at the same time" and later mentions "D and F#."  There are half as many notes for the first two thirds of the track, so it seems that Parks played two notes simultaneously (on beats one and three) on one pass, and played single notes (beats two and four) as an overdub, aside from the few measures where there are two notes on each beat (the beginning of line five in my notation).  I haven't figured out the other two marimba tracks yet.

I figured out the bass part for the entire track (as it appears on disc 1), but I played only the section for which I also know marimba.  It seems that there's an edit at the end of that section anyway.

I referenced the 2004 SMiLE too and noted a few differences in the bass parts.  Mostly, I was pretty impressed by how closely the 2004 SMiLE matches the track from 1966, but the difference in line 6 bothers me a bit.  In track 5 of disc 4 of The SMiLE Sessions - at about 3:17 - Brian Wilson tells the bassist (Chuck Berghofer), "the pick-up is da da da da da," giving him the pitches for that part.  I'm assuming that the musicians who put together the 2004 SMiLE had access to these tapes, so I can't understand why that's different if Wilson draws specific attention to it on the tape.

"Wind Chimes"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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Recently I'd been reading Peter Ames Carlin's Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson.  I finished it last week.

Near the end, Carlin quotes from "Wind Chimes" - "Now and then, a tear rolls off my cheek."  It got me thinking about the music that accompanies that part, and I realized that after that line (in both the 1966 and 2004 versions), there's a glissando on (I think) xylophone followed by a staccato note.  Presumably, that glissando is the tear running off the cheek, and the staccato note is the tear falling off and hitting an-other surface.

I checked the version of "Wind Chimes" from Smiley Smile, but that glissando and staccato note aren't present there.