This wonderful forum of ours is full of information and tales of what titles are the Best or Worst, Top 10's or song & mix analysis; being dissected with wave forms and Spectrograms... etc. etc. However there is very little seen here about the music itself (or maybe I've just passed over it somehow.)
Regardless, I was working on an Up-mix the other day of an LP rip of the Chris Rea album "The Road To Hell"; and since by doing this kind of work you tend to get very intimate with the music. This reveals aspects of it you never noticed before or just casually spaced out on. So I'm working on the last song on the album- Tell Me There's A Heaven, a beautiful but heartbreaking song about Chris' daughter watching some disturbing news on the T.V. and the effect it had on her. I never paid the song any attention in my younger earlier years, as I was fixated on the more popular songs like "Texas" and "Daytona." Tell Me There's a Heaven did reach No. 24 in the UK Singles Chart in 1990.
While listening closely to the up-mix I noticed an interesting instrument or effect while the orchestration was playing, but very subtle, maybe a marimba, accordion, synthesizer, percussion instrument of some kind; I just don't have the musical & instrument knowledge apparently to figure it out. I did learn a few potential key elements to the making of the song- Chris Rea has some Italian heritage in him (I felt the orchestration was sounding like an old Italian folk/classical style to build a sense of extreme sadness and tragedy.) The orchestration was arranged by Max Middleton (some of you may know of him?) And the drums percussion was performed by Martin Ditcham -if it was being made by a percussion instrument of some kind. I did a lengthy search in Google and discogs etc. and looked at the liner notes on the CD, but found nothing about it.
Hopefully some of you talented and experienced musicians, or perhaps those of you that know classical music intimately might know what this is and help mitigate what has become a kind of knowledge brain worm for me trying to figure this out (it's probably something very simple?)
And hopefully others here will share some of their known or unknown quirky musical aspects of a song that thrills you, or peaks your interest, or just makes you sit up and feel something. It could be just a time signature, or effect or unusual instrument played that blows your skirt up? That's the bottom line about music anyway, is it not?
Here's a little short clip of the song so you all can hopefully hear what I'm hearing.
Regardless, I was working on an Up-mix the other day of an LP rip of the Chris Rea album "The Road To Hell"; and since by doing this kind of work you tend to get very intimate with the music. This reveals aspects of it you never noticed before or just casually spaced out on. So I'm working on the last song on the album- Tell Me There's A Heaven, a beautiful but heartbreaking song about Chris' daughter watching some disturbing news on the T.V. and the effect it had on her. I never paid the song any attention in my younger earlier years, as I was fixated on the more popular songs like "Texas" and "Daytona." Tell Me There's a Heaven did reach No. 24 in the UK Singles Chart in 1990.
While listening closely to the up-mix I noticed an interesting instrument or effect while the orchestration was playing, but very subtle, maybe a marimba, accordion, synthesizer, percussion instrument of some kind; I just don't have the musical & instrument knowledge apparently to figure it out. I did learn a few potential key elements to the making of the song- Chris Rea has some Italian heritage in him (I felt the orchestration was sounding like an old Italian folk/classical style to build a sense of extreme sadness and tragedy.) The orchestration was arranged by Max Middleton (some of you may know of him?) And the drums percussion was performed by Martin Ditcham -if it was being made by a percussion instrument of some kind. I did a lengthy search in Google and discogs etc. and looked at the liner notes on the CD, but found nothing about it.
Hopefully some of you talented and experienced musicians, or perhaps those of you that know classical music intimately might know what this is and help mitigate what has become a kind of knowledge brain worm for me trying to figure this out (it's probably something very simple?)
And hopefully others here will share some of their known or unknown quirky musical aspects of a song that thrills you, or peaks your interest, or just makes you sit up and feel something. It could be just a time signature, or effect or unusual instrument played that blows your skirt up? That's the bottom line about music anyway, is it not?
Here's a little short clip of the song so you all can hopefully hear what I'm hearing.