Rick Wakeman Tells the Story of the Mellotron, the Oddball Proto-Synthesizer Pioneered by the Beatles

in Music | June 15th, 2013

800px-MELLOTRON_(panel)

Image Tobias Aker­boom via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Did you know that the Span­ish gui­tar intro to the Bea­t­les’ “Bun­ga­low Bill” was not played by George Har­ri­son, but rather by an odd elec­tron­ic instru­ment called a Mel­lotron, the same strange pro­to-syn­the­siz­er respon­si­ble for the flute intro to “Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er”? You’ll learn quite a bit more about the “rash break­ing out all over pop music” that was the Mel­lotron in the audio sto­ry above, nar­rat­ed by Rick Wake­man.

From the afore­men­tioned Bea­t­les’ songs to The Band’s “This Wheel’s on Fire” to pret­ty much every song in 60s pop and 70s pro­gres­sive rock, as well as in 60s revival­ists like Oasis, the Mel­lotron makes an appear­ance. It even shows up on Skynyrd’s “Free­bird” of all things.

Wake­man sketch­es the his­to­ry of the odd­ball instru­ment, from its hum­ble begin­nings in the garage of Cal­i­for­nia inven­tor Har­ry Cham­ber­lin, to its pop­u­lar­iza­tion by sales­man Bill Fransen, who took Chamberlin’s design and made it his own.

Bear in mind, as we enter the world of Mel­lotron­ics, that the instru­men­tal bits you hear through­out Wakeman’s sto­ry were played by some­one, some­time. The sounds made by this key­board-like thing are in fact actu­al parts from live orches­tras and sundry oth­er musi­cal arrange­ments, record­ed onto tape loops and con­fig­ured in an inge­nious way so that they cor­re­spond to a stan­dard key­board and a vari­ety of pre­sets and knob­by-dial­ly-things.

You might even call it an ana­log sam­pler. The more tech­ni­cal­ly-mind­ed among you may wish to read this Sound on Sound arti­cle for specs. For you enthu­si­asts, key­boardist Mike Pin­dar of the Moody Blues—whose “Nights in White Satin” would nev­er have been with­out the Mellotron—demonstrates the instrument’s inner work­ings in the short video above.

Inven­tor Har­ry Cham­ber­lin orig­i­nal­ly designed the Mel­lotron (which he called, of course, the Cham­ber­lin) to re-cre­ate the sound of an orches­tra at home, or in the local lodge or cabaret, pre­sum­ably. This is the use Paul McCart­ney divines in the funky demon­stra­tion of his Mel­lotron above. Sir Paul, in a cabaret set­ting, does a goofy lounge singer act, then plays the “Straw­ber­ry Fields” intro.

Dig­i­tal syn­the­siz­ers and com­put­ers over­took the Mel­lotron, as they did all ana­log elec­tron­ics. But like all things old, it’s new again, in sim­u­lat­ed form, avail­able to iPhone users via the Manetron app (Mel­lotron also makes a phys­i­cal, dig­i­tal ver­sion of their vin­tage instru­ment). The sto­ry and sound of the Mel­lotron recent­ly inspired a full doc­u­men­tary treat­ment in the 2010 film Mel­lodra­ma: The Mel­lotron Movie, now out on DVD, which may be the most com­pelling doc­u­men­tary about a pio­neer­ing elec­tron­ic instru­ment ever made (far bet­ter than 2004’s dis­ap­point­ing Moog). As for­mer Beach Boy Bri­an Wil­son says in the film, “the Mel­lotron stays cool.” And indeed, it does.

via Coudal

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Meet the Dr. Who Com­pos­er Who Almost Turned The Bea­t­les’ “Yes­ter­day” Into Ear­ly Elec­tron­i­ca

The Genius of Bri­an Eno On Dis­play in 80 Minute Q&A: Talks Art, iPad Apps, ABBA, & More

All Hail the Beat: How the 1980 Roland TR-808 Drum Machine Changed Pop Music

The “Amen Break”: The Most Famous 6‑Second Drum Loop & How It Spawned a Sam­pling Rev­o­lu­tion

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Bertrand Russell: The First Media Academic?: A Retrospective of His Influential Radio Appearances

in Philosophy, Radio | June 14th, 2013

Bertrand Rus­sell was one of the most impor­tant logi­cians and math­e­mat­i­cal philoso­phers of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. He was also a tire­less cam­paign­er for peace and social progress. Born into an aris­to­crat­ic British fam­i­ly, Rus­sell believed that the social and polit­i­cal ills of the world could be less­ened if peo­ple of all social class­es had a bet­ter grasp of knowl­edge and crit­i­cal rea­son­ing. To this end, he devot­ed a great deal of his time to writ­ing pop­u­lar books on moral and intel­lec­tu­al mat­ters. He was also a reg­u­lar pres­ence on BBC radio dur­ing the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

Most of Rus­sel­l’s sur­viv­ing radio pro­grams have been locked away in the archives for all these years. But in Jan­u­ary of 2012, pro­duc­ers at BBC Radio 4 assem­bled some inter­est­ing excerpts from the philoso­pher’s many radio appear­ances for a ret­ro­spec­tive. Bertrand Rus­sell: The First Media Aca­d­e­m­ic? (above, in its entire­ty) is a fas­ci­nat­ing overview of Rus­sel­l’s life as a pub­lic intel­lec­tu­al. Host­ed by come­di­an and writer Robin Ince, the pro­gram includes com­men­tary from two of Britain’s cur­rent crop of media aca­d­e­mics: physi­cist and for­mer pop musi­cian Bri­an Cox and math­e­mati­cian Mar­cus du Sautoy, who cur­rent­ly holds Richard Dawkin­s’s old seat as the Simonyi Pro­fes­sor for the Pub­lic Under­stand­ing of Sci­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oxford. There are excerpts from vin­tage inter­views with peo­ple who knew Rus­sell, includ­ing his son Con­rad and his sec­ond wife, Dora Black Rus­sell. But the best con­tri­bu­tions are from the philoso­pher him­self. Even the most devot­ed fan of Rus­sell will find some­thing new and inter­est­ing to lis­ten to in this excel­lent assem­blage of rare audio clips.

Note: You can down­load a fine­ly-pol­ished record­ing of Bertrand Rus­sell: The First Media Aca­d­e­m­ic? from Audible.com. And you could always get it for free by tak­ing advan­tage of Audi­ble’s 30-day Free Tri­al. Find details on that here. When­ev­er a read­er signs up for a free tri­al with Audi­ble, it helps sup­port Open Cul­ture.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bertrand Rus­sell in Bol­ly­wood: The Old Philosopher’s Improb­a­ble Appear­ance in a Hin­di Film, 1967

Lis­ten to ‘Why I Am Not a Chris­t­ian,’ Bertrand Russell’s Pow­er­ful Cri­tique of Reli­gion (1927)

Bertrand Russell’s Ten Com­mand­ments for Liv­ing in a Healthy Democ­ra­cy

Bertrand Rus­sell on His Stu­dent Lud­wig Wittgen­stein: Man of Genius or Mere­ly an Eccen­tric?

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Mick Jagger, 15 Years Old, Shows Off His Rock Climbing Shoes on British TV (1959)

in Music, Television | June 14th, 2013

In the 1950s, Mick Jag­ger (then still called “Mike Jag­ger”) was a mid­dle class kid grow­ing up in Dart­ford, Kent, Eng­land. His moth­er, Eva, was a hair­dress­er; his father, Joe, a PE teacher. Togeth­er, they lived in a nice, order­ly home, with more than enough mon­ey to pay the bills. (His neigh­bor, Kei­th Richards, could­n’t say the same.) In 1957, the elder Jag­ger began con­sult­ing on a week­ly TV show called See­ing Sport, which pro­mot­ed the virtues of sports to British chil­dren. Dur­ing the com­ing years, Mick and his broth­er Chris made reg­u­lar appear­ances on the show, show­ing view­ers how to build a tent, or mas­ter var­i­ous canoe­ing skills. In the 1959 clip above, Mick shows off the footwear need­ed for rock climb­ing. Noth­ing too fan­cy. No moun­taineer­ing boots or any­thing like that. Just a pair of “ordi­nary gym shoes … like the kind Mike is wear­ing.”  The episode was shot in a spot called “High Rocks,” near Tun­bridge Wells. This back­ground info comes to us via Philip Nor­man’s 2012 biog­ra­phy of Mick Jag­ger.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jim­my Page, 13, Plays Gui­tar on BBC Tal­ent Show (1957)

The Bea­t­les as Teens (1957)

The Rolling Stones Sing Jin­gle for Rice Krispies Com­mer­cial (1964)

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The Faces of Great Physicists on International Currency

in Economics, Physics | June 14th, 2013

neils-bohr-currency

Click for larg­er image

Amer­i­cans some­times com­plain that, unlike the cur­ren­cy of many oth­er coun­tries, which fea­ture por­traits of artists, sci­en­tists, and writ­ers, U.S. dol­lar bills don’t tend to fea­ture intel­lec­tu­als. But one could, I think, make the case for Ben­jamin Franklin, who must cer­tain­ly count as a man of let­ters, and did illus­trate an impor­tant physics les­son when he flew that kite with a key on it. Still, that does­n’t exact­ly make him a physi­cist, as res­i­dents of Aus­tria, New Zealand, Scot­land, and Croa­t­ia, all of whom have used bills embla­zoned with the faces of physi­cists, well know.

einsteinmoney

It does, how­ev­er, get Franklin a place on Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land physi­cist Edward F. Redish’s page “Physi­cists on the Mon­ey,” which was fea­tured on Jason Kot­tke’s site yes­ter­day. Redish high­lights 24 bills bear­ing por­traits of not­ed fig­ures through­out the his­to­ry of physics, includ­ing, at the top of the post, the Dan­ish 500-kro­ner note that pic­tures quan­tum the­o­rist Niels Bohr. Just above we have the uni­ver­sal­ly rec­og­niz­able dishevel­ment of Albert Ein­stein, who found his way onto Israel’s five-pound note by, among oth­er achieve­ments, com­ing up with the gen­er­al the­o­ry of rel­a­tiv­i­ty. Below you’ll see a physi­cist you may not have heard of, let alone spent: tenth-cen­tu­ry schol­ar Abu Nasr Al-Fara­bi, pic­tured on Kaza­khstan’s one-tenge note. Redish’s delight­ful­ly retro site also offers a col­lec­tion of physi­cists on stamps, and links to a page with more sci­en­tist- and math­e­mati­cian-bear­ing ban­knotes.

alfarabimoney

via Kot­tke

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Physics Cours­es

Do Physi­cists Believe in God?

Lis­ten as Albert Ein­stein Reads ‘The Com­mon Lan­guage of Sci­ence’ (1941)

The Karl Marx Cred­it Card – When You’re Short of Kap­i­tal

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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The Extraordinary Life and Art of Henri Cartier-Bresson Revealed in 1998 Documentary

in Art, Photography | June 14th, 2013

The cam­era, Hen­ri Carti­er-Bres­son once said, is an instru­ment of intu­ition and spon­tane­ity — “the mas­ter of the instant which, in visu­al terms, ques­tions and decides simul­ta­ne­ous­ly.” Like a Zen archer, Carti­er-Bres­son viewed his méti­er as a way of being in the world. Pho­tog­ra­phy for him was an “art­less art,” best approached by for­get­ting tech­nique and open­ing one­self to the uncon­scious. “To take pho­tographs,” he said, “means to recognize–simultaneously and with­in a frac­tion of a second–both the fact itself and the rig­or­ous orga­ni­za­tion of visu­al­ly per­ceived forms that give it mean­ing. It is putting one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart on the same axis.”

Hen­ri Carti­er-Bres­son: Pen, Brush and Cam­era (above) is an excel­lent overview of the great pho­tog­ra­pher’s life and work. Direct­ed and nar­rat­ed by Patri­cia Wheat­ley, the film was pro­duced for the BBC in 1998, the year four major exhi­bi­tions were held in Lon­don to cel­e­brate Carti­er-Bres­son’s 90th birth­day. The film traces the pho­tog­ra­pher’s extra­or­di­nary life, from his ear­ly train­ing as a painter and his infat­u­a­tion with Sur­re­al­ism to his lat­er work as a globe-trot­ting pho­to­jour­nal­ist and his deci­sion, after 40 years of work in the medi­um, to give up pho­tog­ra­phy and ded­i­cate the last decades of his life to draw­ing. The film includes rare footage of Carti­er-Bres­son at work, along with inter­views by Mag­num pho­tog­ra­ph­er Eve Arnold and oth­ers. Best of all, Wheat­ley was able to film exten­sive inter­views with the noto­ri­ous­ly shy pho­tog­ra­ph­er, both in Lon­don and in his apart­ment over­look­ing the Tui­leries Gar­dens in Paris.

To learn more about Carti­er-Bres­son and to see a won­der­ful slide show of his pho­tog­ra­phy nar­rat­ed by the man him­self, please see our ear­li­er piece, “Hen­ri Carti­er Bres­son and the Deci­sive Moment.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Cre­ative Process of Ansel Adams Revealed in 1958 Doc­u­men­tary

Dis­cov­er Ansel Adams’ 226 Pho­tos of U.S. Nation­al Parks (and Anoth­er Side of the Leg­endary Pho­tog­ra­ph­er)

Alfred Stieglitz: The Elo­quent Eye, a Reveal­ing Look at “The Father of Mod­ern Pho­tog­ra­phy”

1972 Diane Arbus Doc­u­men­tary Inter­views Those Who Knew the Amer­i­can Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Best

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Real Women Talk About Their Careers in Science

in Biology, Education, Science | June 14th, 2013

A year ago the Euro­pean Union launched a cam­paign to attract more young women into the sci­en­tif­ic pro­fes­sions. In Europe, women lag behind men in sci­ence and engi­neer­ing, mak­ing up only a third of sci­ence researchers. But the video the EU made was laugh­able.

You may recall. It was called, Sci­ence: It’s a Girl Thing! and fea­tured three young fash­ion­istas parad­ing around in high heels while a male sci­en­tist peers quizzi­cal­ly at them over his micro­scope.

Along comes sci­ence jour­nal­ist Ker­stin Hop­pen­haus to set the record straight. Hoppenhaus’s new series for the Ger­man sci­ence site SciLogs is called Sig­nif­i­cant Details: Con­ver­sa­tions with Women in Sci­ence. The inter­views are fresh, infor­ma­tive, and acces­si­ble.

It’s inspir­ing to see such a range of women explain their research and walk us through their process for doing it.

A recent inter­view fea­tured Dr. Kris­ten Pan­fil­io (above), an Amer­i­can biol­o­gist on fac­ul­ty at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cologne. Panfilio’s work focus­es on insect extraem­bry­on­ic devel­op­ment, which means she stud­ies how insect tis­sues devel­op into the bug’s ulti­mate shape by com­par­ing the process in two insects: the milk­weed bug and the red flour bee­tle.

Each con­ver­sa­tion begins with a “sig­nif­i­cant detail” of the woman’s work. With the wry humor and pre­ci­sion of a true sci­en­tist, Pan­fil­io demon­strates how she pre­pares her favorite tool, a glass stick, by soft­en­ing the end with a cig­a­rette lighter.

Panfilio’s spe­cif­ic field is evo­lu­tion­ary devel­op­men­tal genet­ics. Along with her lab assis­tants she stud­ies how embry­on­ic cells know what role they should play in form­ing a spe­cif­ic organ­ism shape. How does a bone cell know it’s a bone cell?

The inter­view is about as much like Sci­ence: It’s a Girl Thing! as Meryl Streep is like Lind­say Lohan. This is a real per­son talk­ing about how she has built her career (she want­ed to be an artist when she was a teenag­er and stud­ied ancient Chi­nese his­to­ry at a small lib­er­al arts col­lege) and explain­ing her high­ly spe­cial­ized work.

She also touch­es on one of the most won­der­ful things about sci­en­tif­ic research: Some of the most excit­ing moments are when the results don’t align at all with expec­ta­tions.

Best of all, it’s just one of the won­der­ful inter­views in Hoppenhaus’s series.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

MAKERS Tells the Sto­ry of 50 Years of Progress for Women in the U.S.

No Women Need Apply: A Dis­heart­en­ing 1938 Rejec­tion Let­ter from Dis­ney Ani­ma­tion

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Fol­low her on Twit­ter @mskaterix and vis­it her web­site to learn more.

 

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Paul McCartney Talks Beatles & Wings with Stephen Colbert, Performs 6 Songs Live

in Comedy, Music | June 13th, 2013

The Col­bert Report opened last night with a seg­ment called “Stephen Col­bert’s Trib­ute to Hav­ing Paul McCart­ney on His Show, Fea­tur­ing Paul McCart­ney, With Spe­cial Guest Stephen Col­bert.” And, for the next 12 min­utes, Paul and Stephen cov­ered a lot of ground. Because McCart­ney has just released mate­r­i­al from Wings — a 1976 con­cert film called Rock­show and a reis­sue of Wings Over Amer­i­ca — the con­ver­sa­tion begins with the Wings era: how Mac­ca start­ed all over again; drove to gigs in a van, with no hotel reser­va­tions booked; even­tu­al­ly record­ed a fine album (Band on the Run) in Nige­ria, amidst a cholera out­break; and began per­form­ing live for the first time in years … which led to inevitable ques­tions about the Bea­t­les: why they stopped per­form­ing live in 1966, and how their song­writ­ing evolved. It all ends with inter­view­er and inter­vie­wee singing a charm­ing duet of Irv­ing Berlin’s 1936 clas­sic “Cheek to Cheek.” Lat­er, McCart­ney treat­ed the Col­bert crowd to six songs. We’ve embed­ded a cou­ple of clips below. You can watch the full 60-minute show here.

Lis­ten to What the Man Said

Birth­day

via Rolling Stone

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The Greatness of Charles Darwin Explained with Rap Music

in Biology, Music | June 13th, 2013

Read Open Cul­ture long enough, and soon­er or lat­er you’ll encounter “geek rap­per” Baba Brinkman, the Cana­di­an MC whose rhyming sub­jects of choice include evo­lu­tion, The Can­ter­bury Tales, and British ver­sus Cana­di­an Eng­lish. Though the hard-read­ing Brinkman has, it seems, staked out the musi­cal genre of “lit hop” for him­self, he’s gained just as much of his dis­tinc­tive brand of rig­or­ous­ly fac­tu­al hip-hop noto­ri­ety by rap­ping for the oth­er of what C.P. Snow defined as the “two cul­tures.” His par­al­lel sci­ence rap­ping career began on a com­mis­sion from Uni­ver­si­ty of War­wick micro­bi­ol­o­gist and Rough Guide to Evo­lu­tion author Mark Pallen. Out of all this came “the first peer-reviewed rap” show, The Rap Guide to Evo­lu­tion, whose devel­op­ment we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured.

Above, you’ll find the music video for “Artif­i­cal Selec­tion,” one song from The Rap Guide to Evo­lu­tion. “Arti­fi­cial selec­tion, it starts with a ques­tion,” Brinkman raps. “How did peo­ple ever get cows, chick­ens and pigs / And oth­er ani­mals and plants to act so domes­tic? / We took them from the wild and we bred them, brethren.” He explores the top­ic fur­ther, touch­ing on Charles Dar­win’s The Ori­gin of Species, the inad­ver­tent usage of evo­lu­tion by ear­ly farm­ers and live­stock breed­ers, domes­tic aphids kept by ant colonies, and even the nat­ur­al selec­tion inher­ent in the MC’s devel­op­ment of his per­for­mance tech­niques. On Brinkman’s offi­cial site, the video comes with tags like “Hered­i­ty,” “Lamark­ism,” and “Uni­ty of Com­mon Descent.” How many rap videos could cred­i­bly do the same?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Baba Brinkman: The Rap Guide to Evo­lu­tion

The Can­ter­bury Tales Remixed: Baba Brinkman’s New Album Uses Hip Hop to Bring Chaucer Into the 21st Cen­tu­ry, Yo

What’s Your Eng­lish? British v. Cana­di­an Rap Bat­tle

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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