Can we say that a Stylophone is a synth ?
Not so sure...
For me (and I've' got one) it's a toy, an insteresting toy but not a keyboard and all the different sounds we can have...
leto
Thread
Posts in chronological order
Sebastian
> Though I don't know the historical accuracy of the comments of May or Taylor, I would add that Brian is really quite generous with his comments and answers through his website etc.
Of course, but it doesn't change the fact that, while Roger's memory isn't perfect (nobody's is), it's virtually eidetic compared to Brian's.
> and there is perhaps more opportunity for him to mix up details because he's simply fielding a lot more of these issues.
While Brian's memory isn't bad (compared to most 60+ year-olds, let alone rock stars), it's certainly far less reliable than Roger's. Which means: Roger's memory isn't perfect (nobody's is), but it's virtually eidetic compared to Brian's.
> Ask me to answer details about a 20 year old work project (never mind 30+ for Queen) and the chances are good my recollections are going to be flawed. Pretty normal stuff.
Indeed. However:
* A person's memory stores better things of (not too) early ages. My grandmother still remembers the nursery rhymes she heard as a kid, the games she played with her siblings, can make a second-by-second description of her first encounter with my late grandfather... but she surely can't remember people she's met a couple of years ago, and may mix-up details when talking about what she's seen in the news this morning. BTW, fortunately, she's not senile.
* A person's memory also catches milestones with special accuracy (or lack thereof, in some cases). Typical Ebbinghaus - it's not only about how many years have passed. In that sense, it's way more possible that Brian clearly remembers stuff about [i]Seven Seas of Rhye[/i] (the first hit of the band that made his financial and professional life) than whether [i]I'm Scared[/i] is the 8th or 9th track in the 'Back to the Light' album; it's also more possible that he remembers watching Roy using a stylophone (exotic and at the time very new instrument) 36 years ago, than for him to be positive about whether he used a Kurzweil or a Yamaha on [i]One Vision[/i], even if both [i]I'm Scared[/i] and [i]One Vision[/i] are more recent than [i]Seven Seas of Rhye[/i].
* For that same reason, many of the concepts and stuff he used in his scientific affairs (definitions, maths, formulae) were things he'd learnt from a young age and as such didn't abandon him. I still remember my first girlfriend's landline number, but I couldn't tell you my ex's mobile (we broke up some months ago) without looking it up. Likewise, Brian probably won't forget, during his lifetime, how to spell his lastname, how to play the [i]Bo Rhap[/i] solo, the stars in the Orion belt or his first date with Anita but none of those things confirm or deny his having an 'excellent memory'. Same for Roger: mixing Christmas Eve with New Year's Eve is a slip anybody can have; getting confused about an American Idol loser's surname is something he could be proud about, to be honest. Claiming Freddie didn't use Steinway pianos (though he did during seven Queen albums plus 370 Queen concerts, not counting the many others where he used rented Steinway's as well), [i]My Fairy King[/i] is on 'Queen II', [i]Master-Stroke[/i] was done at Wessex, Rainbow was in '76 or they didn't do [i]It's Late[/i] (or was it [i]Doing All Right[/i]? or both? See? I'm senile!) on stage, is something else.
Does that mean Brian's got Alzheimer's? Not at all.
Does it mean Brian's got a lousy memory? Not at all.
But, it does add up to my conclusion, which is: [b]while Roger's memory isn't perfect (nobody's is), it's virtually eidetic compared to Brian's.[/b]
> Can we say that a Stylophone is a synth?
Synthesiser: An instrument used to create sounds.
Stylophone: 'A miniature electronic musical instrument producing a distinctive buzzing sound when a stylus is drawn along its metal keyboard' (OED).
The question (and it's not rhetorical since I've never owned a stylophone) is: can you create new sounds with it? If so, then it [i]is[/i] a synthesiser. A toy synthesiser is still a synthesiser. We could argue, then, that Queen meant 'nobody played (electronic 61-key) synthesizers (that you can play as you play a piano or an organ)' rather than 'nobody played synthesizers' per se.
If, on the contrary, a stylophone can only use the sounds it comes with, then it's not a synthesiser (in spite of Wikipedia's definition, it wouldn't be the first or last time it's wrong), and the 'no synths' note is true for 'Queen II' and all the first five albums for that matter.
Of course, but it doesn't change the fact that, while Roger's memory isn't perfect (nobody's is), it's virtually eidetic compared to Brian's.
> and there is perhaps more opportunity for him to mix up details because he's simply fielding a lot more of these issues.
While Brian's memory isn't bad (compared to most 60+ year-olds, let alone rock stars), it's certainly far less reliable than Roger's. Which means: Roger's memory isn't perfect (nobody's is), but it's virtually eidetic compared to Brian's.
> Ask me to answer details about a 20 year old work project (never mind 30+ for Queen) and the chances are good my recollections are going to be flawed. Pretty normal stuff.
Indeed. However:
* A person's memory stores better things of (not too) early ages. My grandmother still remembers the nursery rhymes she heard as a kid, the games she played with her siblings, can make a second-by-second description of her first encounter with my late grandfather... but she surely can't remember people she's met a couple of years ago, and may mix-up details when talking about what she's seen in the news this morning. BTW, fortunately, she's not senile.
* A person's memory also catches milestones with special accuracy (or lack thereof, in some cases). Typical Ebbinghaus - it's not only about how many years have passed. In that sense, it's way more possible that Brian clearly remembers stuff about [i]Seven Seas of Rhye[/i] (the first hit of the band that made his financial and professional life) than whether [i]I'm Scared[/i] is the 8th or 9th track in the 'Back to the Light' album; it's also more possible that he remembers watching Roy using a stylophone (exotic and at the time very new instrument) 36 years ago, than for him to be positive about whether he used a Kurzweil or a Yamaha on [i]One Vision[/i], even if both [i]I'm Scared[/i] and [i]One Vision[/i] are more recent than [i]Seven Seas of Rhye[/i].
* For that same reason, many of the concepts and stuff he used in his scientific affairs (definitions, maths, formulae) were things he'd learnt from a young age and as such didn't abandon him. I still remember my first girlfriend's landline number, but I couldn't tell you my ex's mobile (we broke up some months ago) without looking it up. Likewise, Brian probably won't forget, during his lifetime, how to spell his lastname, how to play the [i]Bo Rhap[/i] solo, the stars in the Orion belt or his first date with Anita but none of those things confirm or deny his having an 'excellent memory'. Same for Roger: mixing Christmas Eve with New Year's Eve is a slip anybody can have; getting confused about an American Idol loser's surname is something he could be proud about, to be honest. Claiming Freddie didn't use Steinway pianos (though he did during seven Queen albums plus 370 Queen concerts, not counting the many others where he used rented Steinway's as well), [i]My Fairy King[/i] is on 'Queen II', [i]Master-Stroke[/i] was done at Wessex, Rainbow was in '76 or they didn't do [i]It's Late[/i] (or was it [i]Doing All Right[/i]? or both? See? I'm senile!) on stage, is something else.
Does that mean Brian's got Alzheimer's? Not at all.
Does it mean Brian's got a lousy memory? Not at all.
But, it does add up to my conclusion, which is: [b]while Roger's memory isn't perfect (nobody's is), it's virtually eidetic compared to Brian's.[/b]
> Can we say that a Stylophone is a synth?
Synthesiser: An instrument used to create sounds.
Stylophone: 'A miniature electronic musical instrument producing a distinctive buzzing sound when a stylus is drawn along its metal keyboard' (OED).
The question (and it's not rhetorical since I've never owned a stylophone) is: can you create new sounds with it? If so, then it [i]is[/i] a synthesiser. A toy synthesiser is still a synthesiser. We could argue, then, that Queen meant 'nobody played (electronic 61-key) synthesizers (that you can play as you play a piano or an organ)' rather than 'nobody played synthesizers' per se.
If, on the contrary, a stylophone can only use the sounds it comes with, then it's not a synthesiser (in spite of Wikipedia's definition, it wouldn't be the first or last time it's wrong), and the 'no synths' note is true for 'Queen II' and all the first five albums for that matter.
Mr. Scully
The point was that Brian's memory regarding Queen facts is pretty poor. But that's quite normal. It's been his job for 40 years, no wonder he focuses on other stuff in his life.
[/QUOTE]Same for signatures - I'm pretty sure I can recognize 95-98% of fake signatures of Queen members but I'm sure I wouldn't recognize my own! Because I don't see or study it every day...[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE]And about other things... I for sure know quite a lot of people with PhD. who don't use their academic degree at about every possible occasion including their own websites! I'm sure it wouldn't hurt Brian if he were slightly more modest these days.[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE]Same for signatures - I'm pretty sure I can recognize 95-98% of fake signatures of Queen members but I'm sure I wouldn't recognize my own! Because I don't see or study it every day...[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE]And about other things... I for sure know quite a lot of people with PhD. who don't use their academic degree at about every possible occasion including their own websites! I'm sure it wouldn't hurt Brian if he were slightly more modest these days.[/QUOTE]
thomasquinn 32989
[QUOTE]
[b]Sebastian wrote: [/b]
Technically, the human voice is also a synth. Since the word usage is almost exclusively (and especially in 1974) for electronic (keyboard) synthesisers, I don't see a 'lie' in using a stylophone (not a keyboard), a Syndrum (ditto), an organ (electronic keyboard, but not synthesiser) or a Wurly (ditto). Even the headphone+can 'trick' they used for Freddie's voice in [i]Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon[/i] could be considered a synthesiser (since they synthesise sound through the set-up in question).
[/QUOTE]
Nope, that's just not true, I'm afraid. The human voice produces a harmonic series (and thus, a so-called compound/complex waveform) with different dynamic 'envelopes'. The key point here is that the source is a single set of resonating strings, namely the vocal cords. In a synthesizer, especially the kind used in the '70s, multiple simple waveforms (such as sine or saw waves) are combined through modulation, phase cancellation or other means of overlapping (the word 'synthesis' means creating one whole out of distinct parts). That is a fundamentally different means of sound generation, and thus the voice cannot be regarded as synthesized, as the harmonics result from the original vibration, not the combination (synthesis) with other vibrations.
While your headphone+can example is more ambiguous, I would argue that this is not synthesis either, because the logical result from calling it synthesis is that John Cage's prepared pianos are synthesizers, and technically, also that any acoustic instrument that shapes the sound (and any instrument that actually physically exists, does) through, for instance, body shape, is also a synthesizer.
[b]Sebastian wrote: [/b]
Technically, the human voice is also a synth. Since the word usage is almost exclusively (and especially in 1974) for electronic (keyboard) synthesisers, I don't see a 'lie' in using a stylophone (not a keyboard), a Syndrum (ditto), an organ (electronic keyboard, but not synthesiser) or a Wurly (ditto). Even the headphone+can 'trick' they used for Freddie's voice in [i]Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon[/i] could be considered a synthesiser (since they synthesise sound through the set-up in question).
[/QUOTE]
Nope, that's just not true, I'm afraid. The human voice produces a harmonic series (and thus, a so-called compound/complex waveform) with different dynamic 'envelopes'. The key point here is that the source is a single set of resonating strings, namely the vocal cords. In a synthesizer, especially the kind used in the '70s, multiple simple waveforms (such as sine or saw waves) are combined through modulation, phase cancellation or other means of overlapping (the word 'synthesis' means creating one whole out of distinct parts). That is a fundamentally different means of sound generation, and thus the voice cannot be regarded as synthesized, as the harmonics result from the original vibration, not the combination (synthesis) with other vibrations.
While your headphone+can example is more ambiguous, I would argue that this is not synthesis either, because the logical result from calling it synthesis is that John Cage's prepared pianos are synthesizers, and technically, also that any acoustic instrument that shapes the sound (and any instrument that actually physically exists, does) through, for instance, body shape, is also a synthesizer.
Sebastian
Martin: Some time ago, an ex-girlfriend gave me a box of 'crap' I'd given her circa five years ago (letters mostly - she conveniently kept whatever could be sold to a pawnbroker or at a swap meet), and I couldn't believe I'd written those things... both the style and the handwriting was completely alien to me... but of course those things were genuine. Likewise, there were loads of things I didn't remember having ever written, etc. So there you go, you've got a good point.
At the end of the day, we should put them both in a sort of pop quiz to see who wins to be sure about who's got the better memory, but my statement's mostly based on the fact Rog recalls details about more obscure Queen tracks (e.g. [i]Sweet Lady [/i]and[i] Staying Power[/i]) while the PhD often gets mixed up with simpler stuff (e.g. which album is [i]My Fairy King [/i]on? Did Freddie use Steinway pianos?)
ThomasQuinn: Yes, you're right - if I expanded the definition of synth to include the human voice, then it would also include any instrument. I suppose, however, that what Queen did was quite the opposite: they reduced the definition of 'synthesiser' to include only keyboard synthesisers played with fingers (not a pen), which may be technically incorrect or incomplete (if we want to quibble) but descriptively (or more to the point, in terms of usage of the word) spot-on.
Remember that's an album released in 1974, before they were famous (let alone superstars) so maybe they didn't feel like being far too specific in the liner notes. They didn't think that, 35 years later, people from all over the world would be discussing the authenticity or veracity of the 'nobody played synthesizers' quote.
Still, I insist on my question: can anybody tell me how exactly a stylophone generates its sound? It's an honest doubt I've got since I've never owned one of those.
At the end of the day, we should put them both in a sort of pop quiz to see who wins to be sure about who's got the better memory, but my statement's mostly based on the fact Rog recalls details about more obscure Queen tracks (e.g. [i]Sweet Lady [/i]and[i] Staying Power[/i]) while the PhD often gets mixed up with simpler stuff (e.g. which album is [i]My Fairy King [/i]on? Did Freddie use Steinway pianos?)
ThomasQuinn: Yes, you're right - if I expanded the definition of synth to include the human voice, then it would also include any instrument. I suppose, however, that what Queen did was quite the opposite: they reduced the definition of 'synthesiser' to include only keyboard synthesisers played with fingers (not a pen), which may be technically incorrect or incomplete (if we want to quibble) but descriptively (or more to the point, in terms of usage of the word) spot-on.
Remember that's an album released in 1974, before they were famous (let alone superstars) so maybe they didn't feel like being far too specific in the liner notes. They didn't think that, 35 years later, people from all over the world would be discussing the authenticity or veracity of the 'nobody played synthesizers' quote.
Still, I insist on my question: can anybody tell me how exactly a stylophone generates its sound? It's an honest doubt I've got since I've never owned one of those.
FriedChicken
As for the SSOR Sylophone being the same as the Unblinking Eye Stylophone:
There are treble and bass stylophones, I think Roger uses a treble, and SSOR has a bass stylophone.
There are treble and bass stylophones, I think Roger uses a treble, and SSOR has a bass stylophone.
FriedChicken
I still think many people don't see there's a difference between the way Brian and Roger look at their music and the way WE, as fans, look at their music.
For them it's just something they did as a job 30 years ago. I can bet each of us has heard their songs more often in our times of being a fan than Brian in Roger in their carreer. We know every little detail about them, we know who was kicked out of the band after jumping like a kangaroo on stage, we know what Freddie's lovers were called, we know all the lyrics, we know who played castagnettes on Queen II. We know every little trivial thing about them and their music.
To them, it's just work, something they did many years ago.
For them it's just something they did as a job 30 years ago. I can bet each of us has heard their songs more often in our times of being a fan than Brian in Roger in their carreer. We know every little detail about them, we know who was kicked out of the band after jumping like a kangaroo on stage, we know what Freddie's lovers were called, we know all the lyrics, we know who played castagnettes on Queen II. We know every little trivial thing about them and their music.
To them, it's just work, something they did many years ago.
Sebastian
[QUOTE]
[b]FriedChicken wrote: [/b]
I still think many people don't see there's a difference between the way Brian and Roger look at their music and the way WE, as fans, look at their music.
For them it's just something they did as a job 30 years ago. I can bet each of us has heard their songs more often in our times of being a fan than Brian in Roger in their carreer. We know every little detail about them, we know who was kicked out of the band after jumping like a kangaroo on stage, we know what Freddie's lovers were called, we know all the lyrics, we know who played castagnettes on Queen II. We know every little trivial thing about them and their music.
To them, it's just work, something they did many years ago.
[/QUOTE]
But in that case, we shouldn't take the 'stylophone' comment too seriously, since it can simply be another slip from a person who's not heard those songs as often as some (or many, or most) fans, etc.
IMO, when it comes to things like which differences are there between Hollywood and Parlophone (or whatever) [i]I Want It All[/i] releases, a fan or a collector is a hell of a lot more reliable than the band members themselves. Same for things like lyrics, dates or (for some extent) gear.
But in this case, there are several (all hypothetical, but anyway...) factors suggesting Brian remembered correctly, since (hypothetically, but still...) the image of your producer playing stylophone (an exotic and at the time relatively new instrument) at the end of your favourite album would probably stick much more than the image of [i]My Fairy King[/i] being released in the debut record.
Still, as I've said earlier, the topic deserves more research and/or intervention from experts (of which I'm definitely not one):
* Has anybody recorded the melody with stylophone and compared it with [i]I Do Like...[/i] to see if they sound the same (or at least alike)?
* Does the stylophone synthesise sounds (in the way a Moog or an Oberheim does) or does it count on the ones it's got (in the way a Fender Rhodes or a Hammond does)?
[b]FriedChicken wrote: [/b]
I still think many people don't see there's a difference between the way Brian and Roger look at their music and the way WE, as fans, look at their music.
For them it's just something they did as a job 30 years ago. I can bet each of us has heard their songs more often in our times of being a fan than Brian in Roger in their carreer. We know every little detail about them, we know who was kicked out of the band after jumping like a kangaroo on stage, we know what Freddie's lovers were called, we know all the lyrics, we know who played castagnettes on Queen II. We know every little trivial thing about them and their music.
To them, it's just work, something they did many years ago.
[/QUOTE]
But in that case, we shouldn't take the 'stylophone' comment too seriously, since it can simply be another slip from a person who's not heard those songs as often as some (or many, or most) fans, etc.
IMO, when it comes to things like which differences are there between Hollywood and Parlophone (or whatever) [i]I Want It All[/i] releases, a fan or a collector is a hell of a lot more reliable than the band members themselves. Same for things like lyrics, dates or (for some extent) gear.
But in this case, there are several (all hypothetical, but anyway...) factors suggesting Brian remembered correctly, since (hypothetically, but still...) the image of your producer playing stylophone (an exotic and at the time relatively new instrument) at the end of your favourite album would probably stick much more than the image of [i]My Fairy King[/i] being released in the debut record.
Still, as I've said earlier, the topic deserves more research and/or intervention from experts (of which I'm definitely not one):
* Has anybody recorded the melody with stylophone and compared it with [i]I Do Like...[/i] to see if they sound the same (or at least alike)?
* Does the stylophone synthesise sounds (in the way a Moog or an Oberheim does) or does it count on the ones it's got (in the way a Fender Rhodes or a Hammond does)?
Fireplace
While we're at it, does anyone know what instrument plays the first bars of the intro to Father To Son on Queen II?
Sebastian
D'you mean the arpeggios? If so, it's a combination of guitars and piano.
Holly2003
[QUOTE]
[b]Sebastian wrote: [/b]
D'you mean the arpeggios? If so, it's a combination of guitars and piano.
[/QUOTE]
Arthur who? Joke copyright Mick Jagger 1995
[b]Sebastian wrote: [/b]
D'you mean the arpeggios? If so, it's a combination of guitars and piano.
[/QUOTE]
Arthur who? Joke copyright Mick Jagger 1995