Thomas Macfarlane

The Beatles' Abbey Road Medley (eBook, ePUB)

Extended Forms in Popular Music

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

In September 1969, the Beatles released their final recorded work, Abbey Road, using a variety of progressive musical ideas that expressed the group's approach to multi-track recording and offering songs that constituted a highpoint in the Beatles' musical corpus. Of particular interest is the concluding sequence of songs (tracks 8-17): seemingly unrelated fragments woven together into a musical form that has thus far defied attempts at categorization. The Beatles' Abbey Road Medley: Extended Forms in Popular Music offers an analysis of these fragments, commonly known as the Abbey Road Medley, in order to understand and explain the emergent musical form and to clarify the relationships between music recording and music composition. Thomas MacFarlane provides an overview of the Beatles-their history and their music-within the context of popular music and culture between 1962 and 1970, paying particular attention to the production of the album Abbey Road and the pivotal role of producer George Martin on the Abbey Road Medley. After explaining his method of analysis, MacFarlane applies it to the recording and transcription of the Abbey Road Medley, examining the implications of the work's structure and demonstrating how the Beatles expanded the parameters of the popular music form by incorporating recording technology directly into the compositional process. Drawing conclusions about musical form and practice in the recording process of the 1970s and beyond, MacFarlane also suggests other examples of rock music that were influenced by Abbey Road. An appendix transcribing the author's interview with the Beatles' de facto manager Peter Brown, a selected discography, a bibliography, and a selection of photos conclude the book, which will be of particular interest to musicians and Beatles fans alike.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury eBooks US
• Seitenzahl: 218
• Erscheinungstermin: 16. November 2007
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781461736592
• Artikelnr.: 39156950

Autorenporträt

Thom MacFarlane is an independent author and composer based in New Jeresy, USA. His research has focused on the relationship between music, sound recording, and human culture. His doctoral dissertation on the Beatles' Abbey Road Medley was adapted into a book in 2007. In 2012, he completed The Beatles and McLuhan: Understanding the Electric Age, in which the ideas of Marshall McLuhan were employed to explore the aesthetic qualities of multi-track recording. That book also featured the first complete published transcription of a conversation between John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Marshall McLuhan on their respective ideas. In 2016, he created a listener's companion on the works of singer-songwriter Billy Joel, and in 2019, a study on the music of George Harrison. His latest book, Lennon and McCartney: Painting with Sound, explores connections between music, sound recording, and the visual arts.

Inhaltsangabe

Part 1 Acknowledgments
Part 2 List of Examples
Part 3 Part I. Context
Chapter 4 1. A Beginning
Chapter 5 2. It's Been a Long, Long, Long Time
Chapter 6 3. Methods and Techniques of Analysis
Part 7 Part II. An Eclectic Analysis of the Abbey Road Medley
Chapter 8 4. Prelude-"Because"
Chapter 9 5. Movement I: "You Never Give Me Your Money"/"Out of
College"/"One Sweet Dream"
Chapter 10 6. Movement II: "Sung King"/"Mean Mr. Mustard"/"Polythene
Pam"/"She Came in Through the Bathroom Window"
Chapter 11 7. Movement III: "Golden Slumbers"/"Carry That Weight"/"The End"
Chapter 12 8. Postlude-"Her Majesty"
Part 13 Part III. Conclusions
Chapter 14 9. An Implicit Challenge
Part 15 Appendix A: Review of Related Literature
Part 16 Appendix B: Interview with Peter Brown (August 5, 2003)
Part 17 Appendix C: Discography
Part 18 Bibliography
Part 19 Index
Part 20 About the Author