That Beatles "jangling piano" effect: what was it exactly?

The one example of this peculiar sound I have in mind is actually on a Paul McCartney album, the song "Long Haired Lady", perhaps one of the uncredited George Martin arrangements. In the out-chorus (I think!) there is this wobbling, plinking noise made on something sounding midway between a dangling old upright piano and some organ. This can also be heard on other actual Beatles songs, but I can't recall these at the moment...

I wonder how they or he created that...

 

For example "Lovely Rita?" Is that what you're referring to?

 

I know sometimes they'd stick thumbtacks into the felt hammers on the piano. I found a video showing the technique:

 

For "Lovely Rita", it was a few wraps of masking tape around the capstan.

 

Not sure I hear what you're talking about on "Long Haired Lady" but they did sometimes use the "tack piano" trick that was common for getting that old-timey honky tonk piano sound.

 

There was a "jangle" piano at Abbey Road studio that they used, it was called the "Mrs Mills" piano, after the middle-aged woman artist that banged on it and had a hit in the 50s or something....it is described in the mammoth "Recording The Beatles" book. It was used on tunes like "Rocky Racoon".

 

Do you also mean the Rocky Raccoon piano?

 

Accomplished in part by applying ADT if I remember my Beatles reading correctly.

 

I am reminded of the Marxaphone.

 

The fade out on Tomorrow Never Knows?

 

There's more on the Vertegrand piano in the fine book Recording the Beatles, which has exhaustive details on the instruments, mixers, microphones, and recording gear used at Abbey Road for the fabs:



Curvebender Publishing

 

John Lennon had a very unique way of playing the piano. Good examples are "Sexy Sadie" and the very end of "Watching The Wheels." He sometimes got rather eccentric and had a certain barroom-y style. BTW, is it him on piano on "Rocky Raccoon "? (Might be George Martin ... )

 

Sexy Sadie is Paul on piano. The part is probably beyond John's technical abilities.

The very end of Watching The Wheels is not John either. Also not in John's piano competence.
On Watching The Wheels John played the simple main riff on Yamaha electric grand.
The acoustic piano is played by George Small.

Ondra

 

So ... all these years I've been wrong about everything?
S - - t.

 

I've seen Mrs. Mills at Abbey Road three weeks ago while visiting a friend working there. It's still in studio 2. It sounds very very aggressive. The guy recording there at the time told me "you may try it on some songs and it fits. On others, it doesn't. The song chooses. Or maybe it's the piano. But you can't force it into a song".

 

Is it the same sound which goes in the beginning of "Ram On' - cascading passage passed through filters?

 

If it makes you feel better, the ending part of Watching The Wheels even though not played by John it was John's idea.
Here's what George Small said on this topic:

On the ending part - where John sings, 'I just had to let it go...' - he really made a big point of making sure that I had played that romantic piano line on the tag exactly that way. He told me he was in a bar one night and was listening to a piano player and that riff just stuck in his head. So he had to have that riff on the end of it.

Ondra

 

The Abbey Road keyboards sample set (native instruments?) has this Mrs Mills piano and the Challen with janglebox option. I play it at home and laugh. Then my Mrs comes and beats me over the head when i start playing ob la di ob la da !!

 

Yep, George Martin on Rocky Raccoon. John had a very simple piano style. Mostly played block chords, often using just one or two fingers of his left hand and little melodies and triad chords with his right hand. He very rarely played flourishes and had little sense of playing bass parts. Nothing wrong with this of course. A good example is Imagine. He plays a lovely, understated piano accompaniment part that suitably fits the song, but it is rather simple. We all also have dozens and dozens of home demos and his playing really never changed or developed from 1963, right up to the end. Ron

PS Check out the live in NYC Imagine clip. This shows his style well. Triad chords and little melodies with his right hand and one or two finger bass notes. All John.

 

Yeah that's it! Thanks!

 

The sample I was referring to begins at 2:50 into "Long Haired Lady" ("Ah, sing your song..."). But yes "Rocky Raccoon" is probably the better example.

Is automatic double tracking the reason why this thing "wobbles"? Did the Beatles or George Martin invent this particular processing of Mrs. Mills' piano? I don't think I have ever heard it on other pop recordings. Or haven't noticed anyway... It gives a very special flavor or color to Beatles music...

 

No, see my post #22.

 

Seen as we are in a 'whats that sound' kind of mood, whats that reverberating sound towards the later sections of Birthday, heard particularly in the dying seconds. Is that piano going through a Leslie or something like that...?

 

It sounds to me more like the guitar player switching between pick-ups with the toggle switch (3 positions) - something Jimi Hendrix liked to do - but I could be wrong.