Brian is often asked "What key is <blank> in? Sometimes he knows the
answer....sometimes he has to think about it....sometimes he has to sit
down and play it to answer. Maybe sometimes he even debates it with
himself over time, and we just don't know about it.
Then there's the "This Whole World" example where there seems to be
some consensus that it's not in any one key at all.
Another thought - - is it possible that Brian is deviating from the
standard Western temperament? Or moving into the area of.... I forget
what you call it ....where there are more than thirteen notes per
octave? I suppose if that was the case we'd hear more of him
instructing the musicians to tune their instruments differently, but
when it comes to vocals, he's done his share of bending and ringing or
whatever you call it (singing a little off key on an overdub to enrich
the sound) and I just wonder if maybe he's coloring outside the lines
enough to characterize it as not following the normal rules
of...whatever you call it.
Could he be having one part or section play in one key, and another in
another? I guess the only time I wish I knew more about music is when I
start to think about stuff like this. Just when I think that maybe I
have Brian's secret formulae figured out......
Given his strong pianoforte basis, maybe he's got some kind of thing
going where he's imitating the differences between the tuning of the
individual strings (not notes, the actual strings). You know, like a
12 (or 18, really) string guitar? There are the stories of Brian
sitting down with a piano tuner and having him make adjustments to the
normal routine.
So, back to your original question......let me ask you this: what if
you play it through one of the many musical notation programs out there
now....what do they tell you? It seems to me that one could put a Brian
Wilson recording through the musical equivalent of a mass spectrometer
and come up with an analysis of this, no?
In article <JxPSj.19006$yD2.15821@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Brian
Wilson fanatic <bwf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Does Brian ever visit this newsgroup? I only ask because I note that
> on the Wikipedia page on God Only Knows there's a link to "Greg
> Panfile's Musical Analysis". Whoever Mr Panfile is, his page is full
> of errors.
>
> He seems to have done quite a lot of research on the subject and
> mentions that there are a number of different opinions regarding
> exactly which key it's in. He offers the fact that Brian regards it as
> being in E. I don't doubt this for a second - and I expect that's why
> he instructed the French Horns to play D sharps in the intro, rather
> than the D naturals which Mr Panfile indicates. I could go on but you
> get the picture.
>
> This is the weakness of Wikipedia. It's OK for technical matters like
> Simple Harmonic Motion or the chemical formula for Aspirin, where
> unqualified people would feel inhibited from posting innacurate facts
> and figures. However, when it comes to Rock music it appears that
> everyone is an expert and wildy innacurate comments pose as informed
> critique.
>
> If anyone here knows how to contact Brian perhaps they could draw this
> to his attention.
>
>
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