Mellotron

The Mellotron is an electromechanical polyphonic keyboard musical instrument originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s.

The Mellotron in popular music

The Mellotron was first made famous by The Beatles, who used it prominently on their groundbreaking 1967 singles "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Baby, You're A Rich Man", and it was also used by The Zombies, the Moody Blues, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and others during the psychedelic era. Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones was supposedly the first musician to master the instrument (for example, the flute track on 1967's "Ruby Tuesday"). The Kinks featured the instrument prominently in their recordings between 1967-1969, particularly on the 1968 album The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society.

Related Topics:
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever - The Zombies - Moody Blues - The Rolling Stones - Pink Floyd - Psychedelic - Brian Jones - Kinks - The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Mellotron was widely used to provide backing keyboard accompaniment by many of the progressive rock groups of the 1970s and alongside the venerable Hammond organ it was crucial to shaping the sound of the genre. It features on albums such as In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson, Diamond Dogs by David Bowie, Fragile and Close To The Edge by Yes, and Foxtrot and Selling England By The Pound by Genesis. Led Zeppelin used a Mellotron to recreate the flute arrangement for live performances of Stairway to Heaven, and it featured prominently on "The Rain Song" from Houses of the Holy. It was also used extensively by pioneering German electronic band Tangerine Dream through their prime, including solo work by Edgar Froese. See the Tangerine Dream albums, Rubycon, Ricochet, and Encore as well as Edgar Froese's Epsilon in Maylasian Pale for excellent examples of mellotron playing.

Related Topics:
Progressive rock - 1970s - Hammond organ - King Crimson - David Bowie - Yes - Genesis - Led Zeppelin - Flute - Stairway to Heaven - Houses of the Holy - Tangerine Dream - Edgar Froese

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The advent of cheaper and more reliable polysynths and preset 'string machines' saw the mellotron's popularity wane by the end of the 1970s. Following the impact of punk, the mellotron tended to be viewed as a relic of a pompous era. One of the few UK post-punk bands to utilise its sounds were Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, who featured it heavily on their platinum-selling Architecture & Morality album (1981).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The unique sound of the Mellotron is produced by a combination of characteristics of tape replay such as wow and flutter, the result being that each time a note is played it is slightly different from the previous time it was played (a bit like a real instrument). The notes also interact with each other so that chords or even just pairs of notes have an extremely powerful sound.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mellotrons were not intended to be portable (they often become misaligned even when lightly jostled), and when installed permanently in a studio they provide a very realistic effect. An example of this can be found on Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album.

Related Topics:
Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Popular progressive rock band Porcupine Tree included a song called Mellotron Scratch on their 2005 album Deadwing.

Related Topics:
Progressive rock - Porcupine Tree - Mellotron Scratch - 2005 - Deadwing

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~