"Waterfall"

I recently learned a section of the Clavinet part in "Waterfall."  This is the verse starting at ~2:18.  I included the bass part too, although the rhythm for the last measure or so isn't right.

From what I can tell, Richard Tandy had a Clavinet D6.  In this picture dated August 1978, it's visible at the very bottom:

[source]

(For the record:  I think the other keyboards here are a Yamaha grand piano [the liner notes for A New World Record specifically list "Yamaha C7 grand piano"], a Yamaha CS-80, a Mellotron M-400, and - easier to see from an-other angle - a Moog Polymoog and a Wurlitzer 200).

From the Clavinet user manual (available here):  "The register tabs on the left-hand panel are marked AB, CD and are connected to the sound pick-up for a wide variety of settings.  As required, they switch both pick-ups either singly or parallel, whereby the polarity of one of the pick-ups is reversed to cancel overtones or to add them.  Thus the AB and CD registers produce tone colours in every position...."

I have a Nord Electro 5, which - as far as I can tell - separates out these AB and CD tabs into four distinct sounds.  To try to replicate an authentic sound, I recorded B and then overdubbed D.  I'm not sure if that's what Tandy used, but I thought it sounded the closest.

"Waterfall"

I recently discovered that - after much practice - I can now play both hands of the piano part at the beginning of "Waterfall" simultaneously (although I'm unsure of specific chord voicings), which I couldn't do back when I learned that part.

A couple days ago (the 20th), I was thinking about the song and realized that the "waterfall" in that section descends to illustrate the "-fall" part musically.  The whole line "It's like a waterfall" is sung to a descending phrase (F# F# E D C# B).

Face the Music

Last night, I remembered that (back in November) I'd noticed some similarity between the opening orchestral sections of "Waterfall" and "Strange Magic."  I finally got around to looking into that, and I discovered that I was right.  While the orchestrations are different, there's one phrase that's the same, just adjusted for key.

Here it is at the beginning of "Waterfall":

And here it is at the beginning of "Strange Magic":

I'm pretty sure these are played on cello, but the phrase in "Waterfall" sounds like it's also doubled on upright bass.  In any case, while the specific pitches are different and the last note in the phrase in "Strange Magic" lasts longer, the intervals are the same.  Using this phrase in two songs gives the Face the Music album a bit of cohesion.

"Waterfall"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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All month, I've been learning some parts for "Waterfall."  This is only the first two minutes or so, but I know the bass part for the whole song (I'm in the midst of writing it down so I'll have some record if I forget it).  I also have the piano at the beginning (which I'll admit I had to record on two separate tracks because I can't play the chords and the bass register in the right rhythm at the same time) and almost all of the slide guitar parts (although I don't play them that well).  I'm still missing the slide guitar part during the middle, but my recording doesn't get that far.

"Waterfall"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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Over the last couple days, I wrote out notation for the bass part in "The Way Life's Meant to Be."  Last night, I put the Electric Light Orchestra section of my music collection in reverse alphabetical order so that "The Way Life's Meant to Be" was near the top and easier to find.  After notating a page, I took a break and tried figuring out a different bass part.  I got some of the bass part in "Waterfall" (which was close alphabetically), and I noticed something interesting.

At about 1:00, there's this phrase:

I was immediately reminded of the bass part in the second movement of Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 because it does this same sort of thing:

(notation found here)

There's a diatonic descent (with almost every note doubled), and after every pair of notes, there's a change in the octave.  While the note values are different, the phrase in "Waterfall" is even in D major, the same key as Bach's!

Despite the similarities, I'm not sure that this phrase in "Waterfall" is meant to be a quotation of Bach.  I've found this same sort of phrase in a few other pieces (it's in Grieg's Holberg Suite, Op. 40, which seems significant because ELO covered his "In the Hall of the Mountain King" on On the Third Day), but I do think its appearance in that Bach piece is the most famous (that movement is probably more well-known as Air on the G String).  Between that and the fact that the phrases are in the same key, I think that if it was intended as a quotation, it's a quotation of Bach's work.