Joy Division used a 'melodica'...

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After discovering it was used on 'Decades,' does anyone know which part(s) of the song? Could you give me a time/lyrics when it comes in?

― JesusMaryChain, Sunday, 15 August 2004 16:51 (twenty-one years ago)

it's all over New Order's records as well. It's basically a harmonica with a keyboard, you blow air into a tube that goes into the little keyboard. See also Augustus Pablo and the Hooters.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Sunday, 15 August 2004 16:54 (twenty-one years ago)

also, a whole shitload of Clinic songs

― kyle (akmonday), Sunday, 15 August 2004 16:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, Blur and that Mali Music thing Albarn did.

― Sansai, Sunday, 15 August 2004 18:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Gang of Four used one as well.

Do please stop calling yourself "JesusMaryChain".

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 15 August 2004 20:05 (twenty-one years ago)

decembersists use one.

i saw pictures of a girls in an orphanage playing the melodica as a class except instead of holding it up to their mouths they had these blow tubes so they could play them flat on the table like a regular keyboard. it looked like something out of jabba's cantina.

incidentally... http://feedthefish.org/pictures/fegs/frisco9803.jpg

― AaronK (AaronK), Sunday, 15 August 2004 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

tortoise as well

― cutty (mcutt), Sunday, 15 August 2004 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

i've got one. they're fun and sound magic with a bit of delay, but use sparingly. unless you really want to wear your influences on your sleeve.

i think there are two types: the one i've got has the extendy tube thing, and a two-octave keyboard (or thereabouts ... don't actually know where it *is* right now; probably at my mate's with all the rest of my gear). the "classic" melodica has huge chunky keys and a one-octave keyboard, and looks infinitely cooler.

as for the OP's question about where the melodica is on "decades" ... i'm listening to it now and i have to admit it's not obvious. if it's there, it's almost certainly in the big lush instrumental at the end (listen from about 5'11") but all the sounds are so otherworldly and beautifully treated (RIP martin) that it's hard to tell. wonder if it's obvious on a live take? hang on ...

... click click ...

woah, hey, i don't have a live "decades" to hand. why not? i know there's one on still, but i haven't MP3d that yet and can't be arsed digging out the vinyl. sorry.

― grimly fiendish, Sunday, 15 August 2004 21:03 (twenty-one years ago)

That picture frightens me.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 15 August 2004 21:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Ahh this answers a question I'd been having for time. So, it's the melodica that what makes the wheezy train whistle/keyboard sound. Thanks ILM!

i assume R.E.M. has used the melodica a fair amount, too, then.

― artdamages (artdamages), Sunday, 15 August 2004 22:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it's the arpeggio that starts at 2:12

it's high, quiet, in the background, could be mistaken for a synth but listen at 2:43 to the notes ending at 2:47, there's a very distinctive decay.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Sunday, 15 August 2004 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Bernie Worrell made good use of one often on early-mid-period Funkadelic recordings.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Sunday, 15 August 2004 23:24 (twenty-one years ago)

mahogany use a melodica on their album and it sounds really pretty.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Monday, 16 August 2004 00:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Depeche Mode uses one in "Everything Counts". For years I could never figure out what it was.

― J-rock (Julien Sandiford), Monday, 16 August 2004 02:59 (twenty-one years ago)

My favourite instrument.

― Jimmybommy JimmyK'KANG (Nick Southall), Monday, 16 August 2004 06:18 (twenty-one years ago)

i've seen q and not u use one, i think on 'soft pyramids;...and there's melodica in about every single de facto song

― mmmhm, Monday, 16 August 2004 06:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Do please stop calling yourself "JesusMaryChain".

-- Alex in NYC (vassife...), August 15th, 2004.

LOL I love it

― LC, Monday, 16 August 2004 06:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I've got one! I put it through a roland re 301 and smallstone phase for that lush Augustus Pablo sound.

― metalmickey, Monday, 16 August 2004 10:40 (twenty-one years ago)

my old primary school used to have lots of the green and red Hohner Sopranos, which had black and white buttons rather than a standard keyboard. And no bendy tube, either.

― coco, Monday, 16 August 2004 14:12 (twenty-one years ago)

that was before AIDS hit, right?

ha ha seriously, i remember chemistry lessons in 1988 when we weren't allowed to blow into tubes (i dunno, it was supposed to turn such and such a solution milky) for fear of spreading AIDS!

― dave amos, Monday, 16 August 2004 14:30 (twenty-one years ago)

sorry i just had nothing new to say about joy division

― dave amos, Monday, 16 August 2004 14:31 (twenty-one years ago)

ummm, you can still get them, so no, probably not

I'm saying nothing about milky solutions and AIDS

― coco, Monday, 16 August 2004 14:34 (twenty-one years ago)

obJoyDivision/aids link: new order's "the perfect kiss" is - according to one reading, anyway - a modern aids parable.

so we're still on topic.

just

― grimly fiendish, Monday, 16 August 2004 16:38 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.spearheadvibrations.com/Images/spearits/2534412933.jpg

― AaronK (AaronK), Monday, 16 August 2004 17:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the Gang of 4 song in question is 'Outside the Trains Don't Run On Time,' but I'm not positive.

Stevie Wonder used melodicas quite a bit at one time. Often it is hard to tell the sound of a melodica from one of those really big, expensive harmonicas, though the mouthpiece of a melodica reminds me more of a woodwind mouthpiece than a harmonica. It can also sound a bit like an accordian.

― John Bullabaugh (John Bullabaugh), Monday, 16 August 2004 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

There are soprano, alto, and bass(!) melodicas with a varying number of keys.

Melodicas are among the more pleasing elements of the first couple Angels of Light albums. I'm glad someone indirectly mentioned Augustus Pablo.

I would REALLY like to hear a bass melodica, and unfortunately, they're among the most expensive. I've seen all sorts of them on Ebay. I'm very fond of sub-alto instruments that incorporate reeds, especially metal.

― CrunkWithChrist, Tuesday, 17 August 2004 16:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Best use of melodica in a song?
RFI: Melodica

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 16:57 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.reggaeremedy.com/design/pics/big/augustus%20pablo.jpg

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 17 August 2004 17:06 (twenty-one years ago)

seven months pass...

http://www.lwtua.free-online.co.uk/jd/harmonica.jpg
This is Ian's Hohner soprano (see also here).

There is lots of melodica played by Barney on New Order's phantastic version of In a Lonely Place. On Decades I think the melodica features from 4'35'' onwards. There are two very high instruments coming in at that time. The higher of the two, the one in the background is the melodica I think.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Thursday, 17 March 2005 21:30 (twenty-one years ago)

bauhaus was pretty dub

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 17 March 2005 21:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Wannadies use it - especially on "Might Be Stars".

― everything, Friday, 18 March 2005 00:58 (twenty-one years ago)

gygax otm. they were pretty rocksteady as well.

― charleston charge (chaki), Friday, 18 March 2005 01:05 (twenty-one years ago)

The Fall use it, too. See "Interim".

― Silky Sensor (sexyDancer), Friday, 18 March 2005 01:07 (twenty-one years ago)

"Waiting for the Sirens Call" off the new NO needs more melodica.

― Dude, are you a 15 year old asian chick? (jingleberries), Friday, 18 March 2005 01:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Uh, no. It doesn't need ANYTHING.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Friday, 18 March 2005 02:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I've got one on loan at the moment; like a cross between keyboard and brass, with dexterous use of fingers and breath both required.

I've never heard anyone better at using this instrument than Pablo. Very well used by people like Gang of Four, yes... but it is rarely at the *centre* of that many UK-US pop bands' sound.

― Tom May (Tom May), Friday, 18 March 2005 02:09 (twenty-one years ago)

The beginning of "Love Vigilantes" from Brotherhood springs to mind as another New Order track using one. There's a song from Movement that uses one, too - I think "Truth" is the one.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Friday, 18 March 2005 02:17 (twenty-one years ago)

whoops sorry - Love Vigilantes from Lowlife, of course.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Friday, 18 March 2005 02:19 (twenty-one years ago)

probably the most horrible noise of all time.

― scg, Friday, 18 March 2005 07:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh please. Next to a jackhammer?

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Friday, 18 March 2005 07:46 (twenty-one years ago)

This is the instrument all over Entertainment!, right? Especially prominent on '5.45' and 'It's Her Factory'?

― Seuss, Friday, 18 March 2005 07:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Atmosphere/Chance from the box set has a melodica introduction, if I'm not mistaken.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Friday, 18 March 2005 09:22 (twenty-one years ago)

"Turn the Heater On" -- New Order, Peel sessions.

― David A. (Davant), Friday, 18 March 2005 09:46 (twenty-one years ago)

ten months pass...

No love for Calvin Johnson / Dub Narcotic?

Figures.

That's him tooting away on Sleater-Kinney's "Quarter to Three," btw.

Check out the Apples in Stereo...Bauhaus on "She's in Parties"...The Smashing Pumpkins on "Glynis"

"Untitled" on the Cure's Disintegration opens /w one...

But the most transcendent melodica moment, the sound that really shows how expressive this misunderstood instrument can be is Augustus Pablo's "Jah in the Hills." Beautiful, haunted perfection.

― Duke Dubuque (Duke Dubuque), Saturday, 21 January 2006 17:21 (twenty years ago)

call ripley's

annie lennox used one on tourists (pre-eurythmics)"don't say i told you so" - it was a ska / reggae song.

― retroman, Sunday, 22 January 2006 04:07 (twenty years ago)

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