Saturday, August 8, 2020

"Dawning Is the Day"

I listened to A Question of Balance yester-day because it was the fiftieth anniversary of its release, and then I learned the Moog and flute parts in "Dawning Is the Day."


There are actually eight measures of Moog before this, but I didn't think they would be interesting to listen to on their own (the Moog just plays arpeggios).  I don't yet have a Moog, so I used a synthesizer sound on my keyboard.  I also used the mellotron flute sound instead of actual flute.

The liner notes of the CD re-issue explain that "How Is It (We Are Here)" was Mike Pinder's "first use of an early Moog synthesiser."  I'm assuming that the same instrument was used for "Dawning Is the Day," but I don't know specifically what model.  I would guess either the IIIp or the Minimoog.

As an interesting side note, I discovered a couple years ago that Graeme Edge is quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary's entry for Moog.