glockenspiel
prime example
the story
It was Jimi
Hendrix himself who played the haunting glockenspiel part on the original
recording of his song Little Wing. He was rather proud of it: “That was
one song on there we did a lot of sound on, you know. We put the guitar through
the Leslie speaker of an organ, and it sounds like jelly bread... It was very
simple, you know. That’s one of the very few ones on the album I like.”
Eddie Kramer, chief engineer at the recording sessions which spawned Hendrix’s second studio album, later said about working at Olympic Studio’s in London in the sixties: “We’d do a lot of music, just a tremendous variety of stuff. For example, in the morning we’d do a movie soundtrack from about 9AM to 1PM, in the afternoon we’d do a jingle, then break it all down and record the Stones in the evening! Many times the instruments that were left lying around from the orchestral sessions wound up getting used on the rock sessions later at night. The rock guys would come in and say ‘That’s cool. I’m gonna use that’, which is how I recorded Jimi using the glockenspiel on Little Wing, because it was just left in the studio.”
Eddie Kramer, chief engineer at the recording sessions which spawned Hendrix’s second studio album, later said about working at Olympic Studio’s in London in the sixties: “We’d do a lot of music, just a tremendous variety of stuff. For example, in the morning we’d do a movie soundtrack from about 9AM to 1PM, in the afternoon we’d do a jingle, then break it all down and record the Stones in the evening! Many times the instruments that were left lying around from the orchestral sessions wound up getting used on the rock sessions later at night. The rock guys would come in and say ‘That’s cool. I’m gonna use that’, which is how I recorded Jimi using the glockenspiel on Little Wing, because it was just left in the studio.”
other examples
For many
years, Danny Federici lugged around a Jenco Portable Celeste while on tour with
Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band to use on Born To Run and Racing In The Street. The Jenco is basically a glockenspiel with a
piano hammer system. Federici later replaced it with the sounds from Roland
synthesizers.
Guitarist Jonny Greenwood added the glockenspiel to No Surprises, the clossing lullaby from Radiohead’s OK Computer: “No Surprises was used to try our new equipment out. We thought it wasn’t good to save that recording. It still sounds a bit ‘careful’ and that suits the song. The glockenspiel is used for the recording of the song.”
Guitarist Jonny Greenwood added the glockenspiel to No Surprises, the clossing lullaby from Radiohead’s OK Computer: “No Surprises was used to try our new equipment out. We thought it wasn’t good to save that recording. It still sounds a bit ‘careful’ and that suits the song. The glockenspiel is used for the recording of the song.”