Indian instruments - Love You To

Are there any "experts" on Indian instruments here? Some friends of mine and I were debating the intro of Love You To on Revolver, some sources say this is a sitar only and others say this is a sitar and svaramandal (swordmandel). Any opinions? The swordmandel would be playing the two descending riffs at the very beginning. Also does anyone hear tamboura particularly during the outro, panned together with the sitar mixed at mid left on the Yellow Submarine Songtrack mix? It would also be at mid left on the regular stereo mix but probably too buried to hear. Thanks!

 

Don't have my Lewisohn book handy, but I thought it was George and the tabla dude and that's it. Plus overdubs of course.

 

I play the sitar and it is sitar only. The sound of the swordmandel is imitated by George by strumming the sympathetic strings on the sitar.

Peace Love and Shankar money maker
Marky

 

So you can play that whole intro on sitar by itself? That's exactly what we were wondering, because the swordmandel on Strawberry Fields sounds different than anything on this intro. Thanks for the quick response.
-Steve

 

That's right, underneath the 7 or so strings very close to the neck of the sitar there are about two dozen strings that are called sympathetic strings and are there mostly to resonate as the other strings are plucked. If you strum those strings, as I did when I used to have a sitar, they produce the same sound.

Peace Love and the Texas Prairie Chicken

 

Yes. That intro is George Harrison alone playing the sitar beautifully (IMO).


Peace Love and Howie "sword" Mandell
Marky

 

I hate you! I have always wanted one. LOVE the sound of it. How would you rate the difficulty/ease?

 

I can't answer for Marky, who actually plays one now, but for me it was pretty damn hard. IMO It's more like learning to play classical violin than playing the guitar. Plus the strings are in a non-intuitive scale and it's hard to get a sense of where all the notes are. My Dad picked it up on a business trip in India, and he gave it to me as my 18th birthday present. He also got me book, which I tried to follow along, but it is not as simple as playing guitar where you can become minimally proficient and be able to play a few things. I think if I had stuck to it, I may have gotten something out of it, but as of now my sitar is 6,000 miles away in my parent's house.

 

After watching Anoushka on the Concert for George DVD, I think the picking would kill me more than the fingering.

 

That part was actually OK. You use a metal pick that goes on your finger sort of like a clamp, and then you move your finger up and down on the string. It's very similar to the way one uses a guitar pick to pluck a string. But those two Ravi and his daughter are total virtuosos, you can't measure yourself against them.

 

Is it George doing the playing though? According to Lewisohn's Chronicle, he found new session documents that may indicate that the sitar player was another fellow from the Asian Music Circle like Anil Bhagwat. I asked if there was a tamboura on the sitar track (best heard during the outro), because that might indicate that George was on tamboura and it was indeed someone else playing the sitar. Or just as easily the someone else could have been playing the tamboura, if there is one. Anybody hear it?

 

Anil played the tabla's. It's right on the back cover of Revolver.

 

In my opinion it is the hardest instrument in the world to play if you're going to come anywhere close to the level of Ravi or Annoushka. But unlike many instruments- you can do some cool sounding stuff just by fooling around. The strings have sliced my fingers many times.
I have a tamboura too and EVERYTHING sounds cool when you fool with that.

If it's not George that would explain how masterful the playing is. It's much harder to imitate than Norwegian Wood. I was always proud of George for that beginning and it's kinda sad to think it wasn't him. I feel now like I felt when I was told Eric Clapton did the "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" leads.

As far as the tamboura on "Love You Too" goes -that could have been overdubbed, yes? They used it a few times on Sgt Pepper too.

Peace Love and AnnoushKA....(gazundheit)
Marky

 

Yes Anil played the tablas, but Lewisohn says a second musician from the Asian Music Circle might have been recruited to play the sitar. He doesn't say definitely one way or the other, but says new-found documentation suggests this.

 

And the tamboura would have been overdubbed too, but on the same track on the 4-track tape as the sitar. That's why I'm wondering if there actually is one or not.

 

Yes there is definitely a tamboura droning throughout.

And upon listening to this track I really do believe it's George on the sitar. It has his personality all over it.

Peace Love and Ravi-oli
Marky

 

Although I disagree with him about there being a svaramandal in the intro (I think it's all sitar, all George), Walter Everett (The Beatles as Musicians) believes that "this recording would have required the knowledge of no ragas and only an elementary understanding of Hindustani formal patterns, easily attainable by a good guitarist within a few weeks." I'm no expert on North Indian music, but what George is playing in the body of "Love You To" sounds to me mostly like guitar licks transposed to sitar. Does anyone else feel this way?

Jason

 

Ok, let's aside Lewisohn's rather cryptic, and unsubstantiated update in Chronicle..."that new documentation may show that George didn't play the sitar" on Love You To, for a second. Now return to his detailed notes and the tape box facsimile in Recording Sessions.

Takes 1-3 were recorded during an afternoon session (2:30-7:00) 11 April '66. The first take has George on guide vocals and acoustic guitar, w/ Paul singing harmony vocals...this is the take known as Granny Smith , long-rumoured to be part of Anthology 2, but vetoed at the last minute by George himself. Track 3 has the sitar, plus bass and fuzz bass. According to tabla player Anil Bhagwat, he was asked to play an evening session for "George", not knowing at the time it was THE George. He also says George instructed him what to play and he tuned the tabla with him. One can surmise he tuned the tabla to George's sitar, not an acoustic guitar.

The evening session (8:00 -12:45) included takes 4-6...take 6 then reduced to mono for further overdubbing on 13 April. These takes include the tabla, more guitar, vocals, and tambourine. The mono reduction then had George's lead vocal, Paul's harmony (deleted in the remix stage) and additional tambourine. George's acoustic guitar track was either deleted or mixed very low in the final mix. Track 3 of the new 4-track tape was not used. Interestingly, 2 mixes were made using ADT, one without...then all 3 remixes were edited together for the final mono mix. It's possible ADT, when used in two different mixes, then combined, could possibly alter the sound, enough to make a sitar sound different than normal...but that's just a guess on my part. Finally, there is no mention of a tamboura overdub and no session fees for anyone, other than Bhagwat. If the "new" documentation was a session fee, then Lewisohn should have admitted it, or published said document...same is true if an EMI recording sheet listed someone other than George playing sitar. If the tamboura was overdubbed by a Beatle, it too would have been included in the recording sheet, but there's no mention of one. Cheers, Ron

 

Off topic, I always wondered if "Love You To" was a misspelling of "Love You Too."

 

The actual line in the song is love to you...."I'll make love to you".....so where the heck Love You To came from, who knows.

 

Ron, I feel like someone messed up the track sheets or misinterpreted them. For one thing there IS a tamboura on "Love You To." It's practically the loudest instrument on the song. I have a theory that someone made a note on the track sheet like "Tambour" (or something like that) and someone along the line somewhere (maybe even Lewisohn) misread it as tambourine. That would also explain why there isn't two tambourines on the song.

I would guess that it was probably played by another Beatle on that Apr.11 evening session (or possibly overdubbed by George) but it's not necessarily a skilled tamboura part (even Mal could have played it). It seems it was part of that first mono reduction mix and I can't imagine George playing the sitar part without that tamboura supporting him.

Anyway I own both instruments and have recorded with them many times and believe me- that is a tamboura.

Paul's harmony is not totally deleted either. It appears on the breaks on the word "me" very clearly. Even as a child I could tell that was Paul.

I've found flaws in Lewisohn's notes before. I need to go back and read the book again to recall them.

What do you think of my theory though, Ron? Makes sense, yes?

Peace Love and Bhagwat ever you want
Marky

 

I would agree with Marky. Just for those who don't know, a Tamboura serves essentially the same purpose as the sympathetic strings on a sitar; that is they create a complementary drone sound underneath the melody. That's the sound that's most recognizable when us Westerners hear Indian music. If you listen to the track, you can clearly hear the drone underneath George's sitar.

BTW, Marky I enjoy your sign offs.

 

I always thought it was a sentence fragment, like "I would love you to let me spank you like the slutty little.. /wooohoooo/

 

This isn't any less cryptic or unsubstantiated than anything else in either of his books in which he doesn't show the documentation. 99% of what he writes about isn't documented with visual evidence. This evidence may simply be a sheet saying money was paid to a musician who was at the session, without saying what the musician played or if he played at all, or it could have been a note at the bottom of a sheet (the one for take 6 not the available printed sheet for take 7) like the one for Lady Madonna where it says at the bottom "1 conga, 3 saxophones" and "1 Picalo." Or it could be from a "session details" sheet like the one for Eleanor Rigby where it lists "composition of orchestra."

The song was known as Granny Smith up until the last minute, when it was still called by that name two months later during the final mixing session on June 21 (the next to last day of work on the album), so every take (and every mono and stereo mix) was called Granny Smith not just this one.

Do you mean take 3? It isn't clear what's on take 3, although Lewisohn says "the sitar came in at take 3." He doesn't specifically say the fuzzed bass and guitar are on take 3, only that the recordings became "exceedingly complex." And if the sitar is on take 3 and not an overdub, who is playing it if George is on acoustic?

Since the tabla was an overdub onto take 6, it was probably tuned to the tape playback.

Take 6 was not reduced to mono, it was reduced to two tracks after further overdubbing was done. These two tracks are heard mid-left (two sitars, tamboura, fuzz bass, tabla) and far right (acoustic guitar, George and Paul vocals).

The tabla was overdubbed onto take 6 not the take 7 reduction.

Except if you listen to the stereo mix, there is no vocal where the tambourine is. The fuzz guitar is in that position. Other than the far left ADT'd vocal, only three pan positions are used, which makes sense because one of the 4 tracks wasn't used. Since the two tracks from take 6 are at mid left and far right, the tambourine and fuzz guitar have to have been on that last track.

Far right on the cv, and ADT'd to the far left.

Which makes it impossible for George's vocal to have been part of the take 7 overdub, due to the positioning of all the elements in the stereo mix. Unless TRK 3 wasn't used only on RM3, and was used on RM1 and RM2 (the way it's written on the recording sheet makes this look possible.

Yes if they synced them but they didn't sync them, they edited them.

None of this instrumentation is on the recording sheet because the printed recording sheet is for take 7 not 6. If it listed anything it would list the tambourine and whatever else was overdubbed with it (the fuzz guitar apparently and Paul's deleted vocal) onto take 7. Lewisohn should have published a lot of documents. I don't see why we shouldn't take his word on this one when like I said most of his session details aren't backed up by any visual evidence either.
-Steve

 

Hi Steve....Lots of questions still. I have no problem taking Lewisohn for his word, it's just that it is totally different than what he said in his earlier book. IMO, if information came to him he should have included it...and again he says another Indian musician "may" have played the sitar...not that it was definite...just seems uncharacteristic of him that's all. The sitar intro sure sounds like a standard guitar phrase to me...very like George...but who knows??

I was quoting Bhagwat when he said he tuned the tabla to George...he didn't mention tuning it to the track...or to a guitar....just that he tuned to "him".

Perhaps I phrased this incorrectly in my post. In Recording Sessions "take 7 (best) was a reduction mix of four-track take 6, creating spare recording tracks..... The song complete, 3 mono remixes were made, 2 with ADT, one without-all edited together for record release".
I never mentioned the stereo mix in my post. I still don't hear Paul singing any harmony parts....and Lewisohn says his harmony was deleted...are we to take his word only when it fits???

Hey Marky...As far as the tamboura goes...you may be right on the money. The session notes may have abbreviated the word and Lewisohn wrote tambourine instead...NICE CATCH!!! And YES the tamboura is relatively easy to play...IIRC, Neil Aspinal played one on Getting Better. Ron