a playlist for short 030, in my life
14 tracks · 45 min
george martin played the solo in “in my life” on a piano at half speed and sped it up, an old trick he called the wind-up piano. this follows sounds turned into other sounds, sped up and slowed down, from les paul and bach to prince and dj screw, and ends on a harpsichord at last.
open in spotify ↗in my lifethe beatles
the solo is george martin on a piano at half speed, an octave low, played back at double speed. the 1965 sleeve says “george martin on piano.”
in my life (extract with unused organ solo)the beatles
before the piano, he tried a hammond organ. “not right,” as mark lewisohn tells it from the tape box. this extract was first released in 2026.
invention no. 8 in f majorbach, glenn gould
for this 1964 recording, gould had his steinway altered: “no piano need feel duty-bound to always sound like a piano.” martin wrote his solo “like a bach invention”, and quoted this one in “all you need is love”.
loverles paul
1948. guitar parts recorded at half speed, so they play back twice as fast and an octave higher. cut on discs, not tape.
a hard day’s nightthe beatles
the solo is george harrison’s 12-string doubled by martin on piano, the tape at half speed, the trick he’d used on “misery” the year before (geoff emerick, who ran the tape).
study for player piano no. 21 (canon x)conlon nancarrow
music “literally impossible for people to play,” so he wrote it for player piano. one voice speeds up as the other slows, and they cross in the middle. recorded on his own pianos.
dr. whodelia derbyshire
1963. one plucked string, re-pitched note by note by changing the tape’s speed, then cut and spliced into the bass line.
it’s gonna rain, pt. 1steve reich
1965. the same loop of a preacher’s voice on two tape machines; “the machine on the left was slightly faster,” and the voice comes apart.
if i was your girlfriendprince
his own voice, sped up, from the songs he first made for camille, a shelved album in that voice.
through the wirekanye west
chaka khan’s “through the fire” (1984), sped up. she said he “didn’t mention that he was gonna speed it up.”
g-ride (screwed)dj screw, e.s.g., flava
houston, 1995. dj screw slowed whole records down with a four-track’s pitch control, and the voices drop with them.
a whiter shade of paleprocol harum
a hammond and bach. matthew fisher’s organ solo drew on bach’s “wachet auf”, and in 2009 the law lords gave him a share of the song.
being for the benefit of mr. kite!the beatles
martin couldn’t play the organ runs fast enough: “the only way i could do it was to slow the tape down to half speed.”
becausethe beatles
four years on, martin played a harpsichord on a lennon song, an electric one. lennon said it began with yoko playing the “moonlight” sonata, and him asking her to play the chords backwards.
