Tangerine Dream top 10 - #8 White Eagle (piano version)
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- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2024
- Enter Johnny
Following the departure of Peter Baumann and the less than satisfactory collaboration with Steve Joliffe (at least according to Edgar), TD was once again on the look-out for a third member. By coincidence, they met a promising candidate in the middle of November 1978. Edgar knew an American director and scriptwriter by the name of George Moorse who was living in Germany. He invited Edgar and Chris to a rehearsal of an experimental play by the director and playwright Robert Wilson, which required a score, possibly by TD. After discussing the matter with Mr Wilson, Edgar went for a chat with the sound engineer, as he seemed to be handling the audio part of the play rather well. His name was Johannes Schmoelling.
Edgar describes Johannes as a grumpy, chain-smoking and down-to-earth man in his late twenties. He was a certified professional church organist with no prior experience in the field of electronic music. He was quite hesitant about the prospect of joining TD, to say the least. Nevertheless, he was invited to their studio for an audition. When he failed to impress Edgar and Chris with his playing, he said: “I have a complex knowledge of score reading and basso continuo, and I know a lot about harmonics, compositional technique and hymnology, and I come to a studio packed with buttons, switches, tin and plastic and you expect me to turn perfect sound pirouettes - I am not able to, and to tell you’re the truth, I don’t really want to.” While their collaboration might thus have ended before it even started, Johannes turned out to be a fast learner, who could “put some of your old-fashioned ideas into a new technology”, as Edgar phrases it.
This anecdote touches upon a subject which Edgar had to deal with many times over the years, the (false) conflict between the authentic and the artificial. He was fed up with journalists, critics and even colleagues who were of the opinion that TD wasn’t really making music, as they did not play any “real instruments” and used pre-recorded sequences. Edgar considered these people to be narrow-minded and unable to understand what constitute a true artist, namely the willingness to explore new territory and to challenge the traditional (even if it means that you make mistakes and sometime fails in the process). Sadly, he believed that the German people were especially immune to new musical ideas. Beside their classical tradition, the Edgar’s fellow countrymen mostly preferred schlagers and folk music. Consequently, TD were never to be successful within Germany. On the contrary, Edgar found that they were actively worked against by German politicians and culture officials. Edgar, who was vehemently opposed to all forms of nationalism or patriotism, was happy every time he had the opportunity to leave Berlin and his home country.
Anyway, in early 1979, Johannes was offered the job as keyboard player for TD. They spent much of the spring and summer sampling new sounds and producing material for a new album and a tour planned for the latter part of 1980. Meanwhile, “Johnny’s” first public appearance as a TD member would be at a concert in the Palast der Republik in East Berlin, on 31th January 1980. The politruks of the Stasi republic invited TD in an attempt to appeal to the youth. Furthermore, with the group’s music being purely instrumental, they could do so without the risk of the audience being poisoned by western propaganda. Playing at the other side of the wall would partly turn out to be a surreal experience, with suspicious GDR border guards, pursuing Stasi agents and power shortage on the day of the concerts, but in the end, the group was happy with their performance. Johannes played an introductory solo on a grand piano before the rhythm sequencers kicked in. The concerts were released under the title “Quichotte”, later “Pergamon” on the Virgin label, named after an ancient altar located East Berlin. Parts of this recording would soon after reappear on the trio’s first studio album “Tangram”.
White Eagle from 1982 became their third album, after Exit in 1981. Edgar describes the title track as “the only radio hit we’d ever had”. It was popularized as the title music to the German crime series Tatort, where it was called Das Mädchen auf der Treppe.
Source:
“Tangerine Dream Force Majeure”, autobiography by Edgar Froese.
© Eastgate Music & Arts 2015.
Sheet music: www.dropbox.co...
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This is high art my friend you have great talent and ears to get the essence of what was done on sequencer. Thank you for providing a score I know how time consuming this had to be. Thanks 🎉🎉🎉
Congratulations on making one piano player sound like two playing a duet 😂 Amazing stuff, and White Eagle is one of my favourite TD tracks.
Hah! I was just going to say the same thing - incredible that the melody is so strong while preserving the beautiful sequence underneath. Also one of my favorites. What an incredible performance Marcus! Thanks again for taking the time to post the sheets too.
Human sequencer!
Thank you so much for sharing both the video and especially the sheet music. This certainly beats having to build a sheet from scratch by watching your hands frame by frame (Which I did for a version of Force Majeure!). This is great!
Thanks for the music sheet 🙏
Just perfect. Would love to hear more piano versions of Tangerine Dream by you. The movie soundtrack , Heartbreakers , from around 1985 , has some beautiful pieces that I think you might like. A big thankyou for the sheet music to my fav. Tracks: Exit and Charly the kid.
Magic!
Thanks for the lesson! 🙂
Inga problem Peter!
Superbe, Marcus!
Merci beaucoup!
Omg, a really perfect grasp of the track, all of its "subtle" but important aspects!
obrigada por nos dar uma versão primorosa de uma das minhas músicas favoritas!
This is an epoch-making piano play that reproduces electrical technology.
really amazing. The transcription PDF is very useful, I've wanted to understand this piece ever since I first heard it. Can I ask if you transcribed this piece yourself - and if so how did you manage it???
Thanks! Well, it took quite some time. Only the beginning (before the bass kicks in) is note for note, the rest is more improvised.
Fantastic, better than the sequencer 👍