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I'm going throw out a really, really wonky question that is probably only going to interest hardcore harmony buffs and musicians.  

Typically, the Beach Boys harmony stack had a particular structure in terms of who sang in what range.  Mike was nearly always on bottom (Dennis took this role a few times, most notably on FRIENDS when Mike was away).  Brian of course was on top.  The next voice under Brian was first Dennis', and then Al's (Dennis then would tend to sing in the baritone range above Mike, or the simplest vocal part like a pedal tone, or not at all).  One thing that rarely changed, unless he was needed for a particularly difficult part, was where Carl was.  Carl was at the bottom of the fundamental triad that was formed by his, Al's and Brian's voices (though in the arrangements sometimes Brian would leave the triad and Mike's voice would come up from the bottom register to compensate).

So here's the question:  Carl had one of the best ranges in the group.  He could sing higher than Dennis and just as high as Al (and in later years his range held up better than Al's).  Moreover, his baritone voice was just so-so...Dennis was a stronger singer in that range.  So why did Carl take the LOW harmony of the main triad, nearly invariably?

Now the first obvious answer is:  that was where the blend was the best.  But Carl assumed this role very early on, and it was Dennis in the middle tenor harmony role, which is an odd place for Dennis to be as he had to sing in a higher register and though he improved markedly he had a less flexible voice than his brothers and less control (his singing on "409" is particularly brutal).

I have a few theories, but I'm interested in hearing what everyone else has to say.  Here are my bullet points:

1.  I know from experience that if you have a pitchy singer (who can nonetheless hold a harmony) in the triad, the best way to deal with them bury him in the middle around two better singers.  They may have compensated for Dennis' early shortcomings by sticking him in a Wilson harmony sandwich.

2.  Again from experience, if you are singing the Beach Boys' stuff, Carl's part is the easiest to sing technically (although sometimes it's complicated to remember).  It's an easy singing range and it may be given Carl's primary musician role in the group, including sometimes playing lead guitar in the studio while cutting the harmonies, he wanted to be in a "no brainer" mindset for singing since he had to focus on playing guitar and leading the band much of the time.

3.  It's the anchor part in a harmony, and that was Carl's psychological role in the band.

4.  Although Carl clearly could sing in the top register beautifully (e.g. "Good Timin'", "Surf's Up"), there's some evidence from a close listen to the tapes that while he was effortless up until about a B4, he struggled slightly to get in the register above that (and I can relate).  It's not to say that he couldn't do it, and nail it...just that he had to work for it a bit.  It may be that he just didn't want to sing up there all the time and kill his voice, and he seems to only have sung in that register when there wasn't somebody else around (Brian, Bruce, Al, Billy, Marilyn) who could do it.

Any other thoughts?  BTW, after having closely analyzed a lot of the Beach Boys' harmony arrangements, I've realized a few of my favorite Beach Boys vocal moments are in fact largely Carl multitracks, so smoothly done that it's not obvious he is the main one, or the only one, singing.  (I suspect the gorgeous second verse of "Where I Belong", for example, is all Carl...and many of the terrific harmonies on LIGHT ALBUM are multitracked Carl with help from Bruce).

Interesting thoughts! From the bullet points, I'd lean more toward example #2, I'll back that up later.

I think the obvious blend reason is just that, it's the obvious reason because it simply worked and sounded good from the early days - why change something that worked with such a devastating effect? Whatever Brian had them doing was their signature sound, maybe the thought was why try to change it even if a certain range fit a certain singer more naturally when what they produced was the golden ticket?

But consider alongside blend the issues of resonance. We know Brian had a keen if not highly sensitive ear for the way combinations of sounds resonated, both with each other and in certain rooms. We hear this probably most famously as he's setting up the instrumental players throughout Pet Sounds, setting levels and positioning sections at their microphones. Remember the accordions resonating throughout Gold Star on Wouldn't It be Nice's session tapes? Brian all but freaks out with how perfect those notes were bouncing around the room - same with Sloop John B and the flutes - he was just tuned into the intricacies of the way his parts would resonate and react. I think the same effect was at play as he dealt out the vocal parts to the Boys - we just don't get to hear that stage of the process unfolding as we do those instruments on Pet Sounds, but I have no doubt even in the Wilson home when he'd be arranging those parts, his ear was hearing the vibrations and the interactions as they hit those great chords with their voices. And he may have gotten an early education on what combinations delivered that "x factor" that happened above and beyond the guys hitting the right notes in tune. That's deep into the sonics and acoustics of it, and in this case it seemed to be instinct versus the study of sound and physics and acoustics that made Brian so tuned into this often neglected aspect of group music.

I mentioned early years, let's even go back to the Wilson bedroom and family singalongs when Brian cut his teeth on arranging techniques with his family as the test subjects. Carl was young - younger than I think we realize - and what happens with boys around age 12 or 13? Remember Peter Brady on that classic episode when his voice changes the week of a big TV show gig? What if Carl, the youngest voice, was limited by the simple biology of being 13 or 14 where his voice and range was in flux while Dennis and Brian had already developed their adult voices in their later teen years? So he'd get parts that were in the range of his voice where it wouldn't crack and go crazy like Peter Brady's did (joking there...), and it just happened to be in a range that fit the sound and blend perfectly...so they kept it that way. That's a wild card, but again consider Carl was 14 when the records first came out.

Back to example #2 - I think this has a lot of merit. In a similar way, when I started getting into learning big band and larger ensemble arranging and writing, one of my teachers said you never have your band's "screaming" high trumpet player taking "trumpet 1", which was the lead role in that section. That was a mistake a lot of novices made - you had a guy who was the showcase trumpet (or other horn), with that screaming high range, you'd think he'd be "lead" because he had that skill and was the soloist. But the teacher said you give him trumpet 3 or 4, a more simple part playing a support role in the harmonies.

Why was that, I think we all wondered...simple logic. If you have charts written to feature your showman, your screamer trumpet guy, why would you have him reading the most taxing lead part in the section instead of saving him, his breath, and his stamina for those screaming leads and standout solos, which is why he was there playing the charts in the first place? Give the lead part to a strong reader with great intonation for the section to blend and phrase with, and save the most physically demanding yet most impressive part by having him play simpler support lines.

What you said about Carl's role as lead guitarist really struck a chord (no pun intended!), and it reminded me of that big band arranging "unwritten rule" that you don't overexert your soloist. I see Carl's stage role just as you described. He had his hands full playing the more challenging lead parts on his guitar, parts which may include him needing to actually look down at his guitar neck to get it right, which means he wouldn't be as able to focus on the more challenging harmony parts and phrases that a support guitar like Al could handle more easily.

If you want Carl's lead guitar work to be featured on stage, you don't weigh the kid down with the most shifting and jumping harmony phrases and instead give him the more basic, perhaps more static harmony part so he could do his thing on guitar.

That, again, really hit the mark, I think. The Beach Boys harmonies were designed to perform live when they only existed as a self-contained band, and again no matter what was possible later in the studio that magic combination they had early on worked so well, I don't think anyone wanted to change it, even if another voice would have been a more natural fit.

Interesting topic, Adam. And that's a question I would ask Brian if I ever have the chance.

I don't think Carl was given his parts because of the difficulties of singing the immediate upper part and while playing his guitar parts. Reason for this is that Carl was an extraordinary (natural?) harmony singer, trained practically since childhood. By all reports, he was extremely adept at learning his parts and there's no reason to think he could have not sung Al's parts while playing. This may be inaccurate, but I always thought that Carl was more of a natural harmony singer than Al (who is also excellent, of course). Also, it is likely that Al's voice when he was 20-22 did not sound strong  to Brian's ear in the lower register. Al's voice had a certain "rasp" and it may not be coincidential that he took raspy Dennis' former parts.

I think this has more to do with some of the other reasons stated: namely, that Brian liked the way Carl's voice rang in that range. The matter of age and a not-yet-fully-developed voice comes to mind, but as time passed, Carl remained under Al's part mostly.

From my experience, being a tenor myself, I find Carl's parts the toughest to sing in terms of intonation and diction, as they sometimes fall into the lower part of the tenor range, sometimes very close to the bass. I think it requires a highly trained and adept singer to master those parts, and that's what Brian found in his baby brother.

I think at least part of the reason might be that Carl had such beautiful tone and strength in that particular range, which made him such a great anchor voice.

Nice thread, Adam!

Yes, a very interesting topic for sure. And I think the answer might well be found in whatever changes in the structure might have come about over time. Is the blend that Adam identified the same across the spectrum from, say, "Surfin' USA" to "Break Away"?

Another question--how were the blends restructured when Brian was no longer on the road? What kind of differences/reworks/conpensations can be discerned in the live band work up through, say, late 1969, before the shift toward more back-up singers became more prominent and noticeable?

Who made those decisions for the band after that point in time? Was Carl figuring out how "the blend" would work on the road and how did it shift as personnel was added (first additional back-up singers, then the shift from Bruce to Blondie, and then back to a band mostly featuring the band minus Brian?

And clearly by the time of LA, Carl (and Bruce) had completely taken over the vocal arranging chores, and much of that seamless work may have come about from necessity rather than active choice. (I recall Bruce being quoted back in the day about how they replaced Brian's high part on "Surf's Up" so that no one would supposedly be able to tell that he wasn't on the tag...how does that "Child" tag play out in terms of who's where in the blend structure? Isn't that Al singing the lead?)

What would be really be interesting, Adam--if you had the time to go a bit further with this--would be to ID some specific examples of the different manifestations of the "blend" in particular songs.

This topic has a great deal of potential...hope all of the really trained ears here will come out and tackle this subject.

Wow!  Great responses.

Don, great questions and in terms of who sang what where, it gets a bit murkier once Bruce is in the band, though Carl's functionality in the harmony stack, when he wasn't overdubbing himself, seems to have been about the same.  I just came off a gig where my band did 50 Beach Boys songs and it's a lot easier, from having gone through the harmonies, to say "Carl did this and Al did that" before Bruce gets into the band and they start getting into a lot of 5- and 6-part things on PET SOUNDS and work more with counterpoint, which they increasingly did as they got into the '70s.  If I had the time I'd like to sit down and work out who's singing what on some of the trickier parts though of course sometimes it's hard to tell -- but what seems to have happened after '67 is that you had six guys who could sing, and a bunch of different people producing individual tracks, so whoever is around is who would sing on it, since usually you didn't need all six guys vocally (although there's a lot of that on SUNFLOWER, one reason that album sounds so rich).  So for example in '69 you might have a track where Brian and Dennis weren't around, so it was voiced Mike-Carl-Al-Bruce or something like that.  Or there might be a track with just the Wilsons, or the Wilson with Mike, without Al and/or Bruce.  What is more interesting to me is Bruce doesn't seem to have always taken the top harmony.  Al did most of Brian's falsetto stuff live, of course, but you only hear Bruce on top about, say, 25% of the time or so.

From what I can tell, Bruce served as a bit of a ringer.  Vocally, Carl was always present post '66 (unless it was a Brian or Dennis solo track, but often still in those cases), and Al and Mike most of the time.  Bruce, like Carl, was apparently a very quick learner and facile singer which is why he was most likely used in Dennis' place on a lot of the PET SOUNDS tracks.  So once Bruce is in the band there doesn't seem to be any hard and fast rules about who sang where (other than, basically, Mike and Carl being towards the bottom), it seems to have been dictated mostly by who happened to show up to the session.

A few examples, these are just mental overviews without me having actually gone back and listened, so don't nitpick it TOO much --
SMILEY SMILE - no Bruce.
WILD HONEY - not much Dennis vocally.
FRIENDS - Dennis is on bottom for a number of the tracks instead of Mike.
20/20 - Depends on the track
SUNFLOWER - Everybody present for the most part.
SURF'S UP - not much Dennis.  (Brian is actually on a lot of the tracks)
CARL & THE PASSIONS - mostly counterpoint vocals, not a lot of harmonies.  Generally only 1-3 members singing per track except for the Brian-penned tunes.  Significantly, with Bruce and Steve Desper both out of the band dynamic the richness of the vocal blend seems to take a hit, and the band does a lot more individual counterpoint vocalizing a la "Marcella".
HOLLAND - Seems to have been a lot of self-overdubbing and more than usual outside singers on this one, with the same multiple counterpoint thing going on with "Funky Pretty".

I think maybe it's because Carl was the most tentative singer, or most shy etc when they first started, so (keeping in mind his personality as we know it) it never really changed unless Carl was singing lead. He had such an amazing voice as a lead singer, it's easy to imagine him being completely agreeable when it came to the vocal stack and letting the other guys shine.

Just my two cents.

Wow, I had no idea Carl sang lower. 

This is how I've always heard it.

Take "In My Room":

Brian ends up highest, then Carl, then Dennis and Al, and then Mike.

"Help Me, Rhonda" (in the backing)

Brian highest, Carl right under, Al (lead), Dennis, Mike.

and then in the refrain: Brian highest, Al (lead), Carl, Dennis, and Mike.

Actually, on the intro to "In My Room", Dennis sings a higher part then Carl. Brian starts it, of course, then Carl comes in on a higher part, then Dennis comes in on the highest of the three parts. Then Mike comes in low and and it seems Carl and Dennis shift down to parts lower than Brian, with Dennis probably lower than Carl, and doubled by Al - which is what I think you were getting at. When they sang the song live in the '70s and very early '80s, Dennis and Carl switched parts in the intro, obviously because by then Dennis' voice was much deeper (or hoarse, if you prefer).

On "Surfer Girl", doesn't Carl sing the part immediately below Brian's, with Dennis down one from him?

Great topic and a very interesting read. These discussions justify checking out this board. :)

I was unaware of this as to these ears that trio of harmony (Carl, Brian and Al) are so perfectly woven together I struggle to pick out the individual parts.

Craig, if I'm reading correctly you are saying that in the intro to IMR Brian sings the root of the chord, Carl the 3rd and Dennis the 5th. Is this so? To my ears, it sounds as if Brian is always on top.

Well, perhaps...maybe the effect of Carl coming in so strong at the same time the melody line climbs up creates that effect in my ears. Harmony-meister Adam could tell us for sure, no doubt...  :)

I don't think that's really accurate, c-man, regarding "In My Room". Brian sings the melody, i.e. the highest part the entire song. He starts on a B by himself (There's a world where), and then he goes up a major third to D# and Carl comes in on the B (I can go and), and then Brian goes up to an F#, Carl goes up to a D#, and Dennis comes in on the B (tell my secrets to). then Mike comes in on the bass part and they keep this same relationship the entire song. Did Al even sing on the original recording? It's clearly 4-part harmony and I don't detect any doubling as Carl and Dennis's voices are very clear.

On "Surfer Girl" it sounds like Dennis is singing the part above Carl. You can hear him very clearly at the end of the intro. It's hard to tell.

It's such a beautiful, classic Beach Boys blend though. I've heard it a million times but it still gives me chills.

Just double checked on the headphones....Brian does indeed start on the tonic, move up a third, and then another third.  Carl was indeed the second voice (then moving up a third), and then Dennis the third voice entering.  Which is something that led me to believe for a long time that's how the stack usually was -- but it was the exception rather than the rule.  Dennis was usually above Carl until Al came along, then Dennis went lower.  I suspect, besides reasons of blend, on "In My Room," Dennis' part was too low for Carl.  That could also be true of "Surfer Girl."  That's a very low harmony and though I'm good at this kind of thing I've always had trouble separating them all out down there.

Soloing each part in the cans, I don't hear evidence of Dennis' part being doubled.  I've been fooled a few times into thinking Al was in the blend when he wasn't, because his tone is so similar to the Wilsons'.  There are a certainly points where he sounds like he's in there, but I suspect it's an aural illusion.

Alan Boyd sent me a long e-mail on this topic after the original post, and he felt that Brian made his decisions on who sang where mostly for reasons of sonority -- and I think he is probably right about that.  Dennis' voice was very key when deployed correctly -- the richness of the blend comes in large part from his vocal tone, just as the smoothness of later recordings can be often attributed to Bruce's voice.

I'm not directing this post at anyone or any post in particular, but just offering a suggestion.

IMO, it doesn't do as much good to try figuring out who sang what, or whose voice was above another as much as it would transcribing and analyzing what notes of each chord they are singing, and how Brian's arrangements would feature the concept of writing "lines" on certain songs rather than blocking out chords starting with melody (top) then bass (bottom), then filling in the alto and tenor inner voices to fill in the chord of that moment. That was the Bach style, learned in every music theory class for a few centuries.

The line writing technique can create far more movement and more interesting interplay between the voices, so you get the chord sound but as the chords progress there are also interesting lines in each voice that flow more evenly than when a writer/arranger has two voices to fill, and in filling those usually middle voices after the bass and lead are set, the intervals you'll have the singers jumping can be crazy.

Not that some of Brian's charts don't do that very same thing, and I think he took that directly from some of those Bach "music theory" lessons he had taken, but when Brian called on the techniques he learned on his own from transcribing Four Freshmen arrangements, he had that more jazz-based, more modern line-writing technique in his bag.

Quick story:

I was taking a vocal arranging class at Berklee. The instructor had been a member of the Four Freshmen in one of their 1970's incarnations, touring with them as a singer-arranger-musician, as the membership had been changing off and on since the 50's. One class he opened it up for anyone who wanted to bring in a cassette of a vocal arrangement they liked, and he'd go over it with the class.

Someone else in the class had brought in Pet Sounds, wanted to see what was going on with Sloop John B, especially the soaring a capella break. So the instructor puts on the tape, it gets to the break. He plays it back, and goes to the blackboard. He starts writing lines, individual parts he had heard, by ear. Keep in mind, he had been doing this professionally since the 50's, it was in his blood and was his trade.

So he's sketching out parts, and after a few minutes he had the break, or at least a damned good sketch of it, enough to dig into the harmonies and what each part was doing, and how they added up to the chord changes.

Overall, it wasn't too complex, harmony wise, and just like I had sketched out California Girls on this board over a year or so ago, they are mostly triads underneath it all. But the way the individual lines worked in and out of the chords was the keeper, the takeaway. It sound brilliant, it sounds intricate, but ultimately it's simple triadic harmony anchoring some terrific individual lines.

I was stunned, still haven't gotten over watching someone do that in a matter of minutes after listening to a tape.

So I'll suggest again, trying to figure out who sang what isn't getting close to the magician's tricks, Brian being the magician naturally, and since at least one member could cover each band member's range convincingly, and since at least three of them when in a tight harmony could sound very close to the others to the point of sounding like the family they were (except Al, but hell he sounded like a Wilson too...), it's more fun to break down the actual notes on paper and see how Brian spun them together.

Hey Adam, how's it going? Thanks for concurring. ;D  It's so cool to see that I'm not the only one that obsesses over these finer details.

Honestly, though, there are so many recordings that I can't tell who's singing what. It's just a heavenly blend of perfection.

The examples in Beach Boys songs of the line writing type of jazz arranging are easy, listen to the Four Freshmen covers like "Graduation Day", "Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring" aka "A Young Man Is Gone", and listen for the way the inner voices often extend beyond the chord of the moment, creating a dissonance that gets resolved at the end of the phrase. It's like the lines being sung in those inner voices are creating the harmony rather than supporting it. Brian adapted that technique, maybe even simplified it, on something like "I Get Around" (the harmony lines singing get around round round I get around under his falsetto lead), the last minute or so of "You Still Believe In Me", and "Cool Cool Water" where the individual parts are swirling around and moving around the chord rather than singing in block harmony. On any beat, the chord being sung might be more of a passing chord or even a dissonance rather than the triad itself.

And arrangements like "Surfer Girl", "In My Room", and "California Girls" are more like the traditional Bach style SATB harmony writing, triad-based with definite chords agreeing with the chord of the song itself most often.

Thanks, Adam...regarding "In My Room", I'm pretty sure Al's playing on the basic track, since the session tape reveals that the bass and the organ were both on there (rather than Brian playing one part on the track and then overdubbing the other), with both Carl and Dave clearly playing guitars, so I'm thinking Al is on bass, therefore it'd be unusual if Brian didn't also have him sing on it. He's definitely not in the intro, but like you there are times later on where I believe I can hear him in the blend.

Interesting how Carl and Dennis swapped vocal parts in the "In My Room" intro years later...could it be that they didn't actually swap parts as much as running order? In other words, on the Knebworth version (I'm assuming that the song is on the CD without actually looking), does Dennis enter on his original note (B) but second in the order, with Carl then entering on the D# but third in the order, rather than Carl entereing on the B then moving up to the D# when Dennis enters on the B?

My assumption that Carl was the second highest voice in "Surfer Girl" came from something in Geoffrey Himes' wonderfully comprehensive article and interview with Carl, published in the September 1983 issue of Musician, and later reprinted in expanded form in the revised edition of "Back To The Beach": "Even as Carl learned the mid-range harmony vocal devilishly close to Brian's lead...". But this is also the article where Carl describes Brian's standard template for their vocal parts: "Michael always sang the bottom; I would sing the one above that, then would come Dennis or Alan, and then Brian on top." THAT would have been a great opportunity for Himes to ask him why Dennis had a higher part them him when he (Carl) was clearly the stronger singer, but he blew it. :) Incidently, Himes is still writing about music, which is nice to see...the other day I read an article he did in some financial magazine at work (maybe Forbes, or something like that) on that young gal who's been colloborating with David Byrne.

You know, something else just came to mind, and there's no way for this not to sound a little facetious, but I'm at least half serious in this proposal...regarding how, on a lot of these early songs, it sometimes sounds like Al may be there (doubling Dennis or Carl or somehow otherwise just  being "there") and sometimes not...well, we all know the story goes that Al had to stand on a box in the studio when singing group vocals with the others into one microphone, so that he would be at the same level of proximity...what if they didn't hit upon that solution until later...that would explain why we can sometimes "hear" Al and sometimes not, and why Dennis' or Carl's voice comes through so much stronger than Al's, when and if Al was truly doubling one of them...

For what it's worth, Don Cunningham did a study of the harmony parts on "Don't Worry Baby" (both the 1964 studio original and the live version from the '73 "In Concert" album) in the Winter 1984 issue of his great "Add Some Music" fanzine. To Don's ears, the first bar of the intro (the E major chord) has Dennis on the G# note, probably doubled (as he says) by Mike, with Al, Carl and Brian all on B...then for the next bar, Al and Brian shift up to an E while the others hold steady. From there, Al and Brian stay on the highest note of the triad, with Carl in the middle, and Dennis/Mike on the bottom note. All of this is topped, of course, with Brian's soaring soprano falsetto on a separate track. Like Adam, Don admits that he has trouble hearing Carl sometimes, but he definitely places him in the middle of the three-note triad contained within the one octave.

For the live '70s version, his observation is that they dropped both the falsetto and Al's high triad part, and added a new part, sung by Carl, between the two, which sounds right to my ears.

There is a clip that appears on the Endless Summer video that shows Carl at a soundcheck singing alone his part for Surfer Girl. And it is obviously the one below the lead, starting on F#. In live versions Alan sings the third part (starting on D), but then in the very end, he is heard singing a part above Carl's that I don't remember being on the original recording of the song (cannot check this right now)... "Girl surfer girl my little surfer girl" to the notes Eb and F.

<<There is a clip that appears on the Endless Summer video that shows Carl at a soundcheck singing alone his part for Surfer Girl. And it is obviously the one below the lead, starting on F#. In live versions Alan sings the third part (starting on D), but then in the very end, he is heard singing a part above Carl's that I don't remember being on the original recording of the song (cannot check this right now)... "Girl surfer girl my little surfer girl" to the notes Eb and F.>>

Do you mean the "Endless HARMONY" video? :) Or do you mean the "Endless Summer" TV series that aired in '89? I seem to recall this clip on the former.

The video. The part where they mention Carl's crucial role in vocal  harmony blend.

I wonder, then, if that means that in the live arrangement, Carl took over Dennis' original part at some point?

Hm. I think that's his original part. By the way, when he was out of the band for a while, Al took over Carl's part, as brutally shown here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8dyvdkW5lM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I wonder who took Al's (i.e. Dennis' orignal) part when Al sang this. Can't tell from this video.




Here's yet another stack: Al on lead, Dennis possibly singing his original part, and seemingly Bruce doubling Carl (which he probably always did).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLvi9pspSD4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Considering all these variants of the harmony stack kinda puts in perspective whatever preconception we can have on the magic and uniqueness of the BBs blend.

The live arrangements are where things get really tricky, largely due to personnel changing.  So in '64, Al would have sung Dennis's part on Surfer Girl, but once Brian left Al started singing the highest part for a long time. ( Bruce would then go on Dennis's part I guess).  Then in the 80's when Al stopped singing falsetto I'm not sure what happened. In 80 Al was on top. In that '81 clip it sounds like he is singing lower than he ever did at any point on Surfer Girl. Then he was back top for a little when Carl came back, before Jeff took it  Sometimes it sounds like Al sings higher than Carl on it throughout the 80s and 90s.  To cloud things further, how did they do it in 2012?

Great discussion.  I have no real formal music training but as a lifelong BB fan I have tried to follow the harmony parts.  I can pick out individual parts here and there but I lose the thread after a point,can't follow the voice for more than a measure or two.   somewhere, on a boot or compilation, there  is a recording of Carl doing his part of, as I recall, Surfer Girl, alone without the other voices in harmony.   The melody sounds quite different with Carl doing that isolated part of the harmony.  anyone familiar with this recording and care to try to explain how the melody changes with the other voices out of the mix?

I think that's the video Dr. Lenny was referring us to, from "Endless Harmony" (fitting source considering the title).

Surfer Girl (Carl solo snippet, from Endless Harmony):

http://youtu.be/OAIyCu-oSJA?t=2m16s (http://youtu.be/OAIyCu-oSJA?t=2m16s)

I hear Carl's usual live part on Surfer Girl, and that seems to be what Al is struggling with in that clip from '81, but I can't for the life of me follow Dennis' line. It seems to blend with Mike and Carl's to the point that I can't ever really hear it for itself. Does Dennis at times sing a note in unison with either of those two as his line moves about?

Brian friggin' Wilson... Jeez

I should go back to the original recrding to confirm if Carl's usual live part (the one Al is singing in that 81 show) is indeed his original part or Dennis'. Anyway, Al's usual live part starts on a D, and it's quite easy to follow, considering how low and tight those parts are.

An interesting aside: does't Mike sing an E over the Gm chord?

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Good post, but disagree.  The notes are only part of what Brian did.  He was very specific (and we have both Alan's and Brian's own words to back this up) about casting the band's voices in specific roles.  I can tell you from years of singing harmony that it matters a lot who sings where.  My own voice kills in the low midrange.  I can also hit up to an F5, but unless you want the sound of breaking glass, you don't want me singing up there unless you want a shrill top.  I've had many situations where juggling the singers just doesn't sound good unless it's a specific lineup, regardless of who has the theoretical range.  The tone of the singer is just as important, and it's a trickier thing to understand and pin down than a straight vocal arrangement.

Same with the BBs.  Dennis and Al had similar ranges, but wildly different vocal timbres.  Same is true with Carl and Bruce.  Where you place them in the stack is essential.  Brian was brilliant at casting the singers where they'd resonate the best.  It is a bit of a rarified and obscure art -- which is why it's worth studying and thinking about.

That's basically what I wrote on page one, about that blend and tone and Brian's unique quest for the little sonic touches that most listeners wouldn't notice. Alan Boyd in his comments to you said pretty much the same thing, only using different terminology, but yeah - I agree it came down to overall *sound* above all.

What I'm suggesting and perhaps didn't word it too well was an eye toward looking ahead, or even those who would look to use some of these sounds in their own music. Since we don't have access and will never again have access to two of the main singers in that blend, and since I'm guessing none of us unless by sheer luck and fate will have the chance to work directly with these vocalists, who-sang-what doesn't achieve much beyond confirming what has already been done and is up to 50 years old at this point.

From a musician's viewpoint, if you're really into that kind of sound and want to use it on an original song or arrangement, does it matter whether Al or Carl sang the flat 7th or the 5th on a stacked harmony, or would it matter more how that flat 7th and 5th of the chord were arranged in between three other voices in the harmony stack, and then how they resolved to the next chord?

I just thought it would be a better pursuit - for those musicians interested in copying and adapting some of that magic - to dig into the techniques and notes and take the cues from that, since it won't be Carl and Al singing your parts. Again, if the goal is more musical than academic/historical.  :)

Orig recording: the one part right below Brian's lead as far as I can tell. Perhaps Dennis' tone would have killed the blend in such a tightly-harmonized sweet ballad.

Live: the same part.

In the 81 video, Al (who, when not singing lead sang Dennis' part) sings Carl's part.

In the 2012 Rolling Stone acoustic version, I think Brian sings Carl's part. He may be doubled by Bruce. And David may be doubling Al.

In the coda to the live version, Alan usually sings a part above Carl that i don't remember being on the original recording

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I agree about Brian + Al and Bruce + David singing the 2nd and 3rd part respectively on the RS version.
I think Bruce always has sung the 3rd part live, which is interesting.


Here's a weird version (listen to the bridge) with Carl singing 2nd part and Al singing 3rd.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgTU0gTLDGk&feature=youtube_gdata_player


Now, this crazy vocal from Brian allows for the parts to be clearly heard. The stack from top to bottom is clearly Brian-Carl-Al-Mike. But, correct me if I'm wrong, Al sings above Carl during the bridge (and coda).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmDUAvCl87g&feature=youtube_gdata_player

>>Now, this crazy vocal from Brian allows for the parts to be clearly heard. The stack from top to bottom is clearly Brian-Carl-Al-Mike. But, correct me if I'm wrong, Al sings above Carl during the bridge (and coda).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmDUAvCl87g&feature=youtube_gdata_player>>

OK, so if there were definitely five parts in at least some places, and you list only four vocalists here, would the fifth part be Dennis (and was Billy somehow in the mix in '77)? This is one of the few songs on which Dennis always sang live, when he was there (except for that '81 version where Al took Carl's part).

Well, again, good post, but again, disagree.  It matters a whole heck of a lot because if you don't understand how voices resonate, how to match timbres and timing, how to cast the singers in the stack, your harmony is going to suck.  I get what you're saying, but the fact that the particular magic of what Carl or Al (for instance) can't be exactly duplicated doesn't make it not worth studying, or learning from.  I've had my bellyful of Beach Boys fans that have to make records with the tympani sound from PET SOUNDS just so but it doesn't mean anything to the listener because the emotional context and resonance are missing.

Musicians trying to get into that magic who limit themselves to the notes -- sorry to be so blunt -- will fail.  Every element goes into synergy and while you can't duplicate the exact synergy, you CAN understand what went into it and apply it to your own case.   Writing a clever harmony part and singing it with dull and emotionless resonance with voices that don't fit (to oversimplify my argument) is not going to deliver anything close to what the Beach Boys did.  It's a great mistake that many musicians make to think that the idea, the thought behind something, is the thing.  It's not.  Execution is EVERYTHING.  To not study HOW the great harmonies were performed and constructed, just to focus on the black and white arrangements themselves, is to really miss a lot of the point.  You can't get a Carl and Al back, but you can get a Jeff and Frank and Bill who understand and apply those lessons to their own voices, and do something special.

Heck, asking the very question I did at the top of this thread -- why was Carl where he was? -- provokes people to consider the question.  And the answer was, for the most part, because that's where his particular voice was most resonant.  The fact that Carl Wilson himself is dead does not mean that the question that raises -- that these kinds of decisions matter -- isn't worth thinking about.  This is exactly the kind of subtle thing that a lot of people miss, and then wonder why their records don't have the spark they are looking for.  It's understanding the intangibles and making them tangible by absorbing them into your own musical journey that enables musicians to create a new synergy.  Just understanding the nuts and bolts won't get you there.  This stuff is important, all the more important because people don't think about it much.

Well, I only hear four parts on the original recording. Zach hears five in certain spots; perhaps he can point some of them? And I also hear four on this version. The only places where I hear an extra fifth part is on certain live versions since the 80s, when Al sings a part in the coda that is not on the original recording. I think Dennis, when singing, sings the third part (the one he sang on the record) and Billy, if singing, may have doubled the second. Just speculating about Billy here. In truth, there is not much room in the stack for five parts except the coda and a few other spots where the lead soars significantly higher than the rest of the voices.  

What's remarkable about this late 70s version is that on certain sections Al and Carl seem to cross parts (Al switches momentarily to second and Carl to third). This may be more common than we think (for preservation of their voices, as singing thos aahs for a long time can quickly take its toll on your voice).

But you cannot build *anything* without knowing how the nuts and bolts work or at least trying to understand how they work, specifically how they hold everything together. You'll have a pile of raw materials - hey, I know they used this brand of wood and this size nail and this color siding and this kind of brick - but what about the actual ways to construct the thing?

I'm also sick of musicians - Beach Boys loving musicians - who think it's just a matter of throwing in a little bit of this and a little bit of that and expecting to create a gourmet meal because you threw in a bunch of ingredients that someone else had used.

Maybe I'm missing the point you're suggesting, and I don't want to get into a pissing match here, but what is the point of knowing whether a particular singer sang a particular note in a chordal harmony if that person doesn't know how to voice lead a Dmin7b5 to a G7b9 to a Cmaj7 using four voices?

That's the nuts and bolts I'm talking about, consider why Brian voicing that ii-V-I resolution sounded different than Duke Ellington or Nelson Riddle arranging parts for the same chord turnaround.

And finding that magic resonance in a vocalists' range is a noble pursuit, but what if you are doing a one-man-band thing like a majority of musicians are doing today with their Mac and DAW program? You want to add a stacked harmony to a chorus of an original song, the chords are C Amin Fmin G7, and you're the only singer in the room. If that solo artist recording that song doesn't know what makes an F minor different from an F major, they're screwed. No matter how great their resonance and vocal projection, if they can't harmonize a triad they're going to suck. Unless they have some digital harmonizer to get the robot chorus harmonizing on their track.

I guess I'll agree to disagree here, but all i wanted to do was suggest that anyone here who is in that scenario of recording their music on their own - not having access to 5 singers who can not only harmonize but also blend like professionals - It would make more sense to me to look at the way Brian's arrangements flowed and connected *using the notes he chose to use* versus trying to pick out Al Jardine on a random track.

But that's my own bag, I'll cop to that. But let's not suggest learning the mechanics and nuts-and-bolts of the harmony isn't crucial to the whole deal, because it is.

And as far as intangibles, how many of us would love to be able to walk into Gold Star and capture that amazing room sound, with all the reflections and overtones and all those little scientific things that made that cacophony of instruments bounce off the walls and ceilings and create that "x factor" which gave Gold Star its trademark sound, not to mention the echo chambers, second to none acoustically and in the way they reacted to sound.

We can understand how and why and what gear was used and what the room dimensions were and everything else down to the type of material on the walls - but you're not going to ever capture Gold Star again because it's gone. Can you try to learn what went into making that room what it was and what they did in recording and mixing to create those amazing recordings, then apply it to your own available recording tools?

Absolutely. But again, without knowing the nuts and bolts of recording the way they worked at Gold Star, you're going to be out of luck. It doesn't matter a bit whether Larry Levine or Stan Ross worked the board, or whether they used Altec versus JBL if you can't set up a signal chain.

Well I think both Adam's point, regarding individual voice resonance, and Craig's point, regarding the nuts and bolts of the actual lines the respective singers are singing, demand attention and contribute to the greatness being discussed.  Each is greatly augmented by the other.

Should be noted that Al's voice is not on the 1963 hit recording of Surfer Girl.

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@Guitar Fool --

This is a classic example of a debate shifting mid-stream from where it started to somewhere where one of the participants (me) is left defending a position he never took.

OF COURSE it's important that people understand chord theory, how to arrange, the actual "nuts and bolts" as you say.  And so we're clear (agreed, not to pissing match), you're talking to a guy who makes part of his living stacking harmonies...I get paid to do a head arrangement and lay down double-tracked 4 and 5 part harmonies by my lonesome on pop songs on a regular basis -- and I generally have to do it under three hours.  I know this stuff cold....and while I DO understand chord theory, the reason my stuff sounds good goes far beyond being able to write this stuff down on a piece of paper -- which, in point of fact, I cannot do; I don't need to.  And these resonance lessons DO apply if you are a "one man band."  One reason I get hired is the recordings I make by myself do not, in fact, sound like one person made them.  By going beyond mere theory into how sounds flow and combine...which was something Brian excelled in and made an art of just as much of his arrangements -- and it isn't as if he just pulled them out of thin air.  He learned how, by obsessing over Spector and the Four Freshmen, etc.  It's not an intangible thing you can't be taught.  Anyhow.

What I objected to was your original assertion that this discussion wasn't worth having at all.  Even in the above post you talk about people should be studying the theory RATHER than studying resonance.  I don't think it's an either-or.  I'm not saying people should study resonance and blow off theory.  That would just be as counterproductive as the reverse, which is more or less how I read your original post.

Now your last post, as stated, I basically have no problem with other than what I have flagged above.  It's not, however, where the discussion started.  If I misunderstood you, fine and I apologize.  It's clear you have misunderstood me.

Incidentally, I think this is one of those deals where which each have certain pet peeves or think things are lacking in the approach of people we see.  We just are observing two different things that are lacking and that's coming out in what we are focusing on.  You would RATHER see people focus on theory and I might RATHER see people focus on the finer and more subtle points of how sonics are made; because they are both blind spots depending on who you are listening to.  But they're both very important and often overlooked.  I know the phenomenon you are talking about; I've also seen plenty of people with a lot of theory and no sense of soul make technically perfect and totally uninvolving work.  To make really transcendent music, both are worthy of study, because music is more than one thing (and we haven't even talked about rhythm, which supersedes all).  Agreed?

And since I started this thread, it's about resonance and casting singers in a harmony blend.  We can talk about theory too!  And have.  Good stuff. But don't tell me this stuff doesn't matter or isn't a transferrable learnable skill by close listening and appreciation, just because Carl Wilson is dead.  It does and it is.  The blend didn't happen by accident.  It wasn't just the people involved.  If Bruce was on the bottom of the stack, and Mike was on the top, even if the part was in both their ranges, the harmony would suck.  Brian knew how to arrange the guys to their best advantage.  It wasn't an accident and it's something anybody recording a multiple harmony, alone or with a group, needs to think about.

Jon, that was my original assumption based on Al's name being absent from the AFM contract, but now I'm not sure we can say that Al's not singing on the "Surfer Girl" single...as we've known all along, the June 12, 1963 "Surfer Girl"/"Little Deuce Coupe" session was held several weeks (or even months) after Al's return to the band, but the absence of his name from that contract always bothered me, especially since even Mike's name was included - Mike being a non-instrumentalist, vocals-only contributor to that session. But it now appears that the basic track for "Catch A Wave" was also laid down at the same session (despite that title not being listed on the contract), which would mean that Al was definitely present, since's he's for sure playing bass on "CAW". It's just a guess, but an explanation for the absence of Al's name from the AFM contract could simply be that he hadn't yet rejoined the AFM union.

Sure with that in mind it is possible. I wasn't aware CAW was recorded that early, that's news to me. I guess I've trained my ears to assume he wasn't there, mainly based on Murry's assertion that Al be allowed to tour as Brian's fill-in but "no sessions, no royalties"...of course we know that the session stipulation was eventually eased, as Al is definitely on some Surfer Girl LP tracks, and he did begin to get a "partial" royalty share sometime after that. But it seems, at first, he was utilized more as a bassist to free Brian to play keyboards on the basic tracks, than as a vocalist. I guess it comes down to... is his voice on there, or are we hearing two Brian's?

To adamghost: Often when I get going on something which I feel strongly about, I can get derailed a bit. I think there were misunderstandings, for sure. I'm all about sound too, and resonance, and all of those "x factors", and have commented on those issues many times in the past. Also, I enjoy your music and respect you as a musician, so none of this is or was a direct challenge or anything.

I never meant the whole thread/discussion wasn't worth having at all, in fact i don't believe I ever said that and if I did suggest it than it's my bad. Because it is worth having. However, I still think there may be a disconnect with my perspective versus that of the thread.

Learning music theory for any musician is, I think, a very worthy pursuit, not saying anyone here said things to the contrary. And it's not all about being able to write notes on a paper. In all honesty, the times I have *ever* had to write a vocal part in notation on paper in the past 15 years, where I've been compensated for the work, I could count on one hand if that. Most times it's feeding the lines or the notes to whatever singer(s) are involved, much like Brian did with the Boys. And the lyric sheets if anything are chord charts or just plain lyrics. So it's possible to not even need to read or write traditional notation in order to apply the basics of harmony to one's music.

But knowing how it all works, is I think crucial for those looking to do things with their own music beyond just playing as part of a group, or any other similar deal. If anything, *that* may have been one of Brian Wilson's biggest strengths, that knowledge and familiarity with harmony and music theory which allowed him to do things in a self-contained way that the Beatles needed George Martin to do, and numerous bands through the years also needed an outsider to sort it all out if they wanted to orchestrate or have a full arrangement on their tracks. Brian's knowledge made the BB's a self-contained unit

And I may have misunderstood some of the comments, in fact I probably did, but I think anyone looking to Brian for influence might be just as well served spending time studying what he studied in terms of theory as much as which voice sang what. They are both essential to the sound, and I may have both misunderstood and then misstated some of the followups here.

I think too there are many more people today recording solo, or who simply don't have access to a group of musicians or singers to perform their music. And quite a few very skilled lead vocalists and solo singer-songwriters who I worked with in the past had little or no idea how to sing harmony, and had to be coached or given a crash-course in how to do it in front of the studio mic. Which is understandable, if they're the frontperson and lead voice, but at the same time they wanted harmonies on their song, they didn't have a group, and didn't understand the difference between adding a minor 3rd versus a major 3rd at a given point in their tune. So it took extra time to work it all out.

So the basic knowledge of chords might have both saved them time and also opened up new doors in their music. Thinking texturally and harmonically versus having chords and lyrics. And I know the types of people into these threads like this are either for the historical angle or the musician angle. I guess I had a picture in my mind of someone who wants to add some of this "magic" to his/her own tracks spending time listening to a chorus of a BB's song trying to pick out voices rather as taking precedent over learning the actual notes and how/why they work together. And by learning notes I don't mean writing everything down in correct notation, but just picking apart the ways they were arranged. It helps to see it written out, but it's obviously not essential to digging in deeper and sussing out what's going on.

It's probably more general than specific, but if anyone wants to apply some of that magic they hear on BB's vocals to their own track, take it all into consideration, but - just my opinion - learn the notes of the chords first, or at least spend time working out what each voice is doing before focusing on who is actually singing it. That element comes later, when you know what notes you're going to be singing on your track(s).

Adam, a direct question: As a working musician, have you been in situations where someone is coming in to either audition or jam or whatever else, and they talk a really good game - They know all the details, if you're covering a Beatles tune they can quote chapter and verse what kind of guitar and amp was used, the date it was done, and then you get players too with massive amounts of expensive flashy gear - guitarists with boutique pedalboards loaded with stuff, Paul Reed Smith $5,000 guitars with hand-built tube amps, bassists with all the blinged-out custom Laklands and whatnot, drummers, etc. So the expectation is that they will be on a certain level as players...and the groove kicks in and that person can't hold a steady beat for more than a few bars?  :)  That's a case of needing to spend more time on the nuts and bolts of the music rather than the finer points. ;D

Oh, very interesting post GuitarFool...

Well, I'll tell you, I was all winding up with my answer and you hit it at the end before I could get there...I hinted at it in my earlier post.

You're talking about theory, and I'm talking about resonance, but honestly you can throw both those things in the complete garbage can if you have good TIME, and THAT is the thing that more than either of the two things we've been discussing combined that causes amateur musicians to fail.  It's why Dennis Wilson is one of my favorite drummers, and why a good chunk of my own work is drumming even though it's about my fourth or fifth instrument -- people can't keep a beat...and this is even more of a handicap in this day of digital recording when so much is done to a click (which, if used as such, can be the greatest aid to a person's musicianship they could find).

So yeah, I've seen that phenomenon sort of -- but what I've seen is a little more sideways than that.  There are always these guys that will immediately buy whatever the most expensive thing is at Guitar Center, or whatever vintage piece of what have you, but the SOUND just sucks -- forget about the rhythm.  Because either it's a very richly detailed piece of crap designed to pick the pockets of wealthy wannabee musician, or it's a very good piece of gear misused -- because the person using it can't distinguish a good or a bad sound.

It calls to mind when I got to co-produce for an extremely talented teen singer and her manager grilled me about how I got my sound:  "Do you go to tape?"  No, ProTools 7.2.  "Well, you must have a great board though."  No, I have one terrific preamp and it otherwise goes to the standard DAW inputs.  "Neve plugs?"  No, WAVES and Massey and the stock stuff.  He could not comprehend how the stuff sounded so analog when my gear was, for the most part, so generic (I've upgraded since to some better mics, but otherwiseit's not all that different now).  But the PROCESS of recording was old school -- how the tracks were performed and assembled and the attention to what mics are actually picking up.  My technical engineering knowledge is really very poor -- but I have first-rate ears and problem solving skills.  I don't mean to make it about myself, but I've just seen that people just are very susceptible to bells and whistles and not respecting the fundamentals.  There's nothing sexy to a 17 year old about keeping a straight 2/4 beat or about playing a great rhythm guitar line or cutting a track in 5 minutes without any mistakes.  It doesn't get you laid.  But the 1% that did go that route all became successful musicians and laid great tracks, I'll bet you that.

I think the thing that bums us both out is how easy it is to get caught up in b**sh*t that doesn't really matter -- and I do admit this discussion, on the level of its specifics and not what it says about sonority, is a little esoteric -- and miss the things that do.  I'm amazed at how many people can love truly great bands and make really, really bad music.  It isn't to devalue their listening experience or taste, but it's interesting how in their own creativity, their love for it and desire to imitate it doesn't translate into anything worthwhile, either on an individual level or copying level.  And it isn't about technical ability because I've heard some really awful musicians do some great music and really great ones do terrible music -- but it is about -- hmm, what should we call it?  Understanding what works, what translates?  Which gets into deeper psychological areas and...wow, really rambled.

Time.  That's my answer.  It's about good time, first and foremost, and then the stuff we've been batting around.  And that requires a desire to understand the music beyond what's immediately obvious and tangible, and see it as a two-way communication between performer and audience, and not a one-way communication (from the player or to the listner).

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Good God, it sounds like hell!  I bet it did.  Great example of someone missing the big picture, right?

I've gotten to be a Nazi about time in the last six or seven years.  Groove is everything.  Thinking rhythmically has helped my playing tremendously -- and recording all the time you realize what makes a good track is playing articulated cleanly and with even time.  And then, of course, what's appropriate to the track, which often is simplifying the groove.  Half the time, if a track doesn't sound good, you think it's the engineering or the production, but it's usually somebody playing in sloppy time that's throwing everybody out.

People do not talk about the Wilsons as musicians much (as opposed to singers, writers or arrangers), but the brothers were MASTER underplayers.  Their tracks are just thick as pound cake.  They played dumb on purpose to serve the track - they wanted to leave room for the vocals and percussion.  Dennis' '70s drum tracks especially...love the way he played.  Big and bottom heavy and STOOPID and it just made the track come alive.

I feel like I'm hogging the thread now and going way off-topic, but I just have to add one thing. You think "simplifying the groove" and then you go, what about those great funk players that everybody talks about?  What about things like "Superstition" which is incredibly funky and yet time-wise is all over the place?

Well, the difference is evenness and consistency and a SENSE OF SPACE and most people that cop this stuff totally lose sight of that.  Folks want to play like Dave Matthews but don't want to bother sitting with a metronome.  They just want to get the feeling of playing busy and at a breakneck pace.  Well...

One time I was playing with a band and the band after us was a neo-funk unit in the Red Hot Chili Peppers mold.  The bass player had an ENORMOUS rig and yet no bottom end on his bass -- he had one of these twinky little basses that are all top and he couldn't stop noodling riffs on it.

I leaned over to the drummer from my band and said, "let me make this funky for you."  I then sang the guy's bass lines in his ear, except everytime I got to beat 4, I rested.  And then back on 1.  And there you have the difference between Bootsy, and this clown.  The idea that there would be value in a pause never occurred to this dude.  Or most people that want to play rhythmically complex music.

Here's a question:  How accurate are the parts in this link?
http://okeverybody.com/beach_boys/Surfer_Girl


If you haven't been to that site, take some time and look around.  One thing I found interesting was that it has both the 1966 and (live) 1973 arrangements for "Wouldn't It Be Nice".  Unfortunately for someone like me (who can't read music) most of them are no help, as "Surfer Girl" is one of the very few that breaks each song down with sound files for each individual vocal part.

Zach, thank you for taking the time to write the chart and illustrate your point. I finally had the time to sit and listen closely and have to agree 100% with you. There are five parts (i.e. four parts against the lead) in the bridge and in the coda. For whatever reason I find them easier to distinguish in the coda. The part above Mike's in the bridge I cannot listen clearly, but know it's there.

I'd like to raise a few points and correct a couple things I said.
I thought that, on stage and when not singing lead, Al sang a part in the coda I thought was not on the recording. I was WRONG. It is on the recording (the one right below Brian's). And since the possibility of Alan being there on the session has been posed, perhaps Al sings on stage the part he sang originally in the studio? It could also be, as Zach said, that Brian recorded with the foursome and then the lead. Or, more likely, since the vocals are doubled, maybe Carl sang two different parts in that section and thus we hear doubled Carls throughout and single Carls in the bridge and coda?

And I'd like to know what others think, but now I think it's possible that in the intro it is DENNIS who sings the 2nd part and not Carl, and then for the rest of the song he switches to 3rd part and Carl takes the 2nd. Carl sounds smooth throughout and it is unlikely that he break his voice in a Dennis-like fashion on the last note (E) of the intro. That's Dennis to me.

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I'll give my point of view, which a bunch of people might not agree with but oh well here goes.

Carl was the youngest.  The youngest brother often doesn't get the respect he deserves, and often lives in the shadow of his older brothers when it comes to something they do together.  I work with my two brothers, and I am the oldeest of the three.  I get away with things that my younger brothers, and especially my youngest brother, can't.  My youngest brother almost feels a responsibility to work as hard as he can, he works much harder than I do. 

So Carl's place in the harmony stack is being insinuated as an inferior place to be, when he was certainly capable of more... that's in reaction to his two older brothers, he took a submissive place either consciously or subconsciously in their presence. 

I'll bet if you look at the songs Brian wasn't on, you'll see Carl took Brian's place for the most part.  By then, Dennis's vocals had changed to the ponit where he didn't sing in the harmony stack anymore. 

It's part of the dynamic of their family and them being brothers, of course none of it has to do though with their love or respect for each other, it's just natural for brothers to have a hiearachy.  Sorry for butchering the spelling of that.

BTW, while I was typing that, I just got a text message from my younger brother.  He's at work.  I'm sitting at home watching Ice Skating, and my middle brother is out with his girlfriend.  That's my point. 

Interesting, Ron. However, if I recall correctly, it was Dennis who Audree had to beg Brian to be included in the group. And even though it sounds crude or simplistic, Dennis must have been -at that time- the least respected BB among his band mates, musically speaking.

I would agree, Dr. Lenny. It's an interesting theory, Ron, and if it were your typical set of brothers that we're talking about, I'd say you probably got it, but Carl had been singing harmony with Brian for years, so the two of them singing together was quite a natural thing by this point - Dennis was, vocally, a "frog" in comparison, so one one think Brian had to bend his intuitive arrangement style just to "fit him in".

On the topic of Carl's vocal role and the youngest brother issue, I think that has merit. But consider along with that the age issue of being the younger brother, and that Carl was still a teenager when Surfer Girl and the rest were recorded. I have no idea of the details but what if Carl's voice and vocal technique was still developing as he was growing up in his teenage years? Not only the usual puberty issues of the voice changing but also in developing his techniques as a singer. He obviously focused a lot of practice and work on his guitar playing, and the proof is on the records from 62-64 where he's playing lead lines that thousands of other guitarists were trying to copy, and he wasn't even 18 at the time. Maybe his vocals were still considered a supporting role, taking a back seat to his role as lead guitarist as well as his focus being more on the guitar than his voice...physical and musical reasons.

And it's important to note that the Beach Boys had something like ten albums already released before Carl was given a lead vocal on any of them. Maybe as much as the youngest sibling or defined role in the band issues are worth noting, maybe the missing factor is that his voice had not yet been developed and honed into the terrific voice we hear on God Only Knows.

Wait a minute -- what about "Pom Pom Playgirl" and "Louie, Louie," not to mention "Girl Don't Tell Me"?! That's a lot fewer than 10 albums into the career.

You're speaking metaphorically, right?  :)

No, I mean they were ten album releases into their run before Carl got the lead on "Girl Don't Tell Me".

Not exactly related to where Carl was in the vocal stack, but I always wondered if Carl having few lead vocals in the early days of the group was because of the presence of Murry, and Carl's attempts to avoid his wrath? We know that Dennis and Brian butted heads with Murry, but I wonder, for Carl, if taking a secondary role in the group allowed him to escape the negative attention of his father. Is it a coincidence that Carl became much more promient once Murry was no longer involved with the day to day managing of the band? Again, I have no evidence to back this up, just a theory--maybe unprovable--based on what I know of Carl's less confrontational temperment.

Also-what exactly was Carl's relationship like with his father? I have read much about Murry's relationship with Dennis and Brian, but little about how he and Carl got along, or didn't get along. Wasn't Carl the only son to go to Murry's funeral? Was that because of real affection, a sense of obligation, or because of Audree?

That still leaves "Pom Pom Playgirl" and "Louie, Louie" -- both with prominent Carl leads being released less than ten albums into the career. Not to mention the duet with David on "Summertime Blues," with Carl as the top voice, on their FIRST album. He was being given a few leads early on.

The reason Carl is less prominent in the early incarnation of the Beach Boys "vocal group" is absolutely because he didn't consider himself a singer. He wanted to be a great guitarist and that was his focus. Vocals were a chore that he did well enough to satisfy his big brother and musical mentor. Carl was passive in his early vocal role, blue collar, do the job, but his interest and passion was the guitar. That would change in a few years as his voice matured and his confidence as a singer grew. It became obvious he had a gift, and eventually the guitar took a backseat to his singing.

I think we're getting into semantics here.  :)   Those feature Carl, but not as the primary lead, the featured driving vocal of the song. Apart from Brian and Mike, the lead vocalists in the group, if we look at Dennis getting the lead on "Do You Wanna Dance", Al getting one on the Christmas album and then Help Me Rhonda, Carl didn't get his big chance to be featured lead until "Girl Don't Tell Me".

I see your point guitarfool, but I still disagree about "Pom Pom Playgirl." Carl's lead is prominent on PPP. But I agree with Jon about him wanting to focus on being a guitarist early on.

Enough with the sidebar on this thread. Back to your interesting discussion on BB harmony.

It's a cool sidebar, though!  :)  I'm also going by the liner notes in the old 2-fers, on Pom Pom Playgirl it credits Brian as the lead.

Those 2-fer credits were wrong. The PPP lead has since been corrected to Carl in subsequent releases.

I'm confused...you don't consider "Little Girl", "Surfers Rule", "This Car Of Mine", or "The Wanderer" to be featured Dennis leads?

I was just using "Dance" as an example of one where he was the prominent lead singer. I could have picked any of the others too.

Sounds good to me, corrected!

I see.

I feel like I've overstayed my welcome, so with that - Thanks Adam for some great insights, and my vacation begins this afternoon.  :)

Not at all, Guitarfool!  I'm keeping my mouth shut for a bit too to let the other folks have their say...enjoying how random and interesting all the posts are.

And I'm going on tour in four days and can't wait to leave town, so I feel you!  This thread has helped take the stress off for me, so thanks everybody...

I've learned quite a bit from this thread, very interesting.
Didn't comment before because I couldn't think of anything to say.
Be sure to vote on Dennis's petition on your way out!  :-D

Speaking of Pom Pom player... I hear (top to bottom) Brian, Al, Dennis, Mike in the harmony stack against Carl's lead. However, I wonder if there is one more voice in the harmony: there's a few five-note chords there (you can always omit one or two and the instruments are playing the chords anyway) and during Mike's line I think I hear four voices-- and assume Carl isn't switching as a lead/harmony singer. So probably the stack vocals were recorded including Carl and then his leads recorded separately? Does anybody else hear five parts?

Also, even though Carl sounds good in it, this seems to be a natural song for Mike. It's as if Brian (and Mike?) was determined to give Carl a lead to sing. Hear this:
http://youtu.be/B9fx81wKt-g

Since I can't read music, I guess I'll try asking again.

I looked at it briefly. Seem pretty good to me. Found a mistake or two. However it's uncomfortable to browse through my iphone cause I can only see individual parts ( .pdfs) and it takes more time than I have.

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Thanks, guys.  I appreciate your effort.

The point I was trying to make, wasn't that Carl had a bad voice, or that Dennis had a better voice at the time... I just think that subconscously Brian would rely or lean on Dennis more than Carl because he was older.  Your observation that Dennis had leads before Carl did I think kind of supports that.

If the story with Audree begging Brian to include Dennis is true, that still could fit into my theory; once Dennis was in the group, Brian would still have relied on him more than his younger brother or gave him more respect than his younger brother when it came to business or something important that needed to be done.. which ultimately became the relative prominence in which he was placed in the harmony stack.   

Just a theory, could be completely wrong, i'm just making the point that since it's family, you have all kinds of dynamics going on between all the individuals, on top of the usual dynamics between friends, business aquaintences, and band members.  Yet another layer complicating things psychologically.

I think that's an interesting theory, and certainly plausible.  I once saw Michael Jackson talking about something similar, when he was a kid, his dad would beat his brothers, and say "Why can't you dance like Michael?" which made him want to underperform and not be as good as he was. 

Slightly different in Carl's situation and Murray of course was no Joe Jackson, but again : psychological sh*t involved i'm sure.

BTW, for my third post, I'd just like to say that I think it's remarkable how similar all their voices could be at times.  There are songs that to this day, I literally cannot pick out who's singing what.  In something like "All I Wanna Do"... that could be Mike singing lead, it could be Al... Bruce could probably sound like that... I'm still not sure who's siging each verse on Sloop John B, it could be Brian, or Carl, in each verse.  Even Dennis' vocal on "Do You Wanna Dance"... we all know it's him, but he sounds like Brian, he sounds like Carl, and even Al sounds like that a little bit. 

There's absolutely NEVER been a band with vocal talent that deep.  Bruce was a fantastic singer, and he didn't do sh*t!  They never even used him, and his voice was better than almost anybody in any other band!  Even the mighty Temptations fall at the feet of the Beach Boys.  The band was so fantastic, we're actually saying, with a straight face, that Carl was insecure in the way his voice sounded.  That's remarkably ridiculous, but the rest of the band was so great that it's comprehensible that he felt that way.  Mike was one of the most famous leads in the world, but got kind of 'backseated' in his own band since everybody else sounded so fucking great.  It's just amazing that they had no formal training, but yet all sounded so great. 

The comparison always comes to the Beatles, but even if you wanted to stretch and say John and Paul had great voices, nobody would ever say George or Ringo had great voices.  I mean I love them to death, but it's just not NORMAL for a band to have 4, or 5, or 6 great vocalists in it, but yet the Beach Boys did.  The weakest guy had a voice good enough to be the lead singer in the Beach Boys. 

I'm reviving this thread from a while ago, because there were differing opinions on the parts that Dennis and Carl sang on "In My Room". I've examined the vocal transcripts from the "OK Everybody, Sing Beach Boys!" website, and they're pretty interesting...

So according to these transcripts, Brian (singing the "high" part) starts the song on B in the first bar, then climbs to a starting note of D# in the second bar while Carl (singing what's described as the "baritone" part) enters a third below him, on a harmony identical to Brian's previous melodic line (in other words, starting on B). In the third bar, Dennis (singing the "tenor" part) takes over fom Brian on the D# line, while Brian climbs up to a high F# and Carl remains on B.

For the second and third verses, Carl sings a lower line in the first two bars, starting on E in the first bar (which makes sense, as it's the lowest part, a third down from Dennis's F#), but interestingly in these verses Carl doesn't climb up to to the B-based line in the second bar (like he did when he entered on bar two in the first verse); instead, Dennis sings that line now, while Carl continues to sing a third below him (starting on F#). In the third bar, Dennis climbs to the D# like he did when entering in verse one, while Carl takes over the B line, just as he remained on it in bar three of verse one.

So, in other words, Dennis is singing the second-highest part (below Brian) and Carl the third highest part (below Dennis). When performing the song live in the '70s, they switched parts (Dennis entering in the second bar, Carl in the third, with Al either singing lead or doubling Dennis's loosely-sung part when Brian or Bruce sang the lead).

Thoughts on the accuracy of this?

This continues to be a most interesting thread...and I'd still like to see Adam or one of our other top-notch musician/analysts do whatever amount of cross-era comparison in vocal arrangements that they can fit into their schedules. For me it would be interesting to know how the vocal arrangements changed (or didn't) based on the changing involvement of BW in the production process.

For example: Fun, Fun, Fun vs. Til I Die. Or: When I Grow Up vs. Marcella. Or: Please Let Me Wonder vs. All This Is That.

Or, whatever comparisons seem instructive and useful.

this discussion I think clearly shows how songs like 'surfer girl' and 'in my room' seem
simple and easy on the ears....
are actually complex arrangements......and we all hear different things when comparing of 'who sang what'
and which notes overlap etc etc....

it would be great for one of boys to chime in, like 'foskett' or 'sahanaja'.....

im sure they would throw a different light on those sort of things also....... considering 'foskett' toured with the original Beach Boys...

RickB

Jeff recorded a version of "The Warmth Of The Sun" which was preafced by him singing the individual parts for the BBC's Record Producers program in 2008 (sadly no longer available online):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dhg79 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dhg79)

I'm not sure what you mean. I'm reading the .pdf file and the second part (Carl's) is always above the third (Dennis').

I've been on tour for the last six weeks, but C-Man sent me some interesting stuff to analyze that I still hope to get to between session work.  It's really interesting stuff!

Just a few random thoughts about the above:

It's my only semi-informed impression that after Brian "leaves" the band, Bruce then becomes the master vocal arranger in the group.  Now what I mean by that is not that Bruce did all the vocal arrangements, but he becomes the guy with the most chops to do it.  We have it on good authority that all the guys were so adept at harmony that they could just get around a mic and make something great happen, but that's not the same as sitting down and doing an ear chart (or a real chart) arrangement....an example of that would be the vocal breakdown in "Disney Girls", which doesn't sound improvised, but carefully planned out.  And very likely by Bruce.  Note that Bruce became a go-to session guy for soundalike Beach Boys vocals after he left the band, singing on quite a few records, contracting the singers, and arranging the vocals.

So what I note is that after Brian starts to fade out, you get more counterpoint vocal (the kind of thing where everyone gets around a mic and wings it, beautifully), and when Bruce is gone, you get a LOT of counterpoint vocals.  CARL & THE PASSIONS and HOLLAND have a lot more to do with interweaving individual parts than with group vocals, and I think that's partly the expanded memebership of the band and partly to do with there being no one (besides Brian) who really could sit down and arrange a vocal stack.

On the record, Carl's is the second voice to enter (after Brian's) and Dennis' is the third voice to enter. Carl enters in the second bar - that part is labeled as "Baritone" in the PDF and, once all three voices are singing, is the lowest of the three. Looking at the Vocal Score PDF, it's the bottom of the three, even though it enters second, not third. Dennis enters in the third bar - that part is labeled as "Tenor" in the PDF, and is the middle of the three voices in the Vocal Score.

On the record, it is indeed Brian-Carl-Dennis. Dennis is always below Carl. The "everybody sings" website got that right in the "parts" pdf file (the last one in the list) where all voices are written down. The individual parts are mis-labeled, as it should read "tenor" where it reads "baritone". IMO

Dr. Lenny, you wrote: <<On the record, it is indeed Brian-Carl-Dennis. Dennis is always below Carl. The "everybody sings" website got that right in the "parts" pdf file (the last one in the list) where all voices are written down. The individual parts are mis-labeled, as it should read "tenor" where it reads "baritone". IMO>>

But in their transcirpts (both the combined parts Vocal Score and the individual parts PDFs), the part that enteres in the SECOND bar (Carl) is LOWER than than the part that enters in the THIRD bar (Dennis). If you compare all the parts in the third bar, and look at the one that entered in the third bar. See what I mean? Their labeling the Carl part "Baritone" and the Dennis part "Tenor" makes sense (sort of) in this context, in that tenor is higher than baritone (even though they're both really tenor parts IMO). It would have been better for them to label them 1st Tenor and 2nd Tenor.

C-man, gotcha. You're right. The part that enters second stays lower than the one that enters third. And if the second part is Carl and the third part is Dennis, the Dennis would be above Carl throughout.

That's a mistake, as far as I know. There's a few minor ones in the Surfer Girl transcript. The part that enters second, in the recording, is Carl. And he stays above the third part (Dennis) throughout.

This footage and audio illustrates it
http://youtu.be/bV-dWhYklqE

Interesting that in this video (new vocals over a new instrumental track) Al seems to be doubling Dennis when he enteres in the intro, and all five sing the bridge in unison (whereas on the record it seems to be just the Wilsons for the first five bars of the bridge, then Mike joins on the sixth bar).

So if Dennis' recorded part was lower than Carl's, I wonder why the two of them switched entrance points when performing it live in the late '70s and early '80s?

Can you post a link to such live version?

Thanks, Adam, interesting food for thought there. Could it also be the fact that there was a shift in Brian's songwriting style which began to strongly favor what we might call a "tag" (which Carl himself alludes to in one of the mid-70s interviews: "We're big tag fans") which are would seem to be more conducive to the interweaving approach as opposed to the "vocal stack" approach? Counterpoint substitute for "fatter" harmonic chording? What's the first example of the "counterpoint" approach--can we trace it back further than the overlapping vocal lines in something like "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times"??

<<What's the first example of the "counterpoint" approach--can we trace it back further than the overlapping vocal lines in something like "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times"??>>

How about the overlapping vocal lines in "Catch A Wave"? That's a pretty early example of things to come...

Counterpoint is nothing more than embellished 2-part harmony in the traditional sense, with specific "rules" and things like contrary motion between voices and avoiding parallel 4ths and 5ths and all of that. But I'm getting too literal there with the definition.

If you're writing counterpoint, you still need to imply the harmony to form a chord, otherwise you won't be able to convey the sound of one chord to the next.

Countermelodies are, I think, what is being suggested on this page.

I consider it the difference between Dixieland and Duke Ellington. They're both ensemble playing, but one is more specifically arranged based on harmony, lines, and motion, and the other is more of a free-form type of layering where multiple voices are riffing and blowing lines in the same key that combine to create harmony.

Brian's arrangements in the 60's were the Ellington...after Brian left and Bruce wasn't there to arrange, I do think there was more of a Dixieland catch-all approach, less formatted and more by-chance as each voice added something while not necessarily paying attention to voice leading and motion as much as when Brian dealt out the parts.

Good post.  I hadn't been aware of the distinction between countermelody and counterpoint.  (And I am still baffled by the distinction between head voice and falsetto even though I apparently frequently use both)

A classic example of a countermelody versus counterpoint from peers of the Beach Boys would be the song "You've Got Your Troubles, I've Got Mine" by The Fortunes. There is that part where two different melodies and lyrics happen at the same time, and they're both in the same key so when the notes do intersect they create almost an "accidental harmony" that's in key, but it's not really a traditional counterpoint which is more structured and planned out. There's also "She's Leaving Home" where John answers Paul's high vocal with lines like "what did we do that was wrong", more of a countermelody than counterpoint even though it gets called counterpoint (and it's not even wrong in a literal sense to call it that).

But the point made last page about the change in arranging style when Brian wasn't there is one of the best I've read on the topic on this board or elsewhere, it really is/was a change in the Boys' vocal arrangements that can be heard on the records. Same with Bruce, who was like Brian a skilled technical type of arranger. That was an amazing observation I never really paid attention to until this discussion. They all sound like "Beach Boys" vocals in the end, but the 60's Brian-led material does have a more specifically arranged vibe than some of the 70's and beyond tracks. 

Right. It's a countermelody or overlapping, alternating vocal lines that we're talking about, as opposed to writing in harmony (which can obviously be very formulaic or very complex, but usually one or the other).

No question that "Catch a Wave" is a primitive example of countermelody (riffing off the main vocal line), but "Callifornia Girls" might be the first genuine "tag," when a full-blown marriage of arranged voices take "one more step" in elaborating and heightening the chorus. Brian became much more ambitious as a structural songwriter in '65, something that probably reaches its peak of complexity in the "Grand Coulee Dam" section of "Cabinessence"--and even though he "stepped back" after Smile, he wasn't done creating "countermelodic clusters": you can hear 'em in "All I Wanna Do," "Til I Die," the augmented middle-eight that serves as the tag for "Mess of Help," and taken to what is the breaking point in "Funky Pretty." Many of Dennis' songs in this period receive similar treatment ("Slip On Through," "Forever"). It's still around in certain songs from the 15BO-Love You era: "It's OK" and "I'll Bet He's Nice" have more modest tags that work in a similar way.

I'm sure I'm overlooking a number of others, too.

Seems to me that Brian evolved from stacking vocals and harmonies to sequencing and overlaying countermelodies. Occasionally, he'd do both ("GV").

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Another early one where Carl seemingly sings the second-highest part: "Cary Crazy Cutie". In the intro, it's Mike, then Dennis, then seemingly Carl, then Brian, and each is higher than the one before it ('cept maybe for Brian's, which is the lead, and therefore sings a different melody than the backup singers).

While we're on the subject of the LDC album (an LP which gets WAY too little attention in the BBs fan world, IMO - I'm sure b/c four of the twelve cuts are retreads - but the eight new ones are mostly all outasight!): as Adam has pointed out way earlier on this thread, on a lot of the earlier songs, you can hear Dennis prominently in the mix, even way more than Al after the point when Al rejoined the band, and that's certainly the case on most of the new LDC songs, including "Car Crazy Cutie". BUT, on one of them, "Spirit Of America", I hear way more of Al than I do Dennis....listen, and see what you think.

Another anomaly I noticed on this album (vocal-related, so thus appropriate for this thread IMO): most of these cuts are mixed with the instrumental track in the center and the two vocal tracks panned to the left and right...BUT, there's one exception, and that's "No-Go Showboat", where the vocals are centered and there's two instrumental tracks, mixed in a left-right stereo spread! Bizarre, considering all these cuts were likely mixed down on the same day, or within two days maximum! Wonder what happened there? I can't really say for sure that the vocals were doubled, since they're mixed in mono, but I think so...maybe someone else can opine on that? If they're single-tracked, it could mean that they either ran out of time and didn't do a reduction-mix transfer to dub the two instrumental tracks down into one on a second tape, so that they could double the vocals on the open track, or they did, but something happened to that second-generation tape (lost or ruined) and they had no time to replace it; documentation indicates these eight new songs were done in an incredibly speedy fashion. The vocals on "A Young Man Is Gone" are also in mono, but there's no instrumental track on that one, since it's a cappella. Also, regarding "No-Go Showboat", I hear a voice in the backgrounds that I can't quite place...it's decidedly un-Wilson-y; listen to the line "Black-wall slicks with racing mags / is just for looks man, not for drags" (or whatever it is), especially the "not for drags" part, and see what you think. Maybe it's Al singing falsetto, or maybe it's Rich Petereson of The Survivors, since he claims to have written the lyrics for this song. Again, opinions welcome!

c-man: Who mixed "Showboat" in stereo? Was this a case of Capitol mixing after the fact, like Dave Dexter's Beatles stereo mixes? Not only does that suggest the thought the Brian "always" mixed his 60's records in mono isn't the case if Brian and Chuck ( ? ) did the stereo mix, but it would also open up the possibility that lines up with most teen-pop 60's mixing in general, where the mono was given the most attention for obvious reasons of radio airplay and such, and then engineers often without the artists or producers being there would do stereo mixes after the fact...and take their own initiative on how things were done.

That was the case even up to Sgt. Pepper, the difference there being Martin and Emerick gave specific orders to EMI and Capitol not to remix or even change the EQ during mastering on any part of the master mixes they had delivered.

1963 stereo mixing in pop was more of a Wild West scene, where stereo mixes were left to the whims of whatever staff member got assigned to do a stereo mix of what was designed as a mono mix.

So...who mixed Showboat in stereo? Maybe it was just a case of flipping the template (vocal panning versus instrumental panning) as an experiment to see how it came out.

My understanding is Chuck did the stereo mixes. That's about all I know. I just find it odd that, of those eight tracks that were rush-recorded and rush-mixed for a rush-release, all of them were mixed according to the "vocals left / music track center / vocals right" template, except for "No-Go Showboat", and the a capella tune (which was left in mono).

As well as being glad in the 'Beck' thread that we have people like Ray Lawlor and AGD on here to add their insight, i also want to say i'm glad we have people like guitarfool2002, c-man, adamghost to contribute to threads like this. You guys are the reason i keep reading. The records are 50 years old now in some cases, but i'm still finding new reasons to listen to them afresh thanks to you.

:)

Dave maybe?

Sounds like Al to me.
Btw, I was listening to the intro to CCCutie and thought that the intro to Pamela Jean was arranged in a different way... While on Cutie each new voice enters on a higher pitch, on Jean it is the previous voice that goes up a la In my Room.

Every now and then I have to go through the BBs' discography to warm up for some Beach Boys tribute show or other, and on the last pass, without doing really intensive listening, I thought I noticed more cases where Carl was above Dennis.  But the real shocker was a close listen to "409" -- which has one of the most egregiously flat (at least 'til the '70s) Beach Boys performances with Dennis in the middle harmony.  Except on this most recent listen I realized it may not be Dennis.  It sure sounds like him -- when it's flat.  But listening more closely to the track, the bottom harmony (of the triad) sounds like him too, and the bottom doesn't sound like Carl at all.  Whereas the middle harmony kinda does have Carl's little twang to it.

It's hard to tell since they were so young, and it's much more in Dennis' wheelhouse to sing flat than Carl's, but -- everyone have a listen to that one and see what they think.  I can't swear to it and I know it's counter to prevailing wisdom.  But I'm curious if it strikes anyone else the same way on another listen.

ok, so if I understand this all completely...... would that mean the chorus of 'don't worry baby' is a counterpoint melody?

as there is Brian on lead, The Boys on a different melody, and Mike doing his own part?

RickB

Gary Usher reportedly sings on this - so I'd guess he's either doubling Dennis or Carl.

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I've long noticed the  weird high voice on some of the cuts on the Little Deuce Coupe album. Off the top of my head there's one on Showboat, Spirit of America, and Betsy. I think it might actually be Mike doing a 'falsetto'... On that note, I swear the official BBs website once listed "secret falsetto" in Mike's credits... I totally forget when and cannot verify if this is true.

If you hear "two of Dennis", I'd say one of the "flatter" voices is Usher doubling Carl, and the other is Dennis.

I think it's Dennis singing the third of the chord, as it's the same voice as "Little Miss America". Brian sings the fifth, and a voice I cannot identify (Carl?) sings the root. In the verse "Ten Little Indians" I hear Brian on top, Carl (?) right below, and then Dennis. So the order of the stack is different here. "County Fair" I can't figure out.

Maybe is Usher on the bottom harmony, and Carl's not on there at all.  I really don't hear a double...and I don't really hear Carl.  But then again, I haven't gotten the headphones out, so I could be all wet on this.

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I'm pretty sure I can hear Usher on "County Fair".

That sounds right! I'd go beyond that and say there is little or no traditional counterpoint on most if not all of the Beach Boys' songs.

I have literally been busting my brain trying to think of one example...and I think there is one obvious time where Brian deliberately wrote a Bach-style traditional counterpoint passage in his music.

The earliest version of Wonderful, the Smile version with the harpsichord and brass arrangement. Go to the 1993 box set for the even more stripped down version, and check out the passage I'm thinking of.

It's the line with the lyric "farther down...", where Brian sings an ascending melody and another voice descends.

It has all the hallmarks of what a music theory student like Brian would have been assigned to write in the classroom studying theory, especially the contrary motion of the two voices (one ascends, one descends), the trade-offs where the counter voice answers the lead's quarter notes with ornamental eighth notes, and the avoidance of parallel 4ths or 5ths so it doesn't sound like Gregorian chant.

I'll say "Wonderful" - the earliest Smile version - may be the best (or only) example of Brian writing traditional counterpoint in the vocal arrangement "by the rules", or in the traditional Bach style.

And that could be why Brian plays the song on an instrument associated with Bach and his period of music - the harpsichord!

Thoughts?

Mike sings a bit of falsetto on Sunflower's "All I Wanna Do". He also sings pretty darn high on the chorus of "Please Let Me Wonder" ("...if I've been the one").

Can't be him doing falsetto on "Betsy", though, since he's singing a bass part behind it. And it sounds very feminine to my ears. Maybe it's Darlene Love! :)

Speaking of that early "Wonderful" version...C-man, have I been wrong for a few decades of enjoying that track to think that's Bruce singing the descending wordless melody counterpoint part? I've never asked that!

The SMiLE version? Yeah, that's Bruce, supported by the others on the yodeling bit.

YES! I've been wondering this as well, thanks guitarfool and c-man! Bruce was Brian's go-to voice when he needs a different, non-Wilson (or Al "Wilson" Jardine) texture, and he seems to reprise this Cali. Girls, GOK role regularly on the Smile stuff-- at least, I think that's him I keep hearing in front of the rest of the vocal stack.

The Wonderful counterpoint was one of my strong suspicions, and many of the different H&V chants/"Gee" variations seem to have something similar going on. But I'm never quite sure... Are there some points where Dennis does those "Ba-ba ba, ba, ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba"s?

I fear I will spend the rest of my life trying to decode these vocal arrangements... Just being able to readily identify each band member in the stack has been torturing me for three years, and I have a looooooong way to go yet.

<<Are there some points where Dennis does those "Ba-ba ba, ba, ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba"s?>.

Probably, since Bruce dropped out of the "SMiLE" sessions sometime around March or April (I'd have to look at the sessionography again to know for sure when).

Really?  Now that's extraordinary.  Do we know more about this?

Bruce was acting with shocking autonomy in mid-'67 for a guy whose position in the band was what it was.  He's not on SMILEY SMILE in any real way, and declined to go to Hawaii.  IIRC he also went to Europe to hawk some of his tunes, though I could be mixing that up with something else.

Seems like Bruce came VERY close to being out of the band in the summer of 1967.

He was uncomfortable with the "pharmaceuticals". Same reason he was absent from the "Smiley Smile" sessions and "Lei'd In Hawaii". As he told Brad Elliott in '81, that was the Beach Boys' "drug era", and it was not his scene. He did fly to London to promote the "H&V" single, like he did with "Pet Sounds" the year before.

Back to the subject of Mike's "secret falsetto", listening to Smiley Smile today I picked up on what I think was a Mike  falsetto on She's Going Bald, the "upside your heeeaaad" bit (doubling Brian). Thoughts?

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I'm resurrecting this thread after almost a year of dormancy, as I still find it uber-fascinating. Particularly in regards to songs where it kinda sounds like Al and Dennis are both singing at different spots, but we know it's only four parts, with Brian, Carl and Mike all unquestionably present. One solution that I've hinted at: Brian had Al doubling Dennis, as Al's voice was steadier and he was better with pitch. And maybe one or the other came through a bit stronger at certain points, hence the confusion as to which of them it was. I believe that was definitely the case some of the time, but maybe not all of the time. Which brings me to my current question: what is everyone's opinion on the following songs: Al, Dennis, or maybe both?:

CATCH A WAVE
OUR CAR CLUB
SURFERS RULE
BE TRUE TO YOUR SCHOOL
BALLAD OF OLE' BETSY
LITTLE SAINT NICK

What, no takers? As an added incentive - it'll help me get the MIC Online Sessionography done faster!

 :lol Hey c-man; I was going to respond, but I thought "better not distract him from getting the MIC gear out".

Here are my quick notes, hopefully to encourage brighter sparks than I to chime in.  I sourced the '01 twofers, some UM session tracks and the Singles box for L'il Nick:

CATCH A WAVE - is this the one that kicked off your theory? Denny and Al certainly do pop in and out, although I don't know if they're intentionally doubling.  I hear Al prominently on the "On Top" lines (not the stack), singing closer to Brian than Dennis.

OUR CAR CLUB - I hear Al "Wipe out, the other clubs" (left channel) and Al second from top in the stack, but don't get the feeling their was any doubling goin' on

SURFERS RULE - Is Al even on this track?  I hear the other guys, but Al is either blended incredibly well or not there, IMO of course.

BE TRUE TO YOUR SCHOOL - I hear very little of Denny on this one, although there are a couple of low ahhs that sound like him.  This makes me think Denny was partnered with Carl, and Al was working with Brian, particularly going up on the sis-boom bahs, while Dennis/Carl types were going down (the musical scale).  Is that Mike who keeps bumping the mic?  I also listened to the single version, but the original bv's are bounced down and rendered quite soupy, so no clues there.

BALLAD OF OLE' BETSY - the opposite of SURFERS RULE, I struggle to hear Denny on the bulk of this one, although I can hear him over the the right in the "Betsy was a lady..." refrain or whatever it that bit is.  Brian have a cold coming on?

LITTLE SAINT NICK - again, there are some bits I think are Dennis, but they could be Carl, or even Mike (ie, low during first 3 run run Reindeer bits, with Mike obviously on the last r-r-r.

Hope that doesn't blow the schedule for ya - A

Thanks, Alan. Appreciate the time and perspective!

Craig, I'm on tour in Europe right now, but I will try to make some time when I get back to lend an ear if it is helpful.

Always appreciated, Adam! Sorry for the epic fail in Coppenhagen, but hey - you tried!

Incidentally, Adam, now that you're (hopefully) off the road for awhile...might you have time to take a go at the above?  :)

Yeah, think so - I'm in R 'n' R mode right now, might have a go.  My best headphones are shot though, sadly.  I have to get them replaced.  But I have some decent backups.

OK C-Man...giving it a go.

CATCH A WAVE - You know, I would buy this.  It really does sound like a Dennis/Al hybrid on the top of the stack (meaning the part below Brian).  Almost like one sang the mono, and the other sang the double.

OUR CAR CLUB - OK, I'm not sure what's going on here, but I'm not so sure it's Al second from the top on the verses; it sounds more like Carl to me, though that part is a bit buried.  What I think happens is that on the turnarounds ("we'll get the finest cars") it expands to a five part harmony, and that's where I hear Al, sounding almost like an overdub (not to say that it was, but more like a lead line over backing vocal part in terms of the movement).  I don't think they're doubling each other, but it definitely sounds like the harmony expands there and Al comes in at that point.

SURFERS RULE - Yeah, I hear what you're hearing.  It does sound like that there's more than one person doubling the bottom of the triad (in fact, it kind of buries the middle harmony, which is a problem when you do this kind of thing - putting more than one person on a part can blow the balance).  And it does indeed sound like Al and Dennis.  (Though the middle harmony is so indistinct I couldn't verify whether it's Carl or my mom or even present).

BE TRUE - Which one are we talking about?  I'm guessing the album version, because that does sound a lot sloppier with the same kind of imbalance on "Surfer's Rule" (the single is a lot tighter vocally as well as instrumentally).  Again, the middle harmony is almost non-existent (I most notice it at 1:16 because it enters late).  It doesn't sound like Dennis-Al doubling to me though.  It actually sounds from bottom to top like Dennis-Carl-and then Brian and Al doubling the top vocal, with Brian breaking off at the end to do the falsetto.  Definitely sounds like five parts at the end to me.  Now as I listen to the beginning, something weird is happening there.  It sounds like Dennis goes down, with the rest of the vocals going up.  So it may be at the top Dennis and Al are there on the same first note, and then they split on the second note (Dennis down, Al up).  So my best guess is all five of them are there, and Al is floating around doubling various people until the end.

LITTLE SAINT NICK - Wow, Carl unusually loud on this one for an early track!  That's helpful (can barely hear him on the other ones).  

OK, I'm not 100% sure Al is on this one.  It definitely it sounds like he's there, but it might be an auditory illusion.  If he is on this one, I think what's happening is he's doubling Carl, then Dennis (who's below Carl), in succession, on the verses - it would be a pedal tone in both cases, so it would make sense - it would be a really easy part to fly in and reinforce.  At the top and the end, it also sounds like he's there.  What I think may be happening is the other guys are moving, and Al is being given a pedal tone (e.g. staying on the same note, or close to it) part, that is technically doubling this or that harmony as it is moving but is adding thickness and tension by staying static through the movement.

BETSY - OK, this one is peculiar because who in the dickens is on top during the verses?  It doesn't sound like anyone in the group - in fact it sounds to me like a female singer.  Was Marilyn singing with them at this point?  It sounds like her.  Sounds like the same person holding the top note at the end - that ain't Brian.  You can hear Brian and the maybe-Marilyn doubling briefly on the same note at 2:05 ("groWING...")

At that same spot I do believe I hear Al clearly.  He's (interestingly) second from bottom, and the double is loose, but it sounds like a timing error and not because there's a second person on the part.

The only place we can hear the vocals clearly is at the end, and here's what I'm hearing:
top (pedal tone) - maybeMarilyn
top descending (faint) - Brian
next harmony down - almost inaudible.  No idea.  I can hear this singer on the previous "growing" part OK, but I can't ID them.
next harmony down - Al (also sounds slightly like Carl, but more like Al, and this would follow logically from the previous harmony)
bottom - Mike

So this one's real interesting, because I'm hearing Al, Mike, Brian, what sounds like a female singer, and someone on the second to top harmony I can't positively identify as Dennis or Carl.  It definitely sounds like Dennis is in there at 1:22.  Is it possible Carl is absent here, hence the female ringer?  (Wait a minute, could it be Audree?  It actually does sound a little like her, come to think of it)

So anyway, C-Man, what I'm hearing is that rather than doubling any one person, Al may have originally been deployed as a guy to hold a pedal tone or simple part that cuts across a larger moving part.  So he'd technically be doubling someone else, but the effect would be to add complexity to the stack by not moving in tandem with the other guys.  So in other words, you might have Mike moving down, the Wilsons moving up, and Al kind of staying put.  It's a logical way to deploy him.  I don't mean it worked exactly that way, but listening to these tracks, it sounds like that may have been the basic concept.

Thanks, Adam - you're the best! And yes, it definitely sounds like Mare on "BOOB" (wow, just now realized the irony of that acronym!). I'll have to listen to it again to consider the possibility of it being Audree!

I also hear that high falsetto that's not Brian on "No-Go Showboat".  Could also be on other tracks from LDC.