ABBA: Let the Music Speak : an Armchair Guide to the Musical Soundscape of the Swedish Supergroup
- ISBN-10
- 064649676X
- ISBN-13
- 9780646496764
- Series
- Abba
- Category
- Melodic analysis
- Pages
- 399
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2008
- Authors
- Christopher J. Patrick, John Nicholas Patrick
Description
More than 30 years after the stunning 1974 Eurovision Song Contest debut of the Swedish musical supergroup, ABBA's music remains a benchmark which continues to enthral millions of fans around the world - both on stage and screen as well as on vinyl and disc. In this equally stunning tour de force, Australian cellist and arranger Chris Patrick has combined his life-long passion for ABBA with his professional musical career skills to create this guide to ABBA's soundscape - the vocal and keyboard genius of Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn and Frida, and the precision audio engineering of Michael B Tretow and his team of arrangers - which continues to defy truly successful emulation to this day. With his lively and engaging writing style, Chris takes the reader on a personally-guided tour - to quote Foreword writer and ABBA biographer Carl Magnus Palm - "over the hills of joyful exuberance, through the valleys of melancholy and along the stretched-out roads of craftsmanship where their music was created." The 420 pages of the book are liberally sprinkled with hundreds of specially-created musical notation figures to illustrate the points Chris is making in his text, where sparkling descriptions of ABBA's different musical techniques join hands with some insightful - sometimes surprising - musical analysis and thought-provoking discussion. But the 'musically illiterate' among us need not worry - Chris pulls out all the stops in his professional skills case and encourages the lay reader along with much simpler note numbering and 'sol-fa' examples of ABBA's genius ¿ and if you understood where Julie Andrews was going when she sang "Let's start at the very beginning ¿" then you will be quite at ease in the pages of this book as well. At the chapter breaks, fresh visual delights excite the eye, with a selection of images from the covers of the hundreds of ABBA albums, discs and singles in Chris' own collection, each carefully chosen for position relative to the preceding or following chapter's topic. A comprehensive Glossary of musical terms used, a Selected Discography of the essential ABBA albums, and a detailed Index complete the book, but before we get to the end, there is almost another 'book-within-the-book' first - "The world of ABBA" timeline! Writing for a market which includes ABBA fans today who may not even have been born when Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn and Frida were at their height, Chris has provided a fascinating snapshot of the 1960s, 70s and 80s of 'what in the world' was happening at the time - for ABBA, for the music industry in general and its chart hits, as well as for world political and social events. No previous experience is necessary for readers of all types to enjoy the tour - this book has been carefully crafted to appeal to the interested general reader as well as to ABBA fans and serious musicians alike - and don't we all have an ABBA album somewhere which we would like to enjoy rediscovering? You will too, after you read this book!
