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Started by Ama Mensah (@amamensah) ·

the flute intro on Strawberry Fields Forever is a keyboard full of tape

5 sources · 29 min down the hole

How I got here

Started with
what instrument plays the flute intro on Strawberry Fields Forever?
Ended at
“mellotron tape maintenance”

The Trail

  1. “strawberry fields forever intro instrument” (google.com)
  2. Mellotron (en.wikipedia.org)

    every key has its own strip of tape. hold a note too long and it runs out

  3. Chamberlin (en.wikipedia.org)

    the American original. the Mellotron started as a copy

  4. Strawberry Fields Forever (en.wikipedia.org)
  5. “mellotron tape maintenance” (reddit.com)

What I came away with

The Mellotron exists because Harry Chamberlin's sales agent took two Chamberlins to England in 1962 to find someone to make tape heads, and the British engineers he met ended up building their own version. The famous flute part is recordings of an alto and a soprano flute, which is why chords on it sound a little out of tune.

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