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Topic: Origin of the Bell???, history lesson.< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
SentinelGard Offline




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Posted: Sep. 26 2004, 03:51

I was wondering today " What is the origin of the Tubularbell on the album covers ..  Did Mike come up with the idea ? or was it some else ? where there any variation of the bell before the final iamges?
Also why tubularbells ?? Did Mike just stuble on the idea ?


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TOBY Offline




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Posted: Sep. 26 2004, 05:44

I think the albums title was given after Mike had recorded the master of ceremonies section with Viv Stanshall though may stand to be corrected about that. Its working title was 'Opus 1' and Richard Branson wanted to call it 'Breakfast In Bed', somewhat rediculously.

As for the cover. Aparantly Mike came up with the twisted bell idea though Trevor Key was known for his photography of mettalic objects. If you ask me I think direct inspiration for the cover came from that Rene Magritte painting of the huge boulder hovering just above the waves, just like the TB image. According to Tom Newman the beach used in  the photograph is either at Eastbourne or Hastings on the South coast of England.
The famous twisted bell itself was aparantly about 20 inches in diameter and quite beautiful. Strangley it was later stolen from Trevor Key's studio.

There's been a lot of talk recently here about building your own 'twisted bell'. As I understand it the hugely difficult (though obviously not impossible) thing to to do is bending a tubular section of steel past 90 degree's to an acute angle without getting a kink in it. Find yourself a master tube bender.
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zebop
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Posted: Sep. 29 2004, 10:57

maybe, you had to see the following interview :

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetS....er.html


"
C.V. : It's a pretty sad story but things have to be said. A man called Mike Oldfield did steal my music - to be more precise, extracts from "Mekanik" and "La Dawotsin". When we recorded "Mekanik Kommandoh" in 1972, Oldfield was waiting for recording "Tubular bells", which is in fact an extract from my music. I played this music for him, without guessing that he would steal it for him. When I saw the film "The Exorcist", like a "good boy" I found its music fantastic. Of course it was : that was the music I used to play. I didn't make the relation between the two musics at once. But, one day one of Magma's member told me "Mike oldfield, he's the guy who was there when we composed Mekanik Kommandoh". In fact, he hasn't composed something else in the same vein because he had not the end of the music. Since this film, many film scores were composed that way - which is typically magma's one - and I couldn't play my music because I could have been accused of copying the others. That really drove me crazy. At this time, i had composed the following music of "Mekanik kommandoh" but, as I couldn't play it, I had to explore new harmonic realms, which were a little bit too complicated for my capacities - unless Mekanik - and that was "Kohntarkosz". "
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Tati The Sentinel Offline




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Posted: Sep. 29 2004, 15:52

This feature regarding Zeuhl's king Magma is very very *funny*.Prog rock fans who can't stand classic prog loves them a lot,really(at least in Brazil).

Mike composed TB aged 17 and some other parts during the recording,afaik.It can't be a control c control v on that.


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"But it's always the outsider, the black sheep, that becomes the blockbuster." - Mike Oldfield, 2014

"I remember feeling that I'd been judged unfairly and that I was going to prove them wrong." - Peter Davison, 2011
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Korgscrew Offline




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Posted: Oct. 01 2004, 10:45

We actually had a topic on that subject a few years back.

I rather doubt the truth of the story, but who knows...anyway, whether the music is original or not, the bell on the cover, which is the subject of discussion here, certainly was original (with the possible Magritte influence excepted)!

In fact, to add to what Toby said about Magritte (I think the painting he's thinking of is called Castle in the Pyrenees, if I remember rightly), another link is that Magritte often painted bells, albeit of the sleighbell kind (that is, spherical, with a slit in them). That could have possibly been a factor in Trevor Key's choice of inspiration (that is, if he consciously looked to Magritte for inspiration).
There's a bootleg (I think it's called Space Bells) which uses one of Magritte's bell paintings as the cover.
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: Oct. 01 2004, 17:33

As I've already stated elsewhere [see above :)], Magritte (which by the way is one of my favourite artists - I love surrealism) is definitely an influence: "The Castle in the Pyrenees" for the sea and the whole idea, and maybe this one for the 'bells in the air' concept, although they are Magritte's bells. ;)

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Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian
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Guimauve2 Offline




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Posted: Oct. 05 2004, 07:01

In Mike's biography, the one featured on this very site (Tubular.Net), it is said in the section labeled "1971-1973 The road to Tubular Bells" :

Quote
Obviously this was to put his faith in the work to the test. Having composed the hypnotic opening, the original motif (the theme that is repeated and developed in an artistic work), a vision of the ultimate success of the work never left him. If only he could get it recorded, released and promoted!


It is clearly said that he composed the main theme (well, the opening theme) before even meeting with Richard Branson and going the The Manor.

I don't see why he could have copied it!  This is just plain stupid!
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dM Flimp Offline




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Posted: July 21 2006, 12:33

i made one out of a PVC pipe

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Trinidad Offline




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Posted: July 25 2006, 06:56

I think I read that Mike couldn't get the right sound he wanted from the tubular bells, so he used a normal hammer, or something similar, to play'em. As a result, one of the tubes ended slightly bent. And they were hired, so it was a little mess!

Don't know where I read that, or if it's true.
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manintherain Offline




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Posted: July 25 2006, 08:24

The original idea for the cover to coincide with the title Breakfast In Bed was an egg with blood coming out of it. It was also produced by Trevor Key and later used for the Heaven´s Open album with the blood being replaced by doves.
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glasgow_tubular Offline




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Posted: July 25 2006, 18:36

Ah great thread will m make good reading for later. always wondered about the bell.  :)

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0+1(I1) Offline




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Posted: Sep. 13 2011, 13:41

I have just come across this section from an interview with Mike in which he states this [QUOTE; There are things hard to explain. The symbol of the bells is one of them. There were bells on the first album, but they could have been eggs. Originally, the first album name's was going to be "Breakfast in bed". The designer wanted to put a blooding egg on the cover. I said "don't put that, but bells".]
The interview can be read in full here:- http://tubular.net/article....history

Readers of this thread may also be interested in the topics in the following links:-
http://tubular.net/forums....y137772

Something I have been trying to identify is in which interview was it where Mike says the picture of the sea behind the bell on the cover of the original Tubular bells was taken at Brighton? (which is a town on the south coast of England) so can anyone point to exactly which interview he said this in? and if so would you be kind enough to supply this information to the forum both in this topic & the topic in the second link above regarding where the proposed sculpture/monument to Mike Oldfield's  BELL 4 or to him should be placed.

Readers of this topic may also like to read these topics:-
http://tubular.net/forums....;t=3591

http://tubular.net/forums....y137778


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Sweep Offline




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Posted: Oct. 01 2011, 16:31

I was reading Mike's Changeling again the other day, and he says his idea was an image of a bell broken into bits, but Trevor Key came up with the image of the bent bell instead, and Mike loved it.

Richard Branson's Breakfast in Bed title seems not to have been entirely serious, but a threat to make Mike come up with a proper title.  Though as mentioned, it did get as far as a cover design.

As Toby said, Opus 1 was the working title.  The Tubular Bells title came up because of the way the music built up to the introduction of the bells, plus the dramatic way Viv Stanshall introduced them.  It seemed to fit.  The tubular bells had been in the studio from a previous session (John Cale I think it was) and Mike liked them and decided to extend the hire period.

I've never heard the allegation about Tubular Bells and Magma's album before.  I heard both albums in the seventies and listened to them a lot, and I never noticed any similarity.  And as Guimauve2 pointed out, the opening of Tubular Bells had already been written before Mike went to the Manor.  Of course if he'd stolen it, he would claim it was already written by then, but I can't hear that in the Magma music at all, myself.

Re Trinidad's post, Mike's Changeling version is that he asked for a bigger hammer, then a bigger one still, and gave one of the bells a huge whack that put a dent in it.  But in addition the secret of the big sound is in the recording technique as well.


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Mirage Offline




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Posted: Oct. 21 2011, 17:52

Somebody mentioned the difficulty in creating your own tubular bell because of the extreme radius of the curve . Well here's the secret. Pack the tube full of sand, then bend it on a HEATED hydraulic tube bender. Like the ones used at muffler shop. (It warms the steel making it easier to bend, and because it's hydraulic, it will make a clean bend.) Empty the sand, wash it out if you have to. Then clean it real well and have it chromed. It worked for me about 20 years ago when I made one. No longer have it. One day I should make another.
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