Mason Williams - Classical Gas - ORIGINAL STEREO VERSION

This it ths ORIGINAL STEREO HIT VERSION of the #2 Billboard Hit instrumental classic from 1968, which up until now has been impossible to find on YouTube. Now you can finally forget about all those acoustic re-recordings and mono versions and hear the song in its correct, original form!

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[dogmanx88]

i was in a bar here in austin last week and a bum walked in off the street and got up on the piano and played this whole song with so much passion. it was kind of scary. by the time he finished and went to get up to leave,people were swarming him to take their dollar bills. he refused all of their monies and just left. that was the most gangster shit i ever seen in my life.

[OrchestrationOnline]

Wagner tubas at 1:12!

[7NTM61Ic]

And that's a "Picardi third" at the end.

[Scott Andrew Hutchins]

That's my favorite part. I was disappointed by their omission when he rerecorded this with Mannheim Steamroller.

[JeRec361]

Lisa!

[OrchestrationOnline]

One last - be aware that on 1960 and 70's tracks, the recordings may occasionally use weird instruments. The arrangers and composers back then were trying to experiment to evoke the most effective mood given the limited sound spectrum. Another example is the use of E-flat contrabass (aka "contra-alto") clarinet used in many action television cues, particularly Star Trek's original series. Of course those odd instruments would have to be rescored with regular orchestras and performance bands.

[OrchestrationOnline]

What's more, Melton did his homework. He talked to many many players and sound recordists in the biz. The use of Wagner tubas on the *recording* (not some live performance you might have seen) is also common knowledge in TV and film scoring - I actually heard about from other sources before reading it in his treatise (in which I'm also featured). Wagner tubas were used a lot because they sound fuller than trombones on small speakers, like 60's car radios or TV's.

[OrchestrationOnline]

Okay, so let me address this. If you saw a recording of a televised performance in which standard brass players were used, that does not contradict Melton's claim (nor my auditory recognition) of Wagner tubas being used in the studio recording. Naturally, if Mason were performing this with a standard orchestra, the parts would need to be scored for more accessible players, because Wagner tubas are very specialized instruments. These players were probably the L.A. horns, also on Rockford Files.

[OrchestrationOnline]

Search parameters please.

[Tom Matta]

Thanks, but no need for a treatise to recognize the instrumentation I described above. You can see the orchestra on another YouTube video of a TV broadcast. Plain as day, the instrumentation that I described. Have a great day, all the same!

[OrchestrationOnline]

Look up the William Melton treatise on Wagner tubas. He claims that those are W.t.'s. I trust him, because he's done his research. Also, I've worked extensively with those instruments, and that's what it sounds like to me as well.