A Smile When I Shook His Hand

A Smile When I Shook His Hand (2004)
Full Score, 16pp
Reconstructed and edited by Paul Mann
2 Flutes, Acoustic Guitar, Bass Guitar,
Percussion, Strings
8 minutes

A Smile When I Shook His Hand (2004)
Piano score, 11pp
Reduction by Paul Mann

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Jon Lord’s note
I first met George at Apple Studios in Savile Row, London when I was about to start recording an album called The First of the Big Bands with Tony Ashton in, I think, the early seventies. The track we were doing was called We’re Gonna Make It.

The door opened and in walked ‘a very famous person’, come down from who knew what Olympian heights to check out what all the noise was about…. He wandered over and introduced himself, shook my hand, smiled that fab smile, chatted for a while, then re-ascended. Sometime in 1977 we were re-introduced, became friends, and remained so until his oh-so-untimely death.

He taught me a great deal about many things, and I miss his wise words as well as his marvellous and occasionally scurrilous humour. Not long before he became very ill, he took me on a walk around his wondrous garden and told me things.  This music is that walk.

Jon Lord, 2004

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Paul Mann’s note
“This music is that walk”… Hovering like a hazy summer memory over Jon’s musical reminiscence of his walk in George’s garden is one of Harrison‘s most famous songs, Here Comes The Sun, reputedly written in Eric Clapton‘s garden sometime in 1969.

Of all the scores Jon prepared for his Beyond The Notes album (2004), this was by far the most incompletely notated. In many places, only a single melodic line was shown. The present full score has therefore been reconstructed from the finished recording, and according to the few instructions the composer scattered throughout this outline score. There are still many places in the piano and guitar parts where improvisation on the written chord sequence is assumed.

The percussion parts on the recording were improvised by Mario Argandoña, using a wide variety of instruments such as Bamboo Rainstick (which is also used as a shaker), an Afro shaker, Chilean ‘spurs’, a small (8-inch) tambourine and, for the ‘groove’, a large Djembe. Since these instruments will not be available to all players, an indication of the percussion part is shown in the score so that the player may design the part based on the resources available. The original recording is a useful guide as to how it should sound.

The second flute part is added by the editor to fill out bars 164-169, and may be omitted if an extra player is unavailable. The solo flute part, of course, stems from the composer and is therefore obligatory.

Special thanks to Mario Argandoña for his help with percussion nomenclature in the preparation of this edition.

P.M. July 2015.