Sea Of Holes
“Sea Of Holes” is another George Martin production for the “Yellow Submarine” album.
In Detail
- Released: January 17, 1969 (UK), January 13, 1969 (US)
- Recorded: October 22nd–23rd, 1968
- Studio: Abbey Road Studios, London
- Genre: Classical, orchestral
- Track Duration: 2:17
- Record Label: Apple
- Producer: George Martin
- Co-producers: John Burgess and Ron Richards
- Engineer: Geoff Emerick
Performers And Instruments
George Martin: conducting a 41-piece orchestra.
Obviously, none of the Beatles took part in the recording of this instrumental track. However, the track is important to the Yellow Submarine project.
Where To Find “Sea Of Holes”
You can still buy this track because it is on the following album:
You can only find George Martin’s incidental music on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album. They are not on the Yellow Submarine songtrack album. Indeed, that one contains music by The Beatles.
Sea Of Holes: Background
In essence, the entire score for the 1969 Yellow Submarine animated film came from George Martin. The “Sea Of Holes” was a part of that score, of course. Indeed, Martin made good use of the 41-piece orchestra he brought into the Abbey Road Studios on October 22nd and 23rd, 1968.
Through his wizardry, Martin experimented by playing a harp backwards, a technique also used with other instruments on “Sea of Monsters.” In this case, George Martin’s “incidental music” also had to fit the tempo of the film correctly.
“You plan whatever tempo your rhythm is going to be, and then you lay down what is called a ‘click track’. That is, a separate track which simply contains a click sound which appears every so many frames of film. You know that 35mm film runs at 24 frames per second, so knowing what tempo you want, you simply ask the film editor to put on a click at whatever interval you want.
Then, while conducting the orchestra, you wear headphones through which you can hear the clicks, and by keeping to that particular beat, you ‘lock in’ the orchestra to the film. In that way, you can write your score knowing that, even if something happens a third of the way or halfway through a bar, you can safely put in whatever musical effect you want with absolute certainty that it will match the picture…
That is how I did it with Yellow Submarine. I wrote very precisely, even with avant-garde and weird sounds like Sea Of Holes, keeping to their bar-lines, knowing that the click track would ensure it fitted.”
George Martin
All You Need Is Ears
Recording Studio
The Yellow Submarine album from early 1969 has some decent Beatles’ songs on side 1, of course. But the whole of Side 2 includes the instrumentals from the film of the same name. Over two days in October, Martin arranged and composed a 41-piece orchestra to which he added an array of other sounds.
Obviously, the instrumental music created by George Martin had to correspond with what was happening on the screen. The music score provided by Martin does just that with great effect.
As we pointed out on the “Sea Of Time” instrumental, both tracks are listed separately on the original UK album. However, in America, they would list both tracks as being one.
Take A Listen
Listen to the instrumental piece again, then leave us a comment below.