I am confused by the following comment made by Matt Thorne in the comments section to the Guardian article " The 20 best Prince songs you'never heard":

"I know of course that your father was responsible for the arrangement of Crystal Ball, but when I spoke to Brent he told me that though your father wrote and orchestrated the arrangement, he was responsible for "most of the percussion parts" on there, by which I think he meant playing the percussion parts."

I thought that was Prince on drums?

Maybe they meant orchestral percussion parts? I don't know what that would be exactly. But Prince played the drums and its the same drums and song core on the version that has no Claire Fischer stuff.

ufoclub said:

Maybe they meant orchestral percussion parts? I don't know what that would be exactly. But Prince played the drums and its the same drums and song core on the version that has no Claire Fischer stuff.

Yes, that could be it! For instance there's a lot of what sound like chimes/tubular bells in the Fisher arrangement, especially at the beginning of the song.