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The first chord in "Hard Day's Night" - SO COOL This is so FREAKING cool! If you have ever played this song on a guitar, you know EXACTLY what I mean.
[Edited 12/15/11 4:38am] | |
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indeed. here's the geek stuff from wiki
"A Hard Day's Night" is immediately identifiable before the vocals even begin, thanks to George Harrison's unmistakable Rickenbacker 360/12 12-string guitar's "mighty opening chord".[12] According to George Martin, "We knew it would open both the film and the soundtrack LP, so we wanted a particularly strong and effective beginning. The strident guitar chord was the perfect launch,"[10] having what Ian MacDonald calls, "a significance in Beatles lore matched only by the concluding E major of "A Day in the Life", the two opening and closing the group's middle period of peak creativity".[13] "That sound you just associate with those early 1960s Beatles records".[14]
Analysis of the chord has been the subject of considerable debate,[15] with it being described as G7add9sus4,[16] G7sus4,[17][18] or G11sus4[12] and others below. The exact chord is an Fadd9 confirmed by Harrison during an online chat on 15 February 2001:[19]
According to Walter Everett, the opening chord has an introductory dominant function because McCartney plays D in the bass; Harrison and Martin play F A C G in twelve string guitar and piano, over the bass D, giving the chord a mixture-coloured neighbour, F; two diatonic neighbours, A and C; plus an anticipation of the tonic, G — the major subtonic as played on guitar being a borrowed chord commonly used by The Beatles, first in "P.S. I Love You" (see mode mixture), and later in "Every Little Thing", "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Got to Get You into My Life" (in the latter two against a tonic pedal).[20] In contrast, Alan W. Pollack interprets the chord as a surrogate dominant (surrogate V, the dominant preparing or leading to the tonic chord), in G major the dominant being D, with the G being an anticipation that resolves in the G major chord that opens the verse. He also suggests it is a mixture of d minor, F major, and G major (missing the B).[21] Tony Bacon calls it a Dm7sus4 (D F G A C),[22] which is the minor seventh chord (plus the fourth, G). (For more information regarding chord functions see diatonic function.) Everett points out that the chord relates to The Beatles' interest in pandiatonic harmony.[23] Dominic Pedler has also provided an interpretation of the famous chord,[24] with The Beatles and George Martin playing the following:
This gives the notes: G-B-D-F-A-C (the B is a harmonic). One of the interesting things about this chord (as described by Pedler) is how McCartney's high bass note reverberates inside the soundbox of Lennon's acoustic guitar and begins to be picked up on Lennon's microphone or pick-up during the sounding of the chord. This gives the chord its special "wavy" and unstable quality. Pedler describes the effect as a "virtual pull-off".[19] Jason Brown, Professor for the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, whose research interests include graph theory, combinatorics, and combinatorial algorithms, announced in October 2004 that after six months of research he succeeded in analysing the opening chord by de-composing the sound into original frequencies using a mathematical technique known as the Fourier transform.[25] According to Brown, the Rickenbacker guitar wasn't the only instrument used. "It wasn't just George Harrison playing it and it wasn't just The Beatles playing on it... There was a piano in the mix." Specifically, he claims that Harrison was playing the following notes on his 12 string guitar: a2, a3, d3, d4, g3, g4, c4, and another c4; McCartney played a d3 on his bass; producer George Martin was playing d3, f3, d5, g5, and e6 on the piano, while Lennon played a loud c5 on his six-string guitar.[26] In November 2009, Wired published an article where Celemony's Melodyne Editor with Direct Note Access technology was used to analyse the opening chord.[27] A repeated arpeggio outlining the notes of the opening chord ends the song in a circular fashion, fading out with the sound of helicopter blades. This provides, "a sonic confirmation that the thirty-six hours we have just seen [in the movie] will go on and on and on".[16] The song contains 12 other chords.[12] Has anyone tried unplugging the United States and plugging it back in? | |
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I always opened it with a Dminor7th. I knew it wasn't just right, but it was as close as I could get.
Interesting that the wiki page doesn't mention the Dsus4 that Lennon was playing. To me, THAT is the genius chord in the mix.
In fact, I don't think anyone in that wiki analysis got it right. Maybe the right notes, but not the right instruments and chords.
Man, that is nothing but PURE GENIUS. | |
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That vid says a slightly different thing than that text. Vid says Lennon is playing a sus chord but in the text it says he's playing the same chord as Harrison. Music, sweet music, I wish I could caress and...kiss, kiss... | |
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