Someone just sent me this and I thought folks here might be interested....
What's the opening chord in "Hard Day's Night"?
It's sometimes called "the most famous chord in rock n' roll." I have wondered about this question for thirty-four years (all this time I'd been thinking it is an odd hybrid G7/9/13). Here is a history of thought (http://everything2.com/e2node/The%2520% ... %2520Grail) on the controversy, including a list of nominated chords.
It now turns out there is an answer.
(http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2008/11/bea ... rd-solved/)
A mathematician applied Fourier transforms to break the sound into its constituent parts. Here's the bottom line:
The Beatles producer [George Martin] added a piano chord that included an F note, impossible to play with the other notes on the guitar. The resulting chord was completely different than anything found in songbooks and scores for the song, which is one reason why Dr. Brown’s findings garnered international attention. He laughs that he may be the only mathematician ever to be published in Guitar Player magazine.
Here is a pdf (http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~brown/n-oct04-harddayjib.pdf) of the researcher's findings. I thank Eric H. for the pointer.
What's the opening chord in "Hard Day's Night"?
It's sometimes called "the most famous chord in rock n' roll." I have wondered about this question for thirty-four years (all this time I'd been thinking it is an odd hybrid G7/9/13). Here is a history of thought (http://everything2.com/e2node/The%2520% ... %2520Grail) on the controversy, including a list of nominated chords.
It now turns out there is an answer.
(http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2008/11/bea ... rd-solved/)
A mathematician applied Fourier transforms to break the sound into its constituent parts. Here's the bottom line:
The Beatles producer [George Martin] added a piano chord that included an F note, impossible to play with the other notes on the guitar. The resulting chord was completely different than anything found in songbooks and scores for the song, which is one reason why Dr. Brown’s findings garnered international attention. He laughs that he may be the only mathematician ever to be published in Guitar Player magazine.
Here is a pdf (http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~brown/n-oct04-harddayjib.pdf) of the researcher's findings. I thank Eric H. for the pointer.
Where are the feasts we were promised?
that's one hell of an OOPS! Hey it's fine if you don't like the Beatles, but to assert that they had no effect on anyone but pre-teens is laughable. This is the Beatles, not the Monkees. I love all those guitarists and use the 7#9 all the time, but none of them are anywhere near as famous as this song and it's never-before-or-since opening ensemble chord.
