The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Chord
I’m giving a talk at the British Science Festival on Saturday. Details are here.
To accompany it I’ve made a video on how mathematics can be used to analyze the opening chord of A Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles.
I’m giving a talk at the British Science Festival on Saturday. Details are here.
To accompany it I’ve made a video on how mathematics can be used to analyze the opening chord of A Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles.
Very nice! Well, I think you are very close – and possibly have all the notes and instruments. But if the bass end is turned down on some of the instruments, where is the bass coming from on the original? The big difference between your final rendition and the original is that yours lacks bass. Quite a lot of bass.
Thus I tend to think that there is some significant bass EQ added on the console when this was mixed. That would not affect your harmonic structure at higher frequencies, but it would allow the D2 to be more evident, and possibly subharmonics too. To get the D2 low enough in level so that the balance of higher harmonics is right, you’ve had to turn it down quite a lot.
Try putting some bass EQ on your version and see what you get. I don’t have the EQ capabilities of Abbey Road Studio 2’s console equaliser to hand, but it might be possible to find it.
Obviously the use of EQ is not going to be simple either as there will no doubt be some on the original instrument channels as well as on the mix.
Dear Richard,
Thanks for the comment. There is indeed a problem with the bass which is why I said in the video that if I were to try again then I would do a soft D2 and a D3. Possibly however I mixed the bass too low – the original sound was a bit louder. Also, the version we put together was done rather quickly because I wanted to get something ready for the talk I was giving at the British Science Festival yesterday. I’m sure someone with better equipment could do better.
Best wishes,
Kevin
Sounds pretty good to me. There’s a clip on YouTube of them playing it live and for the intro chord Harrison plays the F add 9 but Lennon plays what looks like this: G A D G C F which is closer to the G11 a lot of people have described the chord as. It adds the D that’s missing from Harrison’s chord. (He might mute the A – I’m not sure). This makes sense as it seems to me the complete chord on the record hovers between F add 9 and G11, which are the same chords give or take the odd D and A.
Dear Sean,
The game I was playing was to see if I could replicate the studio version of the chord using mathematics so although live footage may give clues I wasn’t using it. After all, even the Beatles didn’t try to perfectly recreate it live as they didn’t use a piano.
Having said that, I’d be interested in which clip you used as in all the ones I’ve seen it looks like a Fadd9. One with a low G and a D would be interesting to examine!
Kevin
Fadd9/D sounds good to me. Thanks,enjoyed that.. now I will get onto my 8 track and give it a go.
See if you can get the bass closer than mine!
Kevin
FYI, (in case you haven’t heard, and are interested) Randy Bachman (of “Guess Who” and “BTO” fame) revealed the “secret” of this chord which he obtained from the horse’s mouth (Giles Martin gave him access to the source Beatles archive tapes) to a live audience during an episode of his CBC radio program “Vinyl Tap” in December 2011.
Here is a website link which elaborates:
http://www.openculture.com/2011/12/guitarist_randy_bachman_demystifies_the_opening_chord_of_a_hard_days_night.html
Enjoy,
Andrew
Dear Andrew,
Thanks for the comment and link. I am indeed aware of Randy Bachman’s solution. Unfortunately I don’t think it is right as he seems to have the wrong notes. He claims he heard a G on the bottom but the analysis of the frequencies played does not show one.
I would love a chance to listen to the original tapes – as long as I could bring a frequency analyzer!
Kevin
It is seemingly a G9sus/D chord.
Harrison and Lennon play the top voices of the chord, i.e., F A C and (G). Martin and McCartney (D note) cover the basic Gsus triad, i.e., D G C (Martin using 4th intervals).
The chord is chord 1 built from the G mixolydian scale – g a b c d e f (and g).
Stack thirds on a G5 (Gsus) and . . . there you go – Gsus9!
N.B. As known, McCartney plays D – then goes to the tonic (G) when the verse starts.
So just a simple compound (‘slash’) chord. (That perhaps George Martin arranged for the recording.)