Won't You Come Out to Play?

November 1, 2014 12:13 AM

Beatles Guitar Secrets
"My videos are really intended for accomplished guitarists who want to polish up their Beatles repertoire and can benefit from 'seeing' how a song is played. If the various chords that I am playing are not familiar to you then I would suggest that you visit some of the many free guitar chord sites. I had to learn these songs by listening to vinyl records and watching live performances on tv."

"A Hard Day's Night"

"Till There Was You"

"I Need You"

"Help!"

"She Loves You"

"I'll Follow the Sun"

posted by Atom Eyes (17 comments total)

Wow, thanks. I've been working on some early Beatles as part of my guitar learning. "Ticket To Ride", "No Reply", stuff like that. I don't personally care about learning those songs exactly as played - I'm about being trying to be able to play them at all, right now - but it's very cool to see someone's recreation of the real guitar parts.

The quality of Youtube guitar instructional videos is very high now, from amateurs and pros.
posted by thelonius at 1:25 AM on November 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

RIP George. Your genius was often overlooked, but it was never overshadowed.
posted by howfar at 1:28 AM on November 1, 2014 [5 favorites]

Pretty good, but Lennon's 12- string as heard on Help! was actually strung very differently from usual and this is detailed here.

There are errors in his I Saw Her Standing There solo which are correct here.

The standard is indeed high but the quest for TOTAL TOTAL Beatles accuracy never ends. The guys linked to here, Galeazzo Frudua and MJ Sokes (who is now sadly not posting any more) also brought a winning modesty to their videos.
posted by colie at 2:03 AM on November 1, 2014 [3 favorites]

In the off chance that someone interested in this thread has not seen it, I highly recommend this Beatles song/chord book .
posted by stinkfoot at 4:36 AM on November 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Beatles Complete Scores is another fantastic resource. I would pay double if it were printed at coffe-table book size.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:48 AM on November 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

The Complete Scores is a nightmare for its size and shape - I use it in conjunction with this.

The Fake Book gives you accurate chords and melody line and in this fold-flat ring bound edition every song fits on a single page, so you can actually use it while playing an instrument.
posted by colie at 6:20 AM on November 1, 2014

First chord of A Hard Day's Night

On the original Beatles studio track the solo was recorded with the master tape at ½ speed and an octave lower along with George Martin on piano

Is this considered to be settled now?
posted by Wolof at 6:30 AM on November 1, 2014

My reaction to this is: nah. I'll stick with the 5 chords I know and play all the rest of pop music instead, because at my best I'll probably barely achieve "Wait wait G8dm, ok now E#36 wait wait"
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:31 AM on November 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yep, the Beatles Fake Book is what I use after I've grabbed details from the Big White Book. Much easier to use for performances.

Wait wait G8dm, ok now E#36 wait wait

The guy who built my guitar calls them "twelve-dollar chords."
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:58 AM on November 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

The guy who built my guitar calls them "twelve-dollar chords."

That's how much you get paid at the gig when you play them more than once.
posted by Wolof at 7:22 AM on November 1, 2014 [4 favorites]

First chord of A Hard Day's Night...
Is this considered to be settled now?

maybe
posted by thelonius at 7:27 AM on November 1, 2014 [3 favorites]

The Beatles Complete Scores is another fantastic resource. I would pay double if it were printed at coffe-table book size.

I would too, this should be a Kickstarter. Not sure how it all works with royalties for publishing sheet music though?
posted by colie at 11:47 AM on November 1, 2014

We'd have to convince Hal Leonard Corp to do it.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:24 PM on November 1, 2014

re: $12 chords- a lot of times with non-jazz tunes I'll spend a week or so practicing it with whatever the chord chart they put at the top of the sheet that has you playing twister with your left hand and then find out that the original person just slapped two fingers somewhere in the middle of the fretboard. Either that or the whole thing was done with a capo or alternate tuning.
posted by mcrandello at 1:32 PM on November 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

I grew up listening to these so G's but knowing nothing about guitars. Now one of my kids is taking lessons and his teacher was just explaining (to me, after the lesson) these harder chords. The music and the players are more impressive to me now than "just three chords and some haircuts."
posted by wenestvedt at 2:01 PM on November 1, 2014

awesome resource, early Beatles only though.
posted by valdesm at 2:15 PM on November 1, 2014

That's actually what I found fascinating about them, valdesm. It's common knowledge that their late-era songs were baroque contraptions, but before seeing these videos, I never would have guessed just how much complex guitar stuff is going on in these (to my untrained ear) simple-sounding early songs. It gives me a new level of respect for these 20 year-old mop tops.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:09 AM on November 3, 2014 [1 favorite]