About two weeks ago, I learned the little guitar lick after the bridge in "Ticket to Ride," and I re-learned the recurring twelve-string phrase (which I think I used to know but forgot). I figured I should record it. One more song for the year and all that.
To me, it sounds like the studio version is in between Ab major and A major, so I used the live version from Anthology 2 as the template for my recording.
My recording is a bit rough, and I didn't actually play that little lick very well, but it's good enough to be recognizable. Initially, I'd assumed George Harrison played that lick (since he's the lead guitarist), but referencing the studio version, I found that the twelve-string part is panned right and that lick is panned left, so I think it's actually John Lennon playing it.
Last night I figured out some of the guitar parts for "Birthday" from The Beatles. I think the bass part plays the same thing (just an octave or two lower), but I haven't really lookt into that yet.
I doubled-tracked what I recorded, which I'm not sure is entirely accurate, but I thought it sounded better.
I happened to play through the bass part of "Help!" again to-day while looking at my notation, and I realized that I'd written a few notes in the wrong place (making them D notes instead of E notes), so I amended that and rescanned my notation:
I saved this post as a draft last week and then forgot about it.
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After figuring out the bass part for "From Me to You," I revisited the bass part for "Help!" In doing so, I discovered that they have the same rhythm for (most of) the verses. The later verses of "From Me to You" have a different rhythm, and there are a couple measures in the verses of "Help!" that have a different rhythm too.
Because of that similarity in rhythm, notating the bass part for "Help!" seemed like it would be pretty easy. While I was doing it, I discovered that (during the verse with the simpler arrangement) I had a few notes in the wrong octave in my recording from early January. I've found that notating things often reveals errors in what I'd been playing because it forces me to scrutinize my own playing.
Back in January, I referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook for the chords, but I found those needlessly complicated. I think they try to incorporate other elements of the arrangement into the guitar chords, rather than just providing what chords are actually played in the song. In any case, I wrote the chords above the staff roughly where they're played.
And, of course, there's the disclaimer that I might be wrong:
Last night, along with a few other parts not sizable enough to bother with, I learned most of the bass and guitar parts for "The Word." There's some variation in the bass part during the second verse, which I haven't figured out yet, so I just repeated the part from the first verse. This is only the first two verses.
I doubled-tracked the guitar part, which I'm not sure is accurate.
A couple days ago, I learned a little bit of the bass part for "Eight Days a Week." I had the introduction (which is just a string of D notes) and three arpeggiations during the verses. I started recording it yester-day, but then I thought I should work on getting a bit more (which I why I posted the notation for "From Me to You" instead).
In addition to getting the whole bass part, I referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook for the chords, and in doing that, I learned the opening and closing phrase on lead guitar. The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook says that the opening and closing chords on rhythm guitar are played on the 10th, 12th, and 15th frets, but I was extremely skeptical of this because the rhythm guitar is acoustic and it's difficult to play that high on acoustic guitar. It's not that hard on electric guitar though, so I discovered that those 10th, 12th, and 15th fret parts are actually the basis of the electric guitar part.
I'm not sure my electric guitar's intonation is right, so those high-fretted parts don't sound the greatest. I'm not sure of the accuracy of the rest of the electric guitar part either, but at least most of it is indeed staccato chords.
Haply, because of the fade-in, you can't tell that the three instruments I recorded over the original track don't all start at the same time.
In filing my recording on my computer, I discovered something that probably should have been obvious a long time ago: "Eight Days a Week" is the eighth track on Beatles for Sale.
I'm also doing this same sort of project with the Zombies (I've actually been doing that longer and - honestly - it's more of a priority than this project is). Earlier this year, I started posting chords and notation (and even tabs, occasionally) for Zombies songs, so I figured I might as well do that here too.
Like I mentioned yester-day, I wrote out the notation for the bass part for "From Me to You." At the bottom, I added the harmonica part too. As with all of my notation, there's the disclaimer that I might be wrong about this, but here it is:
I don't even remember how long ago, but earlier this year, I learned most of the bass part for "From Me to You." I don't think I had the bridges though. Recently, I lookt into it again, and I think I have it all now.
I learned the harmonica part too, but since I'm not very good at harmonica yet, I didn't include that. I did play it on guitar when the phrase is doubled on guitar though.
I even wrote out the notation for this, which I'll get around to posting at some point. I finished it only just before I recorded this (because I wanted to get the rhythms at the end right).
