Recently, I learned (or re-learned) some parts for "Piggies." While there are some spots where all I know is one instrument part, I still felt I had enough to make it worth recording. This is up until the bridge:
Along with electric bass, I used French harpsichord E and the Mellotron cello sound on my Nord Electro 5. I'd learned just the beginning phrase of the harpsichord part in November 2017, but I never wrote it down. I recently re-learned it and then got a bit more too. I noticed what is probably a trivial feature in the second phrase (at ~0:21):
The last four notes of the first measure have the same intervals as the third phrase of "Westminster Quarters."
This is probably just coincidental, but I thought I'd point it out all the same. (For what it's worth, Paul McCartney also quotes "Westminster Quarters" at the beginning of his "Let 'Em In.")
I listened to Magical Mystery Tour recently and then figured out the bass harmonica for a section of "The Fool on the Hill." To this, I could add the recorder part, which I learned back in April 2017. This is the second instance of this section; the first doesn't have a trill in the recorder part. I double-tracked the recorder, although I don't know if that's the case in the original recording. I don't have a bass harmonica, so instead I used the lower register of a Mellotron accordion sound.
I got a pair of claves for Christmas, and yester-day, I finally got around to updating my recording of "Tell Me What You See."
Since the last time I recorded this, I figured out that turning on the velocity filter on my Nord Electro 5D makes the Hohner Pianet sample sound a bit better. While recording this, I actually discovered a few notes I'd missed last time: at the end of the first two phrases, there's a B, and at the very end, there's a G in the bass register.
The parts sound a little bit out of sync for the first twelve seconds or so, but this is better than my last version.
Lately, I've been working on figuring out the bass part in "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." So far, I have the first two verses. I'd figured out the Moog part in the second verse back in November 2017, so now I have enough to make a recording worth it. I referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook for the piano part; I'm not sure that what I have is entirely accurate (because I didn't play anything in the bass register), but it fills out the sound, at least.
This is just the second verse:
I don't yet have a Moog (it's near the top of my list of instruments to get, but it'll still be a long time before I can afford one), but I did the best I could to get close to that sound. I used a square wave sample on my Nord Electro 5, and I turned on the velocity filter and tried to play softly to get a mellower sound. It's a bit uneven, but it's the best I could do.
Last month, I learned some of the brass parts in "Martha My Dear." I think what I have is tuba (doubled on trombone) and trumpet. I can play trombone, but I'm not in practice and this part is beyond my skill level anyway, so I used the mellotron brass sound.
I learned the sections from ~0:38 to ~0:59 and from ~1:39 to ~2:01. They're only slightly different. For my recording, I used the second iteration:
There's a second trumpet that plays a high F, but it lasts for so long that the mellotron tape runs out before the note should stop, so I didn't include that in my recording.
Over the last two years, I learned enough parts in "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" to make it worth recording. In February 2017, I learned the bass part and the mellotron trombone part at the end, and last September, I learned the organ part. In reading Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, I discovered that what I thought were guitar tremolos are actually played with a mandolin sound on mellotron (Chris Thomas, who played both mellotron parts, describes this on page 160). I believe this simply doubles the organ part, albeit an octave lower. I referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook for the chords.
My recording is just a section of the song, roughly 1:23 to 2:30.
I used the mellotron samples available on the Nord website (played on my Electro 5D). There are two trombone sounds available, and I used the Mk I sound. Flipping back and forth between my recording and the original, it sounds exactly the same (although I think I played the part with too much legato; I should have broken up the phrases a little).
Last week I read in Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions about the viola overdub for "Hello Goodbye." This reminded me that back in August I'd learned one viola part for the first verse and the first chorus (although I'd mistakenly thought it was violin). Rather than try to notate the part, I'd decided just to film it.
I finally got around to doing that to-day. Since reading about it, I also figured out one of the viola parts for the second verse and the second chorus. I'd previously figured out almost all of the bass and fuzz guitar parts.
Since I don't own any type of bowed string instrument, I used the mellotron violin sound on my keyboard. The longer notes aren't too bad, but the short repeated ones ended up a bit too choppy. I did the best I could (although I think I accidentally hit an extra note).
For more than a year, I've been working (now and then) on figuring out enough parts for "When I'm Sixty-Four" to make it worth recording. Last July, I figured out the bass part for the verses and the tubular bells. In April, I learned two of the clarinet parts at the beginning (it wasn't until recording this to-day that I realized that the same parts are repeated at the end), and over the course of the last few days, I learned the rest of the bass part (the bridges) and a bit of piano. While recording this, I thought the clarinet phrase after the line "Sunday mornings go for a ride" (~1:19) sounded easy, so I figured that out too.
I never wrote down the two clarinet parts I learned, so I just filmed those in order to have some record of them. I don't think the piano part is entirely accurate; mostly I was just playing along for fun. The tubular bell sound on my keyboard isn't that great, so for my recording I actually used vibes.
The Beatles recorded "When I'm Sixty-Four" in C major, but sped it up a semi-tone, so for all of the parts that I recorded on my keyboard, I used the transpose function so I could play in C major and have it come out as C# major. I did play the bass part in C# major though.
Here's the notation for the tubular bell parts. I put them in C# major, but it's easy enough to disregard the key signature and play them in C major:
Last week I learned most of the instrument parts for "Tell Me What You See." Mostly, I wanted to learn just the electric piano part (because it's the Hohner Pianet!), but while listening to the recording in order to learn that, the bass part sounded easy too. And then the chords (just I IV V in G major), and then the tambourine part. I learned the claves part too, but since I don't (yet) have claves, I couldn't record that. (As a sidenote, I think this and "And I Love Her" are the only Beatles songs with claves.)
I notated the bass part (thereby discovering that while a lot of sections of the song are repeated, the bass part is never the same twice), but the electric piano part is above my current skill level of notation, so I filmed those parts in order to have some record of it. I think there are a few note pairs that aren't as simultaneous as they should be, and the tambourine rhythm lags a bit after the first electric piano part. I tried doing the vocals too (twice, actually), but they were pretty terrible, so I ended up not using them.
I forgot to record this at least twice, but last month, I learned the electric guitar part in the coda of "Two of Us" (the Let It Be version, at least).
I'm not sure this lasts long enough to have been worth recording, but yester-day I learned the harmonium phrase near the beginning of "Cry Baby Cry." I learned the chords beneath it too, although I also referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook. My keyboard doesn't really have a harmonium voice, so I used the pipe organ.
I recently read the entry for 18 May 1966 in Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, which details the session at which the saxophone and trumpet parts for "Get to Get You into My Life" were recorded. Yester-day, I figured out one of the saxophone parts (although, of course, I think I figured out the one that's least interesting to listen to on its own), so now I can put it together with the bass part, which I learned in March. After I'd recorded both of those, I also figured out an-other phrase (which I think is trumpet), which makes this a little more interesting to listen to. I don't know how to play saxophone or trumpet, so I used mellotron voices on my keyboard.
In the original recording, it sounds - to me, anyway - as if McCartney plays the first bass note simultaneously on two different strings: a G on the fifth fret of the D string and the open G string. I'm not sure if that's really what's going on there, but that's what I did in my recording. The longer the fade-out goes on, the less confident I am in my accuracy. I think I flubbed a note there too.
Last night I learned one of the guitar tracks and the bass part for the first section of "Sun King." Of course, I learned the guitar part that's easier; the other one is probably more interesting.
I'd tried learning this guitar part one other time, but I got confused by the double stop. I think I have the right notes now, but I'm not sure I play it very well.
I learned the chords for "You Know What to Do" earlier this month, so - when I had the opportunity a couple weeks ago - I recorded a version. Because I used the Beatles' demo (which is a bit rough) as a template and because I'm not as familiar with "You Know What to Do" as I am with some other Beatles songs, my version isn't the best (it doesn't help that I'm not a very good tambourine player). Still, I don't think it turned out too badly.
Their version just sort of trails off, but I resolved mine.
After I listened to Sgt. Pepper yester-day (because it was the 50th anniversary of its release), I figured out the first keyboard section in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." I did some research and learned that the specific instrument is a Lowrey organ, which has different accompaniment settings. This explains why at one point I thought it was a harpsichord. In my recording, I doubled organ and harpsichord, so the specific sound probably isn't very accurate, but I'm pretty sure the notes are (most of them, at least).
After I learned that keyboard part, I learned the bass part for that first section, only to discover that I'd already learned and even notated it last year. I think it was around the same time I wrote about the song in September.
At the end of last month, I learned the mellotron part at the beginning of "Strawberry Fields Forever." I had to use the version on Anthology 2 because the final version is either sped up or slowed down (I don't remember which), meaning that the pitches are out-of-tune compared to standard tuning.
I made a video for this one because that's easier than writing down what I played. My framing isn't very good, and my fingering could probably be better too, but I think I have the right notes, which is the important thing.
I haven't been recording songs unless I know at least two parts, but I'm making an exception in this case. Keyboard parts seem to be in their own category.
Last night, I learned the bass part for the first two verses and the first chorus of "All My Loving." The bass part in the third verse isn't the same, and the second chorus transitions into an ending tag so that's not the same either.
I referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook for the chords but only after I had a go at figuring them out myself. Mostly, I just lookt at the book to confirm what I already had (although I disregarded the B7 the book has in favor of a regular B major).
Yester-day I learned the bass part in "Hello Goodbye" (although there are a few notes I'm not that confident about and I learned it only up until the tag). I don't think any of the verses are the same because McCartney puts a lot of variation into his part, so in order to be accurate, I had to notate the whole thing.
After practicing it, I noticed that one phrase sounded familiar to me. It's the phrase that links the chorus to the next verse (although it's different between the second chorus and third verse):
Excluding that first half note, the notes here have the same intervals (and at least a similar if not the same rhythm) as a phrase in George Gershwin's "Someone to Watch over Me," specifically the line, "There's a somebody I'm [longing to see]." I don't think I've come across anything that says that the Beatles even knew about Gershwin, much less quoted him, so I think this melodic similarity is just a coincidence. Still, I thought it was interesting.
When I listened to Beatles for Sale a couple days ago, I noticed that the electric six-string part in "Every Little Thing" is just two phrases and (I think palm-muted) chords at the end. That seemed pretty easy to figure out, so I did that yester-day, but then I also got the entirety of the twelve-string part (which I'd tried to figure out months ago with no success). I knew about half of the piano part (the four notes during the verses) although I don't remember quite when I learned it (I knew it last April at least), so I figured out the other part too. There's timpani at the same time, so I'm not entirely sure those notes are accurate (I might be playing the timpani part instead, although it's entirely possible that the piano part just doubles the timpani).
I referenced The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook for the chords, although I didn't follow exactly what they have. Like I mentioned before, I think they try to incorporate other elements of the arrangement into the guitar chords rather than just listing what was played in the original recording.
I'm not sure if I have the last half of the twelve-string solo right as far as where I played it on the fretboard. The top two pairs of strings on a twelve-string guitar are tuned to the same note where the other four pairs are the same note an octave apart, so depending on where on the fretboard something is played, there's a difference in sound.
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.
