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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 on the controversy, including a list of nominated chords. It now turns out there is an answer. 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 of the researcher's findings. I thank Eric H. for the pointer.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 26, 2009 at 12:55 PM in Music | Permalink
Comments
Finally, a use of Fourier transforms that I can get behind.
Posted by: LP at Feb 26, 2009 1:14:43 PM
@LP
Where do you see Fourier transforms being abused?
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at Feb 26, 2009 1:39:49 PM
For those who actually want to hear it again in addition to discussing the Fourier transform.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A_Hard_Day%27s_Night_opening_chord.ogg
Posted by: a student of economics at Feb 26, 2009 1:41:35 PM
Uh, your "there is an answer" link is broken... some spurious "%20"s in there...
Posted by: at Feb 26, 2009 3:13:05 PM
As the history link shows, it was a combination, McCartney's D bass note played on the 12th fret, Ringo slightly hitting the high hat, John also playing a Fadd-9 on an acoustic 6-string, that is largely responsible for the unique sound. Harrison said as much. Watch this live performance from Shea in '65 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yuUAj2WwuM&feature=related ). You can clearly hear Paul's bass note and Ringo's splash cymbal after the count-in.
Posted by: Shaun at Feb 26, 2009 3:24:24 PM
Couldn't he just have asked George Martin?
Posted by: dan cole at Feb 26, 2009 5:24:15 PM
He could have asked Derek Paravicini.
Posted by: Michelle Dawson at Feb 26, 2009 5:48:31 PM
I believe G7/9/13 would just be written G13 no? The dropped 11 is implied in dominant chords? It's been awhile since I took music theory though...
Posted by: Tony at Feb 26, 2009 6:35:08 PM
It sounds doubtful you can get anything from Fourier transforms. Musical instruments are all harmonics with critical phase relations that are not exposed by Fourier analysis.
For sung notes, there may even be no energy at all near or at the pitch frequency.
You can, if not analyze, at least make a show of the procedure, though.
Posted by: rhhardin at Feb 27, 2009 3:51:16 AM
Beautiful!
The chord is a Dm7(9/11). It is a wierd chord in rock and pop, but actually fairly common in jazz where all chords come with the higher tensions (9,11,13 etc.) The 13th usually appears only on dominant chords. The 11 is not always used but not uncommon on minor chords like this.
Posted by: Felipe at Feb 27, 2009 7:57:39 AM
rhhardin,
Spectral picture for musical instruments' sounds differ a lot. Singing is completely different from guitar. And in the latter case yes, you can pinpoint base frequency of the note, given that you also account for its higher harmonics. It's even noticeable visually on a spectrogram
Posted by: Konstantin at Feb 27, 2009 9:09:48 AM
There may be other things going on, but I believe it's mainly a G7sus4 barre chord played on an electric 12-string. I remember the first time I played that chord back when I owned a Gibson ES-335-12, and having a classic "Of course!" moment.
Posted by: Ed Driscoll at Feb 27, 2009 3:05:40 PM
Cool story, but like the poster above, I wonder why they didn't ask George Martin or McCartney?
Posted by: Craig at Feb 27, 2009 3:48:06 PM
How do I use this to price CDOs?
Posted by: ddbb at Feb 27, 2009 4:39:46 PM
I was somewhat worried by the paper. I found its discussion of the relationship between chords and frequency too simplified. Most musical notes aren't just a funamental frequency and some integer multiples of it. Spectrally they are frequently much more complex than that with a starting period when the sound is not even approxiametly periodic, and containing non-rational multiples of the fundamental frequency even in the quasi-periodic part.
There are plenty of scientists who study music seriously from a mathematical and physical viewpoint, I would be curious what they think.
Posted by: Johan at Mar 4, 2009 3:26:31 PM
Posted by: 翻譯 at Apr 23, 2009 10:49:40 PM
Chord is this sorry never tabbed a chord before, don't know what it (Sounds like a G & ? hybrid that's 7th.. I think) is but sounds good on a twelve string and is defiantly the one used at the start of the song.
E| 3
B| 3
G| 5
D| 3
A| 5
E| 3
Posted by: Paul Donnelly at May 9, 2009 5:21:59 PM
Posted by: 催情性藥品 at Aug 16, 2009 11:07:48 PM
e|1
b|1
g|0
d|0
a|0
e|1
Posted by: ryan at Oct 14, 2009 11:10:54 PM
