Talk:A Hard Day's Night (song)

message: The idea expressed in the following sentence framgents are somewhat accurate though not appropriate for this article. It would be more appropriate under Lennon/McCartney. 69.22.223.38 05:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed the sentence by adding 3 words, which speaks volumes about the why this  is a great project.  Rather than complain, you could have easily fixed the sentence.  Anyone can write anything they wish regardless of their knowledge of the topic, but that doesn't mean it will remain.  Sometimes, things can slip by uncorrected for quite some time, like the sentence you pointed out.  Many people who criticize Wikipedia for this sort of thing I think are missing a much bigger point.  You should not trust anything you read at face value.  At least with wikipedia, you can look at the history of a page and see all the different iterations of an article, and you can read the talk page to get a sense of the underlying editorial bias and decision-making.  I often think I learn more from talk pages than I do from the articles. -- Samuel Wantman 07:56, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Older entries 

message: I've been reading about this chord for years, and I thought I had it figured out, so I put it to the test and I recorded my version. I ended up doing many adjustments and you can listen to the final version here: AHDN-Chord-Redone It is the closest I could get to it after trying many different chords and recording setups.
My recording details:
# I listened closely to the 2009 remastered stereo version because of the better sound and the split instruments on the channels.
# On the left channel I discerned: 12 String Rickenbacker, bass, kick drum, snare and crash cymbal.
# on the right channel I discerned: Piano, J-160E and soft snare and crash cymbal (spill?).
# To match the instruments I used my 1965 Rickenbacker 360/12, an Ibanez bass (I wish I had a Hofner), a Takamine 330 six string electro-acoustic (I tried my Gibson J200, but the Takamine was a much closer match to the sound), and a Line 6 keyboard to record the rest.
# on left channel:
## the Rickenbacker: I played the F9 chord muting the low E and A strings and playing -from low to high- F-A-C-G
## Kick drum, snare and crash
## Bass: D on the 12 fret
# on the right channel:
## The Takamine replacing the J-160E: G7sus4: low to high: G-D-F-C-D-G (from all the different guitars I tried I'm convinced he used this one and not his Rick nor another guitar, knowing what they had at hand in the studio)
## Piano: G2(A2)-D3-G3 (The piano seems to hit an A2 and then pick it up, "mistake"?)
## Soft snare and crash cymbal.
# After laying that in the tracks I had to go through EQ and some effects to get closer to the sound:
## The bass has a "wobble", I used a chorus to imitate it. I'm not sure they had them back then, but it helped me.
## John's guitar seems to be slightly distorted so I played with the input gain to try to match it.
## Paul has mentioned that he can't "ride" the digital recording equipment like they did with the analog systems. This seems to be a perfect example of that.
## I know they used compressors to record, and I used my digital compressors excessively and I feel I still fell short there. Not only were the Beatles geniuses, and George Martin, but the engineers were up there with them every step of the way. 
My conclusion is that this chord is an engineering feat as much as it is musical genius. It's not perfect but it's the closest I could get to it after 2 days. 
Hope it helps.
TomasMFC (talk) 23:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reproducing the Chord 

message: Ok I think I have nailed this one. The chord is G11sus4. It is played on a guitar thus:
barre the third fret,play the second string on the fifth fret and do the same for the fourth string. The notes read: G,D,F,C,D,G. An incredible chord and the portent of things to come way back in 1964/65!!
:First, there are sources which argue against your interpretation, how do you explain that? Secondly, an 11th chord (an extended chord) can not be an add 4, because the 11th is the 4th:
1	3	5	7	9/2	11/4
G	B	D	F	A  	C
:Thus I would call what you are describing a G7add4. Hyacinth 19:06, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Except there's no B in the chord, so that makes it a G7sus4. Although I don't claim that's what it is; see other discussion here.  --Locarno 16:45, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  A hard day's night opening chord 

message: I don't think this qualifies as a malapropism, despite the fact that McCartney used the term.  Which word is Starr supposed to have thought meant something that it didn't?  What word was he confusing it with? Josh Cherry 18:28, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what I was wondering.  There is not a single example of an actual malaporpism in the entire article, event though the word is used 6.0*10^0 times. And what's with the redundant "and was the title song for their album of the same name"? Jeffrey L. Whitledge 20:51, 2004 Oct 16 (UTC)
I'm not convinced. Some online dictionaries define it as 'a ludicrous misuse of a word' or 'humorous misuse or distortion of a phrase'. Saying "day" instead of "night" in this context fits the definition more than well, I'd say. That it's further specified as 'also or especially the confusion with a word that sounds similar' doesn't make the first definition wrong. It's way too late trying to keep the use of "malapropism" 'clean', and the word worked for me. Femto 15:22, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: I don't believe there's a 100% fitting word for this kind of 'retroactive malapropism' that distorts a phrase by actually correcting something that wasn't wrong until after it did so. If you can't find a word, invent one. The current solution of calling the Ringo-ism by what they called it is so simple it's brilliant again. The heading is quite terse and looks a little like a tabloid headline maybe. It also appeared reasonable to split off the second half of this section into a separate "The making" part. Femto 14:07, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Malapropism?

message: What is ♮.  It is not showing up in my browser.  Hyacinth, is this from you? --Samuel Wantman 11:25, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, its from me. It should be a natural and doesn't show on my browser either. See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Music#Musical mark up and Help:Special characters. Hyacinth 20:48, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is it? Natural. 

message: The lead sheet is in C major, while the piece (at least my recording of it) is in G major. I'm a newbie... am I missing something? --TobyRush 17:16, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I interpret the song as being in G, though the source of the lead sheet, Richard Middleton, considers it to be in C major and gives no reason. Having verifying the lead sheet by playing along with the recording I can only guess that Middleton is describing the key signature of the lead sheet and not the key of the song. Hyacinth 20:59, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The key signature of C Major (no sharps or flats) is identical to the key signature of G Mixolydian. Hence the presumable confusion. Whig 19:20, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: The lack of a key signature in the notated music does not mean that the piece is not in G Major (which may be indicated by a key signature of one sharp, f). Hyacinth (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 06:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I can only but agree to this highly CONFUSING paragraph! The ugly notation was it too which brought me to look into this discussion here! The first note should be a 'B1'. While keeping all the chord stuff, the leading first voice should be transposed one fifth. -andy 92.229.138.184 (talk) 05:20, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead sheet 

message: I also removed:
*Everett (2005: 109) says: "It doesn't make sense to try to label the chord traditionally. The chord has dominant function, it has modal neighbors, and it predicts the Rick[enbacker] ending."  He also thinks "the piano doubles the Rick, and McCartney plays D in the bass."
As there is no 2005 book listed in the references. Worse, it was added anonymously after the paragraphs above were removed and is actually a botched attempt at reversing the meaning of the sentence it replaced ():
*Everett (2001: 109) points out that the chord is pandiatonic.
Hyacinth 09:07, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Everett

message: I also removed:
*Jason Brown, Professor for the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University in Halifax, whose research interests include graph theory, combinatorics, and combinatorial algorithms, posits that the chord is pandiatonic. Professor Brown announced in October 2004 that after six months of reseach he succeeded in analyzing the opening chord by "de-composing the sound into original frequencies, using a combination of computer software and old-fashioned chalkboard."  According to Brown, the Rickenbacker guitar wasn't the only instrument used. "It wasn't just George Harrison playing it and it wasn't just the Beatles playing on it... There was a piano in the mix."  To be exact, he claims that Harrison was playing the following notes on his 12 string guitar:  a2, a3, d3, d4, g3, g4, c4, and another c4;  McCartney played a d3 on his bass; producer George Martin was playing d3, f3, d5, g5, and e6 on the piano, while Lennon played a loud c5 on his six-string guitar.
Where did Brown announce this? Hyacinth 09:14, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Hyacinth 08:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Brown

message: Anyone know if they recorded it more than once? I seem to have two versions in my MP3 library, at two quite different tempos. Both have the same opening chord, but one has a kind of reverberating snare drum, and the other doesn't. The album for the slower one is listed as "Anthology 1 CD2" and the other is "A Hard Day's Night". Any ideas? (I'm not 100% sure they're both studio recordings, certainly the quicker one has slightly better sound quality). Or is the second one what is meant by the record company being free to re-release the songs - it's not really spelt out in the article if they re-recorded them to do that. Stevage 17:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See the #Mono/Stereo versions? section above, especially the list of takes link. There are at least two released versions: one mainstream, another on Anthology 1, and maybe another as the film soundtrack. Other than that, I have no clue either as to which when or what. Femto 18:18, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Studio recordings

message: Does anyone have a cite for the composer of the middle 8? -- Samuel Wantman 08:37, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The middle 8 

message: Correction to the image above showing the melody:  The chord notations are correct and in the key of G, but the notes are transposed to the key of C (almost correctly; the first three notes as sung but in the key of C would be "ffe" instead of "ggf") .  As sung in G, they should be "ccbd,d,d,,ddcdf,dcdcb" etc..  Middleton's analysis, quoted above and below the transcription, is based on this error and cites the notes as shown rather than as played and sung.  The song is solidly in the key of G and does not have a single cadence resting on or implying C.
:I moved the above comment here. Hyacinth 21:15, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This notation is right, though it may be, as a whole, transposed. No cadence on C is described. In fact it is described as a leading tone. Also, there is no mention of what the dominant chord would be, as chords are not relevant to the discussion. You're assigning of functions to various notes is also puzzling as no such functions are described. Hyacinth 17:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I do not believe that your uncited assertions supersede a description of an analysis of the song. You can not argue that the information is incorrect because it is an objective description of Middleton's analysis. Please find a source which contradicts Middleton and describe that analysis. Hyacinth (talk) 10:34, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Once again: you baldly assert that the notation has been transposed, yet you provide no verification. Hyacinth (talk) 01:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Image

message: I replaced these "general" references with specific footnotes:
*Bacon, Tony (2000). Fuzz & Feedback : Classic Guitar Music of the 60's. Backbeat Books. .
*CBC radio. As It Happens — broadcast of October 15th, 2004. Jason Brown's research on the opening chord. To hear the story, listen 12'35" into the broadcast.
*Campbell, Mary. (Jul. 1, 1996). Restored 'Hard Day's Night,' 'Help!' part of AMC festival. Associated Press.
*Everett, Walter (2001). The Beatles as Musicians: The Quarry Men Through Rubber Soul. Oxford University Press. .
*Marck, J. I Am The Beatles. Retrieved Oct. 14, 2004.
*Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. .
*Miles, Barry (1998). The Beatles: A Diary. Omnibus Press. .
*Pedler, Dominic (2003). The Songwriting Secrets of The Beatles. Omnibus Press. .
I need to go back and add the ISBN numbers (ran out of time).
I couldn't find where these sources were used in the article, despite close reading of the article and sources:
*Spitz, Bob. The Beatles: The Biography (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005), 385.
*The Beatles official website. Retrieved Oct. 14, 2004.
*Shaw, T. (2001). Every Little Thing We Said Today. Retrieved Oct. 14, 2004.
*Unterberger, R. AMG. Retrieved Oct. 14, 2004.
The Spitz ref had "*McCartney quoted in Bob Spitz...", which may refer to the "direct and personal" quoute about using pronouns in titles. I don't have Spitz handy, so I couldn't confirm that and change it to a footnote style ref.
I removed the fairly general "Lennon/McCartney" part; it wasn't accurate (IMO) and if it was it belongs in the Lennon/McCartney article.
So shoot me already. John Cardinal 21:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The ISBN's are done now. Who can help with REFs above and also with "citation needed" facts? John Cardinal 00:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference edits 

message: In the opening chord section, the Beatles apparent use of the borrowed bVII chord is mentioned. However, a lot of the songs mentioned as examples don't seem to use the chord as a borrowed chord but appear to simply be in the mixolydian mode. Can we change that?
Glassbreaker5791 (talk) 03:46, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What songs mentioned as examples of what? Hyacinth (talk) 05:55, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Borrowed chord 

message: Does anyone else think that this article is good enough to be a GA? I added some references and fixed a few things? Does anyone want me to nominate it? (The last article I worked on, "Rain", is now a GA nominee.) If anyone wants me to nominate this, let me know on my talk page or right here! Thanks! Kodster (Talk) 23:46, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: GA

message: According to this article the chord includes a Piano note.  davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:42, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I just made the edit mentioned above. Now the question is should we include the results of the software's analysis. The source link is already there, but it would give the comment more reason for being there in the first place. As it is now, it seems a little like a bit of trivia. Racerx11 (talk) 02:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Given the amount of space the article already devotes to the analysis of this chord, and bearing in mind the detailed results of other analyses already given in the preceding paragraphs, it would seem only natural to include these results too as you suggest. PL290 (talk) 19:09, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I was afraid someone might say that. If you really think its a good idea, then that's great. I at first thought about just uploading the graph, but I don't think that would be a good idea; I dont have a clue how do something like that anyway. If I get some more free time soon, I might take a stab at presenting the data in a simple, readable way. Unless someone else who is good at doing this stuff beats me to it. hint hint. Racerx11 (talk) 21:44, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  More on the opening chord 

message: During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
* http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/500songs
** In Eleanor Rigby on 2011-03-18 02:04:16, 404 Not Found
** In Eminem on 2011-03-18 04:48:34, 404 Not Found
** In Heart of Gold (Neil Young song) on 2011-03-23 00:00:26, 404 Not Found
** In I Want to Hold Your Hand on 2011-04-24 06:32:41, 404 Not Found
** In James Brown on 2011-05-01 22:57:28, 404 Not Found
** In A Change Is Gonna Come (song) on 2011-06-20 01:17:10, 404 Not Found
--JeffGBot (talk) 01:29, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dead link 

message: Would there not have to be at least versions of this chord - one for the studio tracks and the other for live performances. Perhaps the piano notes are showing up in the studio track?? Some live videos appear to show Lennon using a Fadd9 on his guitar??? 
Pete318 (talk) 22:18, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Which Opening Chord? 

message: The last section in the Intro Chord section states:
"A repeated arpeggio outlining the notes of the opening chord ends the song in a circular fashion, fading out with the sound of helicopter blades."
Am I correct in assuming the bit about the helicopter blades only refers to the song as seen/heard in the film itself (the final shot of the heli taking off)? The sound effect of the helicopter blades isn't on the studio version, correct? (Meaning the actual single and album track). Since the next sentence refers to the movie I assume that's what the writer meant, perhaps it would help to clarify that this is what happens in the film, not on the record. So perhaps it should read something like this:
"A repeated arpeggio outlining the notes of the opening chord ends the song in a circular fashion, fading out with the sound of helicopter blades in the actual film."
Unless I've missed it all these years (which is why I don't want to be so quick to change it, perhaps I have heard it wrong all this time!) 17:36, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Helicopter Blades? 

message: This article should celebrate and glorify one of the greatest songs in the history of music. Instead, it provides misleading and incorrect information about what I would call a sacred piece of music. As a musician and a huge Beatles fan I had to dig into this and I have to say that this article needs to be reworked so that it presents the song for what it is, in particular for the opening chord that has been long debated but most of all misrepresented. There are several approaches, most of them wrong, a few of them close enough but they is really only one way to play the chord. I will make a series of comments.
1. The "Title" section could be split into 4 subsections that I would label "Ringo's account", "John's account", "Paul's account" and "Associated Press account". That way the lines are drawn on who remembers what. Is there any evidence of Ringo and Paul talking about it and converging to a unique story?
2. The versions of the chord labeled G7add9sus4, G7sus4, and G11sus4 are not right. The chord, as confirmed by Harrison, is a Gadd9 played as 103213 on both 12-string and 6-string guitars.
3. The first 3 images in the "Opening chord" section are garbage. The actualy one is the 4th, only for the guitars. The first 3 images should be removed because they are incorrect.
4. "Tony Bacon calls it a Dm7sus4 (D F G A C)".
This is wrong again for the reasons in points 2 and 3.
5. "George Martin: D2-G2-D3 played on a Steinway Grand Piano".
After reading https://sites.google.com/site/ahdnchord/home I tend to believe there are 5 instead of 3 notes on the plano. I am unable to verify right now so I cannot confirm that.
6. "One of the interesting things about this chord (as described by Pedler) is how McCartney's high bass note reverberates inside the soundbox of Lennon's acoustic guitar and begins to be picked up on Lennon's microphone or pick-up during the sounding of the chord."
This is wrong. As explained in https://sites.google.com/site/ahdnchord/notchord, John's acoustic guitar was overdubbed so there was no interaction between Paul's bass and John's acoustic guitar.
7. "The chord's notes were estimated using Fourier analysis, according to which Harrison played the A2, A3, D3, D4, G3, G4, C4, and another C4 on his 12-string guitar; McCartney played a D3 on his bass; producer George Martin played D3, F3, D5, G5, and E6 on the piano; and Lennon played a loud C5 on his six-string guitar."
John playing a single note is totally ridiculous as explained in https://sites.google.com/site/ahdnchord/brown.
8. Randy Bachman has stated that he heard the original masters of the recordings and could hear the 12-string guitar playing "an F chord, but you put a G on top, and you put a G on the bottom, and you put a C next to that G", "a D on the bass", and "rhythm guitar was a D chord with a sus 4".
This is complete nonsense. I remember finding Bachman's audio file on YouTube and trying to reproduce it after listening to his very ackward explanation of how to fret the guitar. You can read https://sites.google.com/site/ahdnchord/notchord to understand what's wrong with the approach.
For those of you who truly want to understand what the opening chord for the song is I suggest to read the following articles in order:
:A. http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~brown/n-oct04-harddayjib.pdf
:B. https://sites.google.com/site/ahdnchord/brown
:C. https://sites.google.com/site/ahdnchord/notchord
:D. https://sites.google.com/site/ahdnchord/home
That should lead you to the conclusion that the chord is an Fadd9 played as 103213 by both Harrison on 12-string guitar on the left channel and Lennon on a 6-string guitar on the right channel. Along with the guitars there is a D played on a bass on the E string at the 10th fret by McCartney on the left channel and a piano playing 5 notes which are D2, G2, D3, G3, C4 by Martin on the right channel.
''
If everybody is convinced, I would ask to proceed to rework the article as needed to remove wrong information and place what truly needs to be in the article.
ICE77 (talk) 03:00, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Various comments (mostly about the opening chord) 

message: I think the song is Jangle Pop. There‘s a video on this and other Beatles songs on YouTube called „10 Genres the Beatles accidentally invented“. Roooooon (talk) 12:51, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genre