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Guitar nerd alert: I'm learning the Beatles catalog start to finish


honolulu horn

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I have been playing the guitar for most of my life, and even though I play mostly metal, the Beatles have always been my fave band throughout the decades. So a year ago I decide to play all of the Beatles songs in basic order of release.

I took a spiral bound book of their songs ("The Beatles Compete Chord Songbook"), found the right song, and then opened up the same song's guitar tabs on the ultimate guitar site. The only tabs I use are the ones from PJVILL (seriously, his Beatles tabs are untouchable). I printed out blank guitar tab sheets, transcribed PJVILL's tabs onto those paper templates, cut them out, and taped them into the chord songbook. Yes, it's an old man's way of doing it but then again who am I kidding. I like paper books. Anyway, I am playing all of the songs, including chords and rhythm guitar parts. But I'm also playing anything that's not a chord and/or that featured a prominent instrument -- so that's obviously the guitar riffs, fills, and solos, but it's also piano solos, trumpets, strings, etc. Anything that can reasonably be played on the guitar. So that would include, for example, the trumpet solo in Penny Lane, the strings in Eleanor Rigby, the crazy orchestration in I Am the Walrus, the piano opener to Martha My Dear, etc. See a couple of examples below. 

I have played all of those songs and parts in basic order of release, following their chronological releases of singles and UK albums. The only thing I've really switched up are Let it Be and Abbey Road, because Abbey was actually recorded after the Let it Be sessions even though Let it Be was released last. And because I'd rather finish with The End instead of Get Back. I'm not doing all of the unreleased songs, alternate takes, remixes, etc. because my main two main goals are 1) to be able to sit down with my guitar, open that chord book, and play whatever song I want with whatever fills, solos, riffs, and other stuff right there easy to access, and 2) to basically play every formally released Beatles song in some sort of reasonable order. 

Beatles nerds should know that I played Her Majesty out of order, because I want to finish with The End. And I'm not learning shit from their Christmas albums, etc. 

It's been an extremely cool project, even more so than I thought it would be. I have really learned a ton about the evolution of songwriting, chord structures, and theory. I have also really started to appreciate the different attitudes and instrumentation that each Beatle brought to the different songs and albums. You can really see it in the music itself -- chords, solos, tones -- just how much they evolved in about 7 years, and just how divergent they became with their own individual styles. It's been super badass and I'm now four songs away from finishing -- just the last 4-song Macca medley on side 2 of Abbey Road. 

My wife doesn't give a shit about any of this so I figured maybe someone on here would. One of the greatest bucket list journeys I've completed so far In My Life. 

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36 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

very cool. 

If you have Sirius, check out Randy and Tal Bachman on the Beatles Channel.  "Musical Mystery Tour" is great, and these two musicians, with their guitars in the studio,  often get in the weeds on the way the songs were built. 

Yeah, I love that show. A lot of it goes over my head, but I still love hearing how the songs got developed over time with different takes, tempos, instruments, ideas, etc. 

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2 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

George loved Ukuleles, so that would be fitting. 

Dhani has said that anytime George traveled, he brought two ukes, in case he met somebody that needed one. 

 

 

I know. I occasionally listen to the YouTube of Paul on the uke George gave  him doing the first half of Something, at the George celebration, before Clapton and the whole band took over for the big finish. 

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Not too many ukuleles in Honolulu 😉 

Good idea. Something makes sense on the Uke given the chord progression and how easily it  is played on the uke. George was a big fan of Hawaii and wrote several songs about it -- seemed to fit his personality pretty well. 

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I finished the project over the weekend. Got the whole songbook cobbled together with bunches of tabbed solos, riffs, and instrumentation. Gotta say it feels pretty good to have that project tackled. 

Gil - AYBCS is a freaking blast to play, BTW. Either guitar. It takes me several takes and mistakes to eventually get into the rhythm well enough to do a half-decent job at it, but man it's such a great guitar song. 

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