Reddit reviews Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles

The secret to the chord is really George Martin's piano. Most of the wild theories about the chord don't consider the piano (although the link given earlier by GreenGageGenie does). I saw one "scientific" analysis which came out with the most bizarre suggestions of how it was played.

In Dominic Pedler's book he spends an entire chapter (40 pages) on that chord, interviewing various people. He lists a total of 21 guesses from various published sources, all of them different: mostly correct(ish) but clearly going by ear without full analysis or original knowledge.

Randy Bachman's analysis is convincing - he had access to the original tapes and certainly produces a convincing sound - but he has George Harrison playing an almost impossible G-C-F-C-A-G chord. Harrison himself referred to the "F chord with G on top", but he would have meant 1-0-3-2-1-3, the low F played with the thumb. In fact, the audio spectrum supports this - according to the waveform there is no low G and C in the chord at all.

The mystery is about what Lennon played. Bachman identifies his chord as Dsus4, which is consistent with the audio (see below). It seems an odd idea for him to play a different chord from Harrison - and in a live video you see him play the same Fadd9 as Harrison - but Pedler quotes Martin as saying "Lennon hit a chord which to this day I still don't know exactly what the notes were - but it was almost the open strings." That doesn't really equate to the usual Dsus4 - unless perhaps he played the open 3rd: x-0-0-0-3-3 (including that low A) is consistent with the audio waveform.

But Bachman missed the piano. George Martin is on record (presumably unknown to Bachman at that time) as saying that he added piano because the chord needed beefing up. It was the sound that would open the film, not just the single, so needed maximum impact. The song has a double-speed guitar solo, doubled by George Martin, which would explain why piano would be on the same track. Remember they only had 4 tracks to play with in those days.

Martin himself never said (to my knowledge) exactly what notes he played, but Pedler has his own theory: G2-D3-F3-C4-D4. Most of it is the same notes as the guitars, aside from G2 - which is missing from the audio waveform.

Meanwhile, Paul played a D bass which was slighly out of tune (sharp), and resonated loudly at the octave.

Here's the frequency spectrum of the original (from Transcribe). This combines two moments in the chord: red early, blue later, because there is a subtle change in the timbre through the length of the chord. The key to the frequency peaks is as follows:

1. George Harrison's Fadd9 (main strings F3 A3 C3 G4 in black, octaves F4-A4 in blue. The green arrows point to the likely 6th and 5th strings if he played all six: F2-A2, whose octaves are already on the 4th and 3rd strings of course. The A2 could also be Lennon's 5th string, or George Martin's piano.
   
2. Paul McCartney's bass, D2 (slightly sharp). Look how much louder its octave is.
   
3. John Lennon's Dsus4 - if indeed that's what he played. The dotted line is the open G string, if he played that.
   
4. George Martin's piano, according to Dominic Pedler. Like Bachman, he also hears a low G2. The spectrum disagrees, but the G3 is plainly there - that must be the note they both heard. (Bachman would have assumed that was the octave pair on Harrison's 6th string. He could have made a similar assumption about the 5th string, hearing the C4 octave - which is there.)
   
   There is of course a whole forest of harmonics there. The bass produces more out-of-tune overtones at A3, D4 and A4, while the in-tune D4 would either be John's supposed 2nd string, or Martin's piano. Notice the complete absence of the G2 and C3 Bachman claimed to have identified - no need for that awkward chord at all! If he did really hear those notes - audio spectra can sometimes mislead - they would be the piano. There are still some little mysteries: what's that blue peak just sharp of F2? (It's blue because it only appears towards the end of the chord.)
   
   Just imagine what a modern producer would have done with all those pitches... Melodyned them into in-tune blandness?
   
   EDIT: to complete (or extend) this nerd-fest, for your interest (not to prove anything) here's notation for the above (Martin's piano adjusted to what I think it is, with Lennon doubling Harrison); and here's how it sounds with Sibelius's stock samples, all mixed to the same level (having no idea what the original mix would have been). Obviously the bass is in tune there, and not emphasing its octave. I haven't amended this to include that strange Lennon chord (guessed from Martin's comment). If I can maintaint sufficient interest I may adjust these files accordingly. Don't hold your breath...

Its called the "Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles"

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0711981671/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?qid=1394825990&sr=8-3&pi=SY200_QL40

There is a book called songwriting secrets of the Beatles.

It's the best I've found. Clear and concise. The author also takes into account how the Beatles would have written the songs given their limited theory. My take on it is that they didn't formally understand what they were doing but they had a couple of things going for them that their contemporaries lacked:

1. extensive chord library. They new a lot of different chords and how to apply them. They might not have understood dominant substitution but they new the E7 was great lead up to A. Or where a B6 would fit etc...
   
   
2. vast musical vocabulary. As the other poster said, they were very knowledgeable of many different styles of music. McCartney's father was a part time jazz musician. Classical influences were also very present. Not to mention George Martin's traditional scoring approach (he was instrumental in the songwriting process)
   
   
3. lack of knowledge. I always found really interesting anecdotes of Lennon in the studio saying to Martin or the engineers that he wants the song to do this or that and they reply "it's not done that way", "nobody does that" "it can't be technically done" but it's the Beatles so they humour him. And that's how a lot of innovative or interesting parts were created. They thought outside the box.
   
   
4. rock boot camp. The Beatles early on in Germany sometimes played hours upon hours in clubs every night. They had honed their technique in front of a live audience in a way most artists today don't. . By the time they were recording their first album they already keenly aware of audience taste and how to temper their own choices with what a listener wanted to hear.
   
   Another thing about the Beatles is to understand their recording process because later on, the studio became instrumental in how they approached their songwriting (key change in strawberry fields, reverse guitar solos, limitations of 4 track recording).
   
   There is an INCREDIBLE book about abbey road recording innovations.
   
   Edit. And about the poster that said they stole liberally (in a good way) I would argue that this isn't particular to pop music. All musicians and composers do this.

The Songwriting Secrets of The Beatles

Really explains everything clearly and with lots of examples. I feel like it's already had an effect on my own writing, and I've only read a couple of the chapters so far.