Mathematician cracks Beatles mystery - perhaps
theage.com.au
theage.com.au
I love when reporters say silly things like implying that something like the Fourier transform is state of the art.
The sophistication alluded to in the article is in the visualisation of the results: the reason previous attempts had got it wrong was because looking at the flat numbers returned had misled them.
The current article claims improvements on that solution.
1st string = G on the 3rd fret (pinky) 2nd string = C on the 1st fret (pointer finger) 3rd string = A on the 2nd fret (middle finger) 4th string = F on the 3rd fret (ring finger) 5th string = C on the 3rd fret (with the thumb, curl it over) 6th string = G on the 3rd fret (with the thumb as well)
Link for comparison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSm0M-BbVdY
Listen to this and the original[1], you can clearly hear a missing piano part, which gives the chord such a crunchy bite. The damper pedal is clearly depressed as well, and it sounds like there is some sympathetic resonance from the guitars/bass that's helping to muddy up the piano sound.
If you really want to kill it, you could always come in with a learning model which accounts for the characteristics of the instruments and the way in which the sound evolves over time. An FFT is effectively looking for the integrated power in a frequency band. This is often more than enough to do the job, but it misses potentially useful information found in the time domain.
Edit: This is a sincere request: can someone tell me why I should care about this? If the homeless guy on the corner–sorry, make that two homeless guys, with one on the piano to get that extra bit of dissonance–had been first to play this as people walked by, I can't imagine it would have amounted in much interest, appreciation, acclaim. (Or, donations, for that matter.) Had they done the same with, say, the Moonlight Sonata, something tells me passersby just might take note.
If this is just academics in the field acting like academics sometimes do in their respective fields, then, I get that. But as someone who has always found the ratio of fawning-to-substance fairly high when it comes to the Beatles, this kind of thing doesn't help.
Maybe I'm totally missing the point, and this has as much to do with the Beatles as recreating the THX sound does with Star Wars.
They were a bit rougher round the edges than your modern boy band, having been playing in 'adult clubs' in Hamburg. Remember the Cavern Club was in Matthew St, not a salubrious district then.
To answer the question: right time, right place, bloody clever manager
So true but I'd like to add: amazingly innovative producer (George Martin) and brilliant engineer (Geoff Emerick).
Without those two guys the Beatles recordings might have been just ordinary.
Interestingly, the fiddling by Capitol Records might have contributed to their success early on (when they weren't destroying the intended album track sequence) - for example I prefer the US mono version of I Want To Hold Your Hand over the English version.
I happen to be in Liverpool today, and I have just noticed that the Neptune Theatre has reopened as the Epstein Theatre, and that there is a play about Epstein on soon.
And: it'd be kind of awesome if modern boy bands had to pay their dues playing adult clubs, first. Shame that isn't part of their legacy.
Edit: I should add that I think there's something to be said for the idea of hitting that sweet spot of timing where you're not the first to do something, but you also didn't come along after everyone and their dog did it. Executing well just as the relationship between the category and a much wider audience reaches a certain viability. What springs quickly to mind–forgive me that these aren't defended, or if they're just lousy examples I'd retract upon even a little bit of thought–perhaps Facebook, Nokia's early-2000 phones, the iPhone, the iPod, Rock Band, and so on. Not the first in the space, but they executed well enough (often even better than that; I'm not saying all of the above executed only well enough), just as the category was finally becoming mature enough to fan out beyond its original market, with the product even perhaps hastening that expansion by virtue of the quality of execution.
That is to take nothing away from the strength of the product, but the strength of the product also shouldn't take away from the effects of ideal timing. I think many die-hard fans of anything would have a knee-jerk reaction to saying that lucky timing played a big role in that thing's success, but it's probably reality, and should also be OK to say without people assuming you're denigrating the thing in question.
To the former, The Beatles are a unique case because they had two major songwriting talents in the same band. This is a freak occurrence that you don't really find anywhere else (although arguably with HDH and with The Stones, but they had spectacular results too). The synergy between them pushed Lennon and McCartney to even greater heights than a master songwriter would typically reach on his/her own, and also attracted and inspired talent from others: George Martin and George Harrison, and to a lesser extent Ringo. That's the how, although their body of work speaks for itself.
People obsess over the minutiae because so many people have heard their records, compared to other records which might be equally or more cleverly/mysteriously produced.
The songwriting combo was killer, but even before that, I think they were fairly unique in sharing 'front man' duties throughout a set. Very few bands do that even today, mostly because they can't really pull it off - the Beatles could.
Having more than one main singer/frontman is something I think often gets overlooked in the Beatles' story appeal.
And while I agree that most of their characteristics come under scrutiny, the ability for 3/4ths of the band to function as competent singer is something which is still rarely even attempted in most bands.
It's hardly suprising that two genius songwriters managed to develop good instrumental abilities, attract other talent (a great drummer, a great producer, a great guitarist), put out records with great vocal arrangements, and bring out the best in covers. And be worshipped by the public. Those things are almost inevitable. The only surprising thing was that they ended up in the same band.
Group singing - yes, some, but not multiple people rotating the 'lead singer' role. There was no 'lead singer' in the Beatles.
Many of the similar merseyside acts of the time were "so-and-so and the foobars" and such. Lead singer name with accompanying band ('rory storm and hurricanes' for example).
In terms of the two major songwriting talents in the same band argument, that's pretty interesting, and, as the thread you inspired amply demonstrates, is a pretty interesting way of looking at a number of bands, and even seems to have examples in non-musical endeavors.
I wonder how much of that's due to just having two people who can generate more good ideas than one, how much is an undefinable chemistry between the two, and how much might actually because there's a good amount of self-regulation that occurs that way: if I were a songwriting genius, I'd possibly (probably?) be pretty unresponsive to taking criticism, but if I respected the crap out of the songwriting talents of the person making the critique, then that'd be a totally different dynamic.
Ah, they did figure it out a long time ago - Beatles were writing a good music.
Or you could, you know, buy one of the tens of books in the history of the Beatles, the sixties music scene, and their contribution to it. Or ask any musician you consider serious (a jazz guy perhaps?) for the importance of their music.
>This is a sincere request: can someone tell me why I should care about this?
It's a social bookmarking site. The other users cared enough about this to have it upvoted. You do not "have to" care about it. That's not how social bookmarking works.
>If the homeless guy on the corner–sorry, make that two homeless guys, with one on the piano to get that extra bit of dissonance–had been first to play this as people walked by, I can't imagine it would have amounted in much interest, appreciation, acclaim.
If those homeless guys managed afterwards to write several fabulous records and have a big cultural influence on a whole era, then people would be interested in that initial sound too.
In the way people are interested in anecdotes from the early UNIX days of which they could not care less if they happened to some random programmer in the 90s.
I'm related to a serious (professional and quite successful at it) musician, with an incredibly solid background in jazz, and he can't explain why he's so head-over-heels for the Beatles. He's tried, to no end, but it usually goes along the lines of, "they were just so...perfect. Every sound, every little thing, they just had something that nobody else has." Plus all the standard stuff of, "they're incredibly influential!", which thing I don't deny, though I don't find it sufficiently satisfying a response, either. I don't mean to trivialize influence, but influence isn't, by definition, inherently good. For all I know, we'd have better music now if it weren't for them. (The argument for that is easier than it might be for some other influential songwriters, but getting into that isn't my intent.)
Social bookmarking: I asked why I "should," not why I "have to." Important distinction. Mine was an invitation for smart people (which tend to be in longer supply on this site than on many others) who tend to have reasoned tastes to try to explain to me why they're fans. Saying the records are "fabulous" is fine, but: why? Say it's wholly a matter of taste, and I'm OK with that, but then I don't understand why so many Beatles fan act like I'm the antichrist for not being madly in love with their music. It happens pretty often that, in this pop culture, someone expects me to love some Beatles song/Cirque show/something as much as they do, and upon the discovery that I don't, they usually presume that I'm some kind of insane. Which seems odd, if it's all just a matter of taste. But if it isn't, I'd like reasoned answers (and this thread is not without some good contributions).
But, thanks for the feedback, anyway. I've been trying to simplify my life, so being called a simpleton means I must be doing something right.
I heard a song of theirs once in the late 90s, and thought, "holy crap, this sounds like it was made 30 years later," in the same chronologically impossible way that some Can "sounds like" some Radiohead.
I haven't even thought about that since then, but your comment reminded me of that, and I think you're onto something. Whether they were ahead of their time production-wise, or just highly influential, could probably be argued to death, but there's no denying that Beck wouldn't sound like Beck were it not for the Beatles.
You don't have to, no one said that this link is only for CrankyPants to enjoy, or for that matter that HN has to cater to specific interests. It is simple not to care, just close the tab and go on to the next post.
The fact is that many people think the Beatles are pretty cool and love their music, and I'm pretty sure that the kind of demographic that visits HN indeed loves the Beatles. Now you mix their music with the Fourier transform and you got a hacker worthy post, even if the article is a little fluffy. Also even if I am not the greatest fan in the world, the fact that for 50+ years no one has been able to figure out the exact chord arrangement in the song is enough to spark my curiosity. So you know, I don't enjoy every Ask HN post either, but I just move along, there is plenty of content.
Just the idea that for over half a century a bunch of serious musicians have been trying to exactly duplicate this chord and have been unable to do so perfectly is interesting, yeah. If someone just laid out that premise I'd think it unlikely that it'd be so difficult to duplicate. I get that. Thanks for helping me see that aspect of it a bit more clearly.
What I don't get is why people have been trying for over a half a century to duplicate a chord arrangement. If they said it was for the challenge of it, sort of THX-style, then I get that. But if it's largely because it was played by the Beatles, then that seems a bit strange to me.
Again, thanks.