Cave Puppy
"Humph Bo, he's wond!" - John Lennon
I don't think they were allowed to smoke weed at Abbey Road. Abbey Road were very strict. Rolling your own cigarettes was a thing one did back then. It's probably a hand rolled cigarette.
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Did McCartney play a lot of open strings?
- Thread starter Banderboy
- Start date
…we'll he wasn't smoking it!
Watch Get Back, they weren't rolling cigarettes but they sure smoked a lot of them!
Cave Puppy
"Humph Bo, he's wond!" - John Lennon
I watched it and it freaked me out for a myriad of reasons.
They all smoked like chimneys. There is probably footage of them smoking cigarettes (maybe weed as well at Twickenham) but Peter Jackson and the rest probably didn't want the lads to be depicted smoking.
I think it was for John, mainly, when he thought he should play "bass" while "Cartie" was ticklin' the ivories.
I imagine the capo was used to get a certain sound. Don't capos tend to affect tone on strings?
And OMG... what they didn't know about second hand smoke and how it impacted the gear!
In my TV repair days, I'd be constantly grossed out by the innards of a TV that belonged to a smoker.
I heard "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" when it was new in 1964 when I was ten and had to play one of those "humming" guitars.
Everyone smoked back then, I had my first cigarette when I was about 12 (or younger) in about 1965. I quit a long time ago though, close to thirty four years ago.
I should have said "I have my first cigarette at ten and for girls I had a bad yen".
When I was young.
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They raise the open key, maybe impart a little bassier sound because the open strings would sound similar to fretted notes.
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Paul is one of the absolute greats.
I am not but I use a capo occasionally.
If I can get away with it he certainly can.
I am not but I use a capo occasionally.
If I can get away with it he certainly can.
that's the session for 'Michelle'...
it's been suggested paul played the solo on bass. could do it on the G string only. but i don't think it is. macca said when shown this photo: "what am i doing there?" - said he'd try anything once. harrison has capo 5th fret, too. pretty sure g martin had ideas about that solo...regards
it's been suggested paul played the solo on bass. could do it on the G string only. but i don't think it is. macca said when shown this photo: "what am i doing there?" - said he'd try anything once. harrison has capo 5th fret, too. pretty sure g martin had ideas about that solo...regards
Do harmonics count as open strings? The entire string vibrates but certain elements of the overtone series are suppressed…
Good question! I don't suppose the OP meant to include harmonics, but sound-wise, yes, I feel they are more like open strings.
if i needed someone... he pedaled that low A all the way through. even live. anytime he played a low E...rain was played in A and slowed down to G. not sure if he played bass in A or G, but there are photos of that session as well and john and george are doing backing vocals, paul's on bass, so they probably slowed the tape back down for the bass/bkg vox. i'm assuming they were overdubbed at the same time, same track...funny you always hear about them using a loudspeaker as a microphone for bass, but i've seen no photos. surprising amount have surfaced...
that is the session for 'michelle'...there's many photos of the session. it has been suggested macca played the solo this way. harrison is on lennon's gibson also capo'd 5th fret. g martin on pianet. supposedly martin came up with the solo, but although pm coulda played that solo using just the G string, on bass capo'd, the lowest note woulda had to have been played on the D string... sounds like a guitar played above the neck pickup to me, or maybe even a felt plectrum was used...or fingers... and i recall an interview he said when he was doing the bass overdub he was thinking of Bizet. the intro bass doesn't sound that exotic to me... the bass itself is beautiful in photo. too bad not color. i think he used it first on day tripper. definitely a solid bass. also read harrison said he used it first for the fuzz bass on think for yourself... i doubt i'll ever know for sure... even pm when showed the photo said "what am i doing there"? said he'd try anything once... Regards
I quit 6 years ago. But that was my first thought when I watched "Get Back", that it looked like an ordinary family reunion when I was growing up. If you were a teen that wanted "cheat" some smokes it was pretty easy to do since they were everywhere and cheap so no one noticed if one or two were missing from a pack as long as you didn't take the last one.
I've never heard McCartney use harmonics, that was something you used to tune your bass before Jaco came along but no I don't consider them to be open strings.
Geoff Emerick said they only did it once, don't remember the song, he said they were always experimenting with different things to get different sounds.
"Rain" lead vocals and guitar sound slowed down a little bit but a whole tone would have really stuck out, just a semitone would give it that spacey sound. Many records were sped up back then, but again semitones. The bass sounds normal to me, McCartney used to overdub his bass quite often anyway after everything else was done, that's where most of these claims of the others' playing bass on all these songs come from. The studio notes say for example Lennon played bass on bla bla, when really Paul overdubbed the real bass part later on. I'm not saying others besides Paul played bass on some songs but I don't think it's anywhere near as common as claimed today.
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