McCartney and old time needle jumping (??)

[mccartneyman]

Hamish is no longer in the band -- hasn't been since "Off the Ground." Brian Cox plays a 4-string EBO when Paul plays piano or guitar. This current band, in my opinion, is much tighter and heavier than the band with Hamish, although that band had better vocals.

 

[CamiloDíaz]

Absolutely agreed that having a sloppy studio work, cutting, whatever, beats the hell out of Autotune and those crap. Besides, this is only a problem when playing along with the record, even Paul himself plays some of the "problematic" tunes in perfect 440 nowadays and it doesn't bother him. I don't know if they were THAT aware of tunings and International A 435 and all that. To me, it reeks of George Martin's talent: to render yet another "layer" in the Pandora's box-ian world of Beatles records...

 

[So Low Bass]

I wouldn't blame George Martin... the guy's in his 80's! I Do know what you're saying about the “Pandora’s Box-sets”, and I've drawn this analogy before: Beethoven's 5th symphony has been recorded perhaps 500 separate times, with different conductors, orchestras, fidelity, repeats, tempos, etc. So, there are perhaps 700 "versions" released counting the "remastered" etc. Now, the Beatles recorded one version of, say, “Get Together”. The possibly exists that an infinite number of "remixes" of that ONE, VERY SAME PERFORMANCE will be released/sold. That stinks.

 

[mccartneyman]

If a remix brings out something unheard before, why not? Or if it's an alternate take that's good, why not? What impressed me mots about the Anthology CDs is that, with few exceptions, I think Martin & the Beatles released the best takes.

 

[Stempelloos]

OK -- back from tuning my Hofner Icon to A=435. And indeed, I AM in tune with the entire "Please Please me" LP. So our friend who suggested 435 may be right. However, when you move on to "With the Beatles" through "Abbey Road," it's A=440.

"What are the frequencies of musical notes like G and G# in khertz?" The answer:

There are two accepted musical pitch standards, the so-called American Standard pitch, which takes A in the fourth piano octave (A4) to have a frequency of 440 Hz, and the older International pitch standard, which takes A4 to have the frequency of 435 Hz. Both of these pitch standards define what are called 'equal tempered chromatic scales.' Mathematically, this means that each successive pitch is related to the previous pitch by a factor of the twelfth root of 2. That is, the ratio between the frequencies of any two successive pitches in either standard is 1.05946309436. There is a third Scientific or Just Scale that is based on C4 having a frequency of 256 Hz, but this is not used for musical purposes.

This is contrary to what I thought I remembered and had been told by people who have played in orchestras in Europe-- that European pitch standard for A was higher than American.

This doesn't explain why they chose A=435 for "Please Please me" but went to A=440 for the rest, but it does explain the initial tuning question.

I remember a long talk with a classical piano player about this issue. Her answer; A=440 Hz as a standard, the high A of grand piano's is tuned at concert pitch; A 442 for performances though. In the past there were several interpretations of A, also called 'old A' in Europe.
That pitch varied between 435 and 437 depending on the place you were. So a so called 'London A' would be different from a 'Cork A', a Vienna A or a Milanese or Roman A. The lowest A would be something like 431 hz.
A 440 Hz is used/propagated for centuries already, and became international standard somewhere around 1945.
The tuning of strings also depended on which harmonical system was used, if I remember her explanation correct,
some old tuning systems tuned the bass registers slightly lower compared to the middle part of the keyboard for more depth.
Also; some stringplayers (violins and such) tune(d) in A 442 or higher for a similar effect.

Suggestion; these differences in tuning on Beatle recordings may have something to do with 'Liverpool A', 'London A' and 'Hamburg A'.

Edit;

In fact, before the 20th century, European music had its own wonderful non-equal-tempered tunings, which unfortunately we've abandoned.

http://www.kylegann.com/tuning.html

http://www.kylegann.com/histune.html

Equal temperament - the bland, equal spacing of the 12 pitches of the octave - is pretty much a 20th-century phenomenon. It was known about in Europe as early as the early 17th century, and in China much earlier. But it wasn't used, because the consensus was that it sounded awful: out of tune and characterless.

 

[mccartneyman]

It's just funny that they decided to tune to A=440 for every album but the first. I doubt seriously if nay of the Beatles would have known the difference at that time. HAd to be a producer's decision.

 

[Stempelloos]

I doubt seriously if nay of the Beatles would have known the difference at that time. HAd to be a producer's decision.

Folk musicians are often aware of these differences, I was introduced
to older traditional tuning around my 11th, when I was part of a choir.
So I don't see why the Beatles wouldn't be aware of it, producers with
a classical background would definitely be in the know of this.

 

[So Low Bass]

I still maintain that the Beatles always tuned to the keyboards that were in the studios, so their pitch was always "on". The differences happened afterwards, with the tape machines, and were made largely out of ignorance of post production staff that didn't concern themselves with standard pitch relationships between tunes (or even WITHIN tunes,eg. The End). The musicians were all long gone at that stage.

99% for people can't hear the differences with the naked ear, but it makes playing along with an album difficult... actually impossible without retuning.

 

[CamiloDíaz]

my comment about George Martin was not a critic at all. On the contrary, It is one of appreciation: when I said "pandora's box" I was not refering to the box sets, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the new mixes/remasters. They bring so much "body" to the overall sound, and the bass realy stands out (wich is always good). What I was trying to say is that the different "misteries" that the whole Beatles' discography involves add up to the "legend flavor", and that maybe the whole thing was somewhat intended that way: to create something so unique and enigmatic that, 40 years later, people (like us) still talk about it.

That being said, I so want the new box set. It'd made my year!

 

[Mike M.]

If a remix brings out something unheard before, why not? Or if it's an alternate take that's good, why not? What impressed me mots about the Anthology CDs is that, with few exceptions, I think Martin & the Beatles released the best takes.

I LOVE the Anthology sets because they gave me hope with my song writing. Prior to those sets coming out I use to get very down about my writing efforts. Thought my songs were all "too simple" or that "it's crap with no possibilities." But when I heard how rough and how laughable things like "No Reply" and "Helter Skelter" sounded, it encouraged me to forge ahead and to let things evolve. I think the most amazing thing was hearing the evolution of "Strawberry Fields Forever." That song started off so simple and wow, look what they turned it into!!

The Anthology's were a rare glimse into thier working world and it showed me how they found merit with even the most primative of ideas.

I dare say that all in all the Anthology's have had the biggest musical impact on me in years. Still do.

 

[Anders Barfod]

Old thread.. But I think they tuned to 435hz on the first two albums as they were using an old piano at the studio as pitch reference. This piano could have A435 stamped on the frame as a lot of 1850s to 1920s pianos uses this "continential" tuning. I prefer 435hz to 440hz when singing. It is a small difference but the resonance of 440hz seems to place notes in the High mid part of My voice at a difficult place..

 

[Mushroo]

I know it's an old thread, but I don't think anyone mentioned McCartney's vocal range. He has a tenor voice, and I wonder if maybe he prefers writing bass parts that he can comfortably sing. Possibly he doesn't like the sound of multiple octaves distance between the bass note and the vocals. Or it could even be (I'm just hypothesizing) that he sometimes writes songs by vocalizing or "scat singing" into a tape recorder, without an instrument in his hands, so therefore he naturally writes instrumental parts that fit his vocal range.