What Is The Most Complex Beatles Song?

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's happening to everyone, happy Saturday. Had a great show here in Atlanta the other night. The Variety Playhouse has a show next month. It's just two more shows this year. Maybe these will be my last two shows. I haven't decided yet, but uh. at the Grar C theater in New York City on October 17 and in Berlin at the Passion Church on October 28. It will be a fun month. We are al

most

in October. The weather is starting to cool down a bit in Atlanta. I have my Bato package on sale $99 my four courses my bat book interactive video course are all video courses actually my B ear training which is a video course with an accompanying program that has hundreds of modules to Train your ear with my beginner guitar course If you've never played guitar before and want to learn from scratch, it starts by teaching you how to hold the guitar How to round your fingers How to mute strings How to play open chords How to play basic

song

s, everything you need to know for that and then of course my quick Pro lessons, which are more of a kind of mid level, maybe too advanced.

I would say intermediate to advanced level, which is based on my quick lessons that I do on Instagram or my YouTube shorts I also put them in YouTube shorts, but it breaks them down, it has guitar profiles like tablature and everything, and then I have video lessons on not only

what

I play in them, but also the concepts behind them. There are guitar lessons there, but they are a little more for advanced players. M intermediate to advanced players. One of the biggest videos I've ever made on my channel is my

most

complex

pop

song

of all time.

I can't believe how many people I interviewed have seen that video. Now I know it has a lot of views, it's 6 million, 7 million. I don't know how many views it has. It has many views and it was a song. I will never let you go and it has 22 modulations. If you haven't seen the video, you should definitely check it out, the most

complex

pop pop song of all time. Sergio Mendes song actually, but it was written by Cynthia Wild and um, Barry, great songwriters, um, and I mean it was Sergio Mendes' bassist who wrote to me after I told him the story of how I tried to play this by heart at a concert after learning it for 10 minutes with my friend Smitty. and just what a disaster it was uh the bassist wrote to me and said I've been playing the song for 20 years.

I still use a chart, but today we're going to explore which Beetle songs are the most complex in complexity. it could be rhythmic complexity harmonic complexity uh, but I like to stick with harmony modulations prescribed chords things that are out of tune because harmony is something that is um uh Harmony is the ocean in which the melody sets sail I don't know where I heard that , but I thought that was a great description of what harmony is because you can take a melody and you can reharmonize it in thousands of different ways and it becomes something completely different because of the relationships between the chords that you're playing in the note of the melody For example, if I play this note, I play that chord, um, that d.

That's a D chord, so it's not the third, but if I play it here it gives it a completely different flavor, if I'm going to turn it into a major seventh of this, it's the sharp four of this chord uh it's the um yeah it's uh it could be the sharp five of this chord, for example, so an F sharp note could be, there are hundreds of chords it could be, that's how Harmony works uh with Melody to make your song more colorful, so I start thinking Well, what are the most complex Beatles songs? And you know, you start to think, well, one of the songs I always go back to is a good thing, which is off of Abby's red record, the George Harrison song, right? so it's um uh, it starts right, um right it starts on the fourth chord, so you don't know what the fourth chord is yet, five1 right, this could actually be, it could be the five chord to the fourth chord in B flat major to G major. and then we're definitely in C major in the verse, I mean, in The Way She Moves it goes to C major 7, then it goes to this C7 because we're getting ready to change the keys, then Way She Moves and then we go to this I don '.

I don't want to leave you now, you know, I come out and then the chorus I love, it walks down beautifully and then it goes back to um um, it goes to the solo after that, after the bridge, so it's quite a complex song. I talked about that song in particular. when I did my comparison of Leed Zeppelin, the stereo cliche line with Heaven versus something that was on the radio at the same time as Stairway Heaven or right before Stairway Heaven because this came out on Abbey Road 1970, the steroid Heaven came out. in 71 and argued that if Jimmy Pagee was influenced by something, although this is common, this is called line cliché.

If he was influenced by anything, it would have been something because it was a song that was number one. song on the radio, okay, so I said, okay, that's pretty complicated, what's another one that people think about and I thought? Well, Penny Lane, a lot of people say Penny Lane, oh, that would be the most complicated song, a complex song, okay, Penny Lane, how does it start? Well, that starts in B major, so it's like, well, let's get started. I don't remember the lyrics to all these songs. I'm terrible at lyrics, my ulation is beautiful, we're in B major, this is the first key change, that's beautiful right there when it goes from B minor 7 to G sharp halfway down the G major 7, of course, these are variations of that B minor chord, you hear that B minor TR chord over that G major 7, so this is actually the five chord in in in um in B major Okay, this is a flat 2 major and 7 chord , so key changes definitely happen.

You can listen to this first. You can hear that key change when it goes to B minor. So okay, what's the chorus? So it's like A and L. in my ears and in my eyes under the blue Suburban SK as I sit and I'm fine so we have a modulation back to the key of B major so it's between b and to this song at that moment it comes back to the end um it goes to my ears, to my eyes, it modulates a whole step but it actually modulates back to B from a, so there's a modulation at the end of the song, but we're actually going between the keys of B major and A. major with a little bit for Ray on this that I would call uh if I had to say this so we're at B this is the parallel minor of B minor right uh so uh so we go parallel between B major and B minor there So, but no it's so complicated, we only have a couple of key changes there, but it's really interesting, it's the base movement and the song and the melody make it seem more complex than it is, even though it's a very complex song, uh, Brad Crafton, uh.

Rick, I purchased the ear training course a year ago. I learned more in four years at M of Music School than four years in a music school in the 90s. I'm going to pick up the package and the book. Awesome, um, yeah, you know. interesting, I've been to some universities over the last few years doing some events, some talks and um, it's interesting to see where ear training has been introduced into universities. I think I'll probably do a video on this with the Advent of Things. like YouTube, where you have people who will show you how to play Stuff That You Include, people can go there and learn any song, pretty much anything you want to learn, if you want to learn how to play a song, you go to YouTube and there's someone.

When making a tutorial, a lot of them are wrong, but a lot of them are right and a lot of them, you know, really, really, well done, well filmed and well explained, I like it, I prefer if I am, if someone, if I go . to recommend a tutorial to someone, I prefer tutorials that teachers don't do on my channel because there are many of them, I prefer tutorials or I like to recommend tutorials in which the person who plays the piece first is okay, and then they give the explanation , so that's just a little thing from me to you to help you when you're looking for tutorials, if you're looking for something to play with, um, um, then it's, um, uh, just search, search for those things.

When looking for tutorials, don't always look for the ones with the most views. John 2000 says: Oh, thanks John. I bought your package last year and my hands don't move as well anymore. It has been a great relearning experience. Good job John, I really appreciate that you know, that's watching, you know, just moving your hands and playing all the time is the best. My Aunt Penny, who passed away in 2020, had Ms for 50 years and one of the reasons she was always able to maintain the movement of her hands even when her legs were failing due to playing the piano all the time, You know, that was something really very important.

She always told me that that was uh, that that way of playing consistently over the years stuck. his hands and her brain were connected, so she played every day, read music and played and improvised, okay, then, another song, let's say, okay, what about Straw Fields Forever? It's a complicated song, well let's think about it, let me think about how it goes that's like um oh sorry let me take you down 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields this is weird nothing's real really weird Melody and nothing to worry about Strawberry Fields Forever that's so great that it's actually already much more complicated or more harmonically sophisticated than um than Penny Lane so it's like a um let's see um I love that let me take you down because I'm going to Strawberry Fields check it out nothing is real oh lenon so good and nothing to get hung up on Strawberry FS forever and then you know how they do this.

I love it. I think Harrison definitely touches on that in a strategy. That's great. That's the first time I learned that that's like an um to uh. That's like a um. It's like an Eric Johnson lick. 30 years before Eric Johnson played by George Harrison. I love that beautiful Beau, there are a lot of very sophisticated harmonic movements here. I mean, you can say the song says uh, you say like this or I hear it like this. I love that D major. a d major a d diminish how did John Lennon think about these things? This is incredible, it leaves me speechless.

I think all these guys were just trying to outdo themselves. I don't know who wrote the song first, Penny Lane or Strawberry Fields Forever. it was written first or what, but they were both apart on the same 45, which is ridiculous right, incredibly awesome, um, okay, so what's another song that some of you could say? Well, Blackbird, look at all the harmonic movement and that, oh man, wait a lot of movement you're always waiting for this moment to be free ah and then the black chorus black bird flies black bird flies that's really quite sophisticated right that's quite sophisticated that's beautiful amazing lead voice E minor E flat major D D major C Shar decrease C to C minor uh G over B A7 like Jesus, right, um, but I love the alternating baseline there and then, then the change of key of the chorus, so we're essentially in the key of C, here we go, first four chord inversion I I Call this F C over E D Minor C no, no, we're in F major Sorry, so it's one to five more uh in first inversion six 5 4 I love how it goes to A7, it's quite complicated actually the way it flows because of the lead vocal, although it's um, it's um, the thing about Strawberry Fields is that it has those two four bars , I mean, this, this is very, um, that, is, um, really unusual, it's really a harmonically sophisticated lead voice and it's interesting because it's sophisticated has the same kind of thing with this, uh, like the ascending progression here in Blackbird, perfect voice direction, but this is voice direction in a very different way.

I think in a um and then when it comes down to it, you know. Amazing use of a diminished cord that is so, um, just out there, a really very creative use of Harmony there by Lenin, but to me I think it's the most sophisticated, yeah, I thought about it because it has the most sophisticated harmonies, probably also of the paper layers. um uh because it's off of ABY road, which is a John Lenon song um it's very, very sophisticated but when I think about what's the most unusual song I probably think of uh um uh sorry, key change, okay, so we're in B major here B a a a A6 a g a g augmented to F to F6 e E7 then D to D7 well, as long as you have two dominant chords like that E7, that's going to be chord five in the key of E of the key of A D7 is a five chord and the treble clef, but then it goes back to a major there, so really this is a dominant five to dominant four to a major right instead of dominant five to major four, 7 to one right, really, really. sophisticated use of voice to guide you, um, Joshua, thank you very much.

Record your own Beatles arrangements and post them on YouTube. Is it nonsense? No, actually you can make your own as you can. You can't stream Beatles music on YouTube, but you can. Do what I'm doing, where you just play covers, basically, right, these are or this is a teaching video, this would be a fair use teaching video, discussing harmony, uh, and breaking down a song, um, okay , then we're in the uh verse. "I'm the wus here, look how they run like B from my gun. Look, first of all, this is really strange, soyou've got that whole thing all over, um, you've got that whole weird intro that starts on B, do you think?" we're in B major a flat major 7 oh, where are we okay?

We're definitely moving somewhere to G augmented. I'm really sophisticated, who does that? I say, how do you figure out these things properly when I was a kid, there were no chord books and if there were chord books, they were piano books that had little chord diagrams and they were useless because, first of all, they didn't. I could afford them and I couldn't ask my mom. I mean, I guess I could have said Mom, can you buy me this piano book? Well, we don't have a piano Rick, oh no, I didn't ask my mom to buy me piano books. because we never had a piano.

I grew up in a house that didn't have one. We couldn't afford a piano until I went to college, so my brother John took piano lessons and I remember telling my mom, Mom, you just get a piano. when I go to college and she said, well, do you know what you're doing? I'm going to do it so the only way to learn things was to learn them by ear or from someone else that's how I developed my ear and you know I couldn't really. I used to tell my mom no. m I'm going to go back to the song just give me a second you say to my mom you know I have students that can't decipher the songs by ear and she said what do you mean my mom?

She was not a musician. her two sisters were music teachers her dad played guitar and everything my mom knew on an open court she could play Hey Joe on the guitar and she played it for me when I practiced solos my mom played G major like that I always loved it when I did that, but my mom could sit and decipher any song by ear on the piano or the guitar, she could sound the notes, ask, what do you mean they can't decipher it? I said mom, there I am. I have students who can't understand things well, how do you teach them?

I said: I teach you intervals. She said what is that? I said Well, intervals are kind of the building blocks of scales and chords. My mom didn't even know anything about music theory. although both of her sisters were music teachers, she didn't know it and I and I were explaining to her, you know there's a distance between chords if you have this A chord and you listen to the basic go da da a g I know it goes down a whole step right, I'm listening to this and I know one note changes and she would say: yeah, I heard that, you mean people can't understand that.

I said many people can't because they don't know it. what to listen to, so I have to teach them what to listen to, that's why these songs, like when we just did Penny Lane, we know it's not right or all these things have Baseline, we have a static chord. with moving baselines you either have static C or you have chords now look, this has that chromatic movement but it's much more sophisticated because John Lenin is playing not only does he have a static chord with base movement, he's actually changing the harmony on each one of these things. like the core as things move and there's a lot of half-step movement, whereas in Penny Lane we call that movement dionic because you're in the key of B, it's the root of B major up to the seventh, up to the sixth up the fifth, okay, so there is a difference between dionic and chromatic motion, this is chromatic motion, it is chromatic because it moves up in semitones, so, but continue with I Am The Walrus, thank you Arthur Day in the Life is well, but but.

This I think is more sophisticated, so after the first two times I'm the wus goes, then here, then, oh, amazing four sharp, to the third, to the root, to the flat seven, the throne and then the seated bridge in an English garden. doing towards the sun um, I forgot a part, so then it goes um um, then there's an I'm crying, I'm crying, I'm crying, which is like an interlude in the middle of the verses and choruses of I Am The Walrus. it's the I'm crying part where the D goes its from I'm crying I'm crying I'm crying well so after all this and go over the bridge the final part of this I've talked about this in my live shows that I do um they have what it's called a Shepherd tone at the end which is an optical illusion uh an auditory illusion the end of I am the wus is a seven measure phrase that says um goes here five sharps I love this it seems like the melody and the baseline just they keep the melody keeps going up and the baseline keeps going down and Aaron just said that there are no minor chords in this song, which is surprising, it's true, there are no minor chords in I Am The Walrus and to me this is the song more sophisticated melodically and harmonically.

I think of all the Beatles songs. It is really surprising. It was one of John Lennon's favorite songs. I heard it. I heard him talk about it. I think maybe it was one of the articles. from 1980 or so and it was one of um um, it was one of his favorite songs and I think it's because it's so uh musically interesting, so beautiful, it really blows my mind, how good a song it is, so if you want . to be able to decipher this kind of stuff by ear you should really think about investing in your music education and review it by reviewing my B package this is how I fund my channel this is how I do these interviews when I go to New York and I interview Kirk Hammet when I go to Los Angeles and I interview Thomas Newman or whoever in any of these interviews.

I stay every time I travel, which is most of the time to do these interviews. I finance everything and it basically comes from people who buy. my courses or become a member of the Bato Club, but for $99 you get all four my courses, most people on YouTube sell their courses for, you know, $150 for one course which is perfectly fair, but I want it to be affordable for people who can. get all four and um and the description is uh you can go to my store the description is below uh how to get there and um concert at the Gramarcy Theater in New York City on October 17th and in Berlin at the Passion Church on October 28th I look forward to meeting you there, you guys are amazing, I really appreciate it, enjoy the rest of your weekend, we talked about a lot of things today so come back and check it out a couple of times, have a great weekend, take care of yourselves, we we see.