“Hard Day’s Night” Mystery chord solved using math

 
"Hard Day's Night" Mystery chord solved using math
 

Chaaaaaang!……
"It's been a hard day's night
And I've been working like a dog"
 

This first chord that starts A Hard Day's Night is one of the most recognizable and famous opening chords in rock & roll. It's played by George Harrison on his 12 string Rickenbacker.
 
The other reason that it's famous is because for 40 years nobody knew for sure what it was. Many guitar players have tried in vain to recreate the sound but have usually failed miserably.

Well, someone has figured it out definitively - not a musician, but a Dalhousie mathematician.
 
Four years ago, Jason Brown was inspired by reading news coverage about the song's 40th anniversary - so much so that he decided to try and see if he could apply a mathematical calculation known as Fourier transform to solve the Beatles' riddle. The process allowed him to break the sound into distinct frequencies using computer software to find out exactly which notes were on the record.

full @ http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2008/11/beatles-hard-days-night-mystery-chord-solved/

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a friend of mine, who is a composer, informs me: 

Actually, it turns out not to have been any mystery...
musicologists knew for years, but it didn't occur to the mathematician to, you know, check the existing literature.
 

 

 

 

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