"Penny Lane" analysis

[Blooby]

This was fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1rlPl5trG8

[Jean Pierre]

very interesting

[chapperz66]

This is great.  A bit longer but this is also quite good in a similar vein:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQS91wVdvYc

[cuthbert]

Excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed both videos. And I'm genuinely interested in the technical side of music, which helps explain why chords and notes work together in the ways they do. But I keep remembering one thing whenever watching or reading one of these in-depth studies: None of the Beatles (including Paul McCartney) had a formal understanding of music theory, nor could they read or write musical notation. (https://globalnews.ca/news/4503916/paul-mccartney-cant-read-music/)

The surprises that most trained musicians or composers usually comment upon happen because what they hear in these sophisticated songs doesn't follow the rules and patterns that they've learned studying music. It's unexpected - and that's cool!

John, Paul, George, and Ringo were musical geniuses and expert players - but - without any formal music training in their backgrounds or during their careers. Just years of hard work, and trusting their own ears to create the kind of music they loved. And their example is liberating and inspiring to anyone who wants to make music.

[Farrell Jackson]

Excellent videos and explanations of how these songs are put together. I can see that I need an expanded chord book, lol. Thanks for posting.

[AndyR]

I've only watched the first one so far, and that was yesterday before anyone had replied. I had to go off and cook (I will soon again!).

What I thought was really interesting was that he didn't seem to take into account the instruments that Paul McCartney played and how that might have informed how Penny Lane was written with those chords and key changes.

People are sometimes complimentary about some of my chord changes - I suspect they come about the same way, because all through that video I was inwardly shouting "it'll be that note, its a falling bass line stoopid, that's how he wrote it, and he kept the Bm chord over that G# and he went WOW!! how do I put melody over that?? etc, etc"

It is a really cool video - but I suspect all the tricks Paul McCartney was using are a LOT more accessible to all of us than the presenter was making out.

My approach is a bit like:

Let's make it interesting... er...

We can change chords over a static bass part (listen to Genesis - probably a keyboard player caused it, it was keyboard player who turned me on to how Genesis did this)

We can change bass notes under a static chord (listen to songs like Penny Lane - probably a guitar playing bassist, or bass playing guitarist, caused it... listen to Slade too)

We can change key between verses and choruses or middle eights, whatever... we can do it like here using what I call a connecting chord (he called it a pivot?) - a chord in both keys.

Or we can just jump to some crazy unrelated key and learn to sing/play the melodies without the warning (I believe George Martin taught The Beatles that trick? Day Tripper changes key for an instrumental break of just guitar riffs and then goes back - saved someone figuring out a guitar solo or anything. OK, no real melody in that case, but it's a random key change for "vibe")

The keyboard player who turned me on to the static bass under moving chords also taught me the "jump" on one of my songs - he went "it's cool, I like the verses and choruses, the middle eight is great too... but it's kinda boring and... er, tell you what, it's in E/C#m? Why not shift the middle eight?" I was looking for a connecting chord and worrying I wouldn't be able to sing the choruses after it... and he went "no, just jump", I went "like in Day Tripper?" and showed him... "Yep" .... I was still confused though until he went "no, simpler, transpose the entire middle 8 to another key, figure out how to play and sing it, now drop it in with no warning (this was not recording, it was sat on sofas with an acoustic guitar). We picked D, I figured out how to pitch the vocal (it's on the 1) I performed it and he went YESSSSSS. (If I ever record it, I'll credit him, it's that important to the song).

Anyways, I'm rambling now - yeh, fabulous video, but try to see past the apparent "this is music theory" vibe... Paul McCartney (apart from the money) is just like most of us on here... except he did it when he was young and driven and had the confidence/arrogance of youth... and he had a very clever guy on hand to help him learn the tricks he was ready to use but didn't yet know what they were...

Yeah, videos like this reveal the tricks - but don't be intimidated, they're easy, you can't go wrong if it sounds good, nothing is wrong.... oh, and, nick the tricks!!!

[AndyR]

I can see that I need an expanded chord book, lol.

Not sure how serious you are... but I don't think like that.

I've got the basic set:

Majors
Minors
Diminished (those are worth figuring out how to add)

To those I will:
Add another note (turns them into 7 chords, sus4, 9, etc - but who cares, if it sounds good, use it)
Change the bass note - sometimes on it's own, but usually to add movement to the bass part.

EG, a D chord over C is kind of a D7 but I thnk D/C

What I'm saying is, I don't know the names of all the chords I use, and nor did Paul McCartney - he added a funny note, or decided to play another melody on the bass, and woah!! crazy chords

[AndyR]

Also, Penny Lane still... I thought of this last night, and I don't recall the guy pointing it out.

There's another trick used here: speed of chord changes between verse and chorus.

I'm certain this one was written on the falling bassline, rather than the bassline got added as "arrangement" afterwards.

If that is the case, then, in the song-writer's head, the falling bassline represents the chord changes (it's also what we hear when we're not thinking about theory or how to play it)

Look at how the chords are changing in the verse - on every beat.

Then he slows it right down in the chorus - on the first beat of the bar.

When you combine that with the key change... WOAH! what an effect. The chorus opens up and is stunning (when in fact the chorus taken in isolation isn't that exciting).

I don't know where I learnt this technique, I got it from a book. It works both ways: long chord verses with short chord choruses, or short chord verse with long chord choruses.
I've personally found the second seems more likely to give you "lighter in the air" anthemic choruses, if you can manage to keep them while writing. Sadly, my natural tendency has always been to discard them because they sound "boring" when you're writing them!  .

(Company VPN is down, can't connect to work... so I'll keep going, sorry! )

There's a similar thing happening in his melody line and lyric here - which apparently would/could be a pointer to it being written by a singer-songwriter, who is more likely to write a song by singing it over some chords he/she is playing. I say "apparently" because I got that from a book too, and then looking at songs I like (mine and famous ones, Cole Porter, that sort of thing) I discovered there does seem to be some pattern to this.

A few years ago (actually MANY years ago now ), when I first learnt about the "pointers" to whether it was a singer-songwriter or a songwriter who wrote it, I spent a fair bit of time learning how to take my singer-songwriter idea for a song and enhance it to "full songwriter".

It doesn't always need doing. Singer-songwriter songs are good too. But if you know the tricks, it's always worth checking to see if you can't make it better.

The main tricks I picked up were (they kind of interact with each other):

Does the melody start on the 2nd beat? (ie it goes "strum, then sing when you can hear the chord")
- if it does, consider moving it to the first beat.
You need to do this really early on in the songwriting process - it's really difficult to change later, when you have too much time/emotion invested in what you've got already.
Paul McCartney's done it here. The melody really starts on "Lane", but he's used the same thing I do, a little pick up on the fourth beat of the previous bar (In Penny) to ensure his melody starts on the first beat of the bar. Once the lyrics are in place, and we've all heard it millions of times, the melody we've all got does actually start on the 4th beat now... but I strongly suspect it didn't early on in the process.
When you get one that starts dead on the first beat, it's like "oh yeah". She's Leaving Home, Something, With a Little Help From My Friends

Are the melodies too horizontal? (all on one note)
- consider adding a few vertical changes
I learnt this with reference to The Beatles too. John Lennon's melodies were predominantly horizontal (Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite), Paul McCartney's vertical (I Will). You can actually hear them learning off each other through the catalogue - although later on John Lennon seems to put less effort into changing his natural thing, that's ok though, his songs have other stuff.
Neither approach to melody is wrong, but spicing one up with a bit of the other makes for a more immediate and memorable listen.
Reputedly, the last song they wrote together, swapping lines was From Me To You, and this perfectly illustrates the "spice it up" technique in action:
If there's anything that you want (John, cool enough)
If there's anything I can do (Paul, responded with the jump between "anything" and "I" ... now we're talking hit and girls screaming etc ))

Does the melody follow the chords/bassline too close?
- consider breaking the connection
It applies to both notes and rhythm of the melody. Sometimes you want the connection, sometimes it would be nice if you could give the listener two things to listen to at once.
This is hard to do if you're a guitar playing singer-songwriter sat on a sofa. I still can't do it like that, but I can imagine it in my head nowadays. Once written and learnt I can just about play it.
Note that you could argue Paul McCartney hasn't achieved it in Penny Lane. Verse="skippy bass and skippy vocal", Chorus="both bass and vocal smoother" (is the term Legato? mebbe, dunno). But it doesn't really matter on this one - there's already so much FABness going on you don't really need more as a listener.

The last one's more about arrangement than songwriting, but it's connected to the previous one.

Are the chords imitating the vocal and possibly undermining the vocal's impact?
- consider breaking the connection
I have two examples:
First, harmony, the backing is playing a D... the singer's melody hangs a G over it - wow, gorgeous... Then all the guitars/keys start playing Dsus4 ...
Er... why? A melody G over a D makes the suspended 4th for the listener anyway.
Doubling that in a chord playing part might improve it by reinforcing it. But it might damage it by reducing the vocal's impact.
Doubling that in a chord playing part might improve it by adding rhythmical interest. But it might damage it by reducing the vocal's impact.
Second, rhythm, a vocal melody's rhythm implies a pushed chord change on the 4 or 4and of the previous bar.
The only thing I can think of to illustrate pushing like this is the chords of Thin Lizzy's The Boys Are Back in Town, I play in G, the chorus is G, Am, C - the Am and C are "pushed", in fact, most of the verse changes are, it's what makes the song skip and groove like it does.
HOWEVER, sometimes a song is "straight" and the vocal anticipates a change. This makes for a really cool effect... I have a song with a chorus vocal that should skip over a straight backing... this effect is totally DESTROYED by the band going "Oooh! That's cool, lets all go with the vocal"
(Can you tell I'm a vocalist?! )

AHH!! They've just fixed the VPN, better do some work....

[guitarron]

Andy
Mind blown
That's a lot insight. That's for sharing those tips.

[Ted]

[T]ry to see past the apparent "this is music theory" vibe... Paul McCartney (apart from the money) is just like most of us on here...

Exactly.

I haven't analyzed too many Beatles songs, but I try to remember that those guys were just putting their hands on guitars and trying out stuff and going with what they liked. The only thing remarkable about them (other than the results) is that they ran with some unconventional results, unbothered by whether or not they were doing it "right."

My last song post on this site was "The Night Before" for the Beatles Fest. It's not as brilliant a song as "Penny Lane," but in learning the chords to the song, I tried to imagine what McCartney was thinking:

Working on the chorus here, and let's try Bm to G... kind of predictable. Maybe Bm to Gm... Ooh, yes! Or maybe Bm to Gm6 first, to help me sing that E note, then Bm to Gm for the second time. Okay, I'll go with that.

But I really do want to hear the G major so for the third time D to G major, and back to D. Yep.

Hmm... But the verse starts on a D. Do I want to start the verse on D after resolving the chorus on a D? No. But what do I do? Maybe throw in a quick little measure F to G, and then to the D at the beginning of the verse. Yeah. That works...

So just doing the same stuff we all should be doing, but what I find so hard to do: Try shit out. Don't be too lazy in your choices, but don't try too hard to be clever. But make decisions and keep moving.