Classical Beatles Classics
I was there when The Beatles recorded all of their albums back in the 1960’s. Since that time I’ve heard almost every cover version recorded by other recording artists. Some were great, others were good, and others…well not so good. But sometimes “something different” hits the airwaves and you just have to take notice. The songs that The Beatles wrote are such strong compositions that they can be scored for almost every genre of popular music and still sound very good and familiar.
I can't recall anyone who has come along and turned a selection of Beatles’ classics into Classical Beatles selections. That is not until now. Carlos Bonell has delved into the Beatles catalogue and did just that. It gives me great pleasure to introduce this incredible selection of recordings. These masterful recordings have all been beautifully packaged under the catchy title of Magical Mystery Guitars Tour by Carlos Bonell. Hmmm sounds a little like a familiar book title.
A Concerto For Guitar and Orchestra by
Sir
Paul McCartney
Carlos is helping Sir Paul McCartney with a concerto for guitar and orchestra that the ex-Beatle is composing. Over many meetings since the beginning of 2006 Carlos has been notating and pre-recording the guitar part at Sir Paul's studio in England.
In the 4th June 2007 issue, The New Yorker magazine reports:
" Carlos Bonell is helping Paul McCartney with some technical aspects of a guitar concerto. Bonell explained that his task in the studio is to transcribe on musical staff paper the passages that McCartney has composed on his guitar and on his computer......
After discussing the arrangement for a sweetly melodic movement called Romance McCartney and Bonell went into an adjoining room with hardwood floors containing a concert grand piano, vibes, guitars and other instruments. They sat beside each other on stools, facing a window through which they could see Smith [studio manager] in the control room. Both men picked up guitars and prepared to work on some passages that McCartney wanted to refine.....
He turned to Bonell and explained that he wanted the figure to include "more notes".....
Bonell performed the phrase adding more notes....[his] fingers flew over the frets....
He suggested that they move onto another passage. They worked this way for almost an hour......."
This is a shortened version of a longer interview with Sir Paul McCartney in the 4th June 2007 edition of the New Yorker magazine.
|
How I arranged Beatles classics for classical guitar
I first heard the Beatles when I was a young teenager just as they were starting to cause a big impression. They were appearing on a BBC radio programme. I was impressed by the strange vocal harmonies of a style I had never heard before from anyone. Little was I to know that many years later, in 2006, I would be able to ask Sir Paul McCartney himself about that early material, which I did. I was in his studio helping him with the concerto for guitar and orchestra he is composing. His reply was modest in the extreme. Sitting at the piano he said:
"Well, we only knew how to play the white keys…."
And yet "only able to play the white keys" is a great clue to some of the Beatles music. The white keys produce modal harmonies as used in folk music. They produce parallel harmonies too. Beatles’ music contains both of these elements and lots more besides. I followed the Beatles through every recording they made from 1962. I was growing up and developing varied musical tastes ranging from Classical to Rock.
It felt perfectly natural when they started using "Classical" accompaniments as in Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby. As I became more familiar with the harmonies of Flamenco, Classical, Baroque and Medieval music, the music of the Beatles - with their chord structures, modulations, falling bass-lines and use of colourful instrumentation - sounded like a natural continuation from the other musical styles with which I was familiar.
So how did I go about making the arrangements? The first decision was to decide the keys in which they sounded best, and in which they are easier to play. These two are sometimes in contradiction so I took time to come to a decision with some of the songs. For example, in Lucy in the Sky with diamonds I wanted to use a lot of harmonics (high bell-like sounds) to reflect the idea of diamonds. I also wanted a very open sound for the chorus with rasgueados (Spanish-style sounding strums). The result was the key of A and a dark sounding sequence of chords in B flat, followed by the chorus in G.
Listen to the sound samples here on the website and I hope you can hear what I mean at these timed moments in the piece:
Go to the Magical Mystery Guitar Tour page, then click on :
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds:
0” “open” sound
32” harmonics
48” “dark” sound - sequence of chords in B flat
1’10” “open” sounding chorus with rasgueados
1’35” more harmonics
The arrangement continues to develop passages with harmonics and arpeggios (succession of notes played on different strings) until the end of the song when it slips smoothly into a neo-Baroque sequence inspired by the falling bass-lines of the song.
In George Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun the decision about key was simple: it sounds great on the guitar in A, but how to create the rhythmic buzz? I did it by alternating the syncopated melody with bass and chords, after starting off the arrangement with an extended introduction. There are two other aspects I used through many of the other arrangements. These are the changes of octave in the tune and the use of rasgueados, which give variety and emphasis.
Later on in the piece I go into a long section which sounds like an improvisation, but it isn’t! I worked it out carefully. I pick up from the 4-note idea of the tune and extend it through changes of key and arpeggios until returning to the tune again.
The easiest pieces to arrange were Yesterday, Because and Michelle. The piece which took me longest was Strawberry Fields, with Somewhere a close second. I loved the little triplet idea near the beginning (Straw-berr-y / Fie-lds- for/ E-ver). It is so playful and unexpected. This gave me the idea for developing it further in the piece. You can hear the beginning of this idea on the sound sample. The lowest string is tuned down to D, with the piece arranged in G.
I hope this gives you some ideas of how I set about making these arrangements. My aim has been to make these Beatles’ pieces sound as if they had been composed as guitar solos. If you agree, then I will have succeeded.
Executive Producer: David Young
|
