Does everyone play Yesterday wrong?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 27 вер 2020
- I, like anyone else who has performed Yesterday, previously had no doubt that I knew how the melody for Yesterday goes. However, when I finally listened to the record a bit closer, I realised that I had been performing it wrong my entire life! Whether this is a simple mistake or a prime example of the "Mandela effect" is unclear, but what is clear is that the first note of Yesterday by The Beatles is not a G, despite what the sheet music says!
COVERS USED IN THIS VIDEO:
Connie Talbot: • Yesterday - The Beatle...
Sam Tompkins: • the beatles - yesterda...
Himesh Patel: • Video
Boyce Avenue: • Yesterday - The Beatle...
Lewis Capaldi: • Lewis Capaldi - Yester...
The Beats: • The Beats - Yesterday
SOURCES:
McCartney performing Yesterday (1965): • Yesterday (With Spoken...
The Beatles performing Yesterday (1966): • The Beatles - "Yesterd...
Yesterday in 2004: • Paul McCartney - Yeste...
McCartney interview (2001): • Video
An extra special thanks goes to Vidad Flowers, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇
SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: / davidbennettpiano
suddenly it's not half the note it used to be
There’s a flat F sounding over G, and kind of A-ish in verse three.
hahahah
I predict this will be the top comment very, very soon.
Very good. Wish I'd thought of that!
Hahaha
My sister has perfect pitch and has pointed this out forever. Thanks for the analysis. She'll enjoy seeing this.
Oh how I wish I had perfect pitch!
@@DavidBennettPiano Having perfect pitch myself, this has eternally irritated me. I got berated by music teachers at school for singing it as sung, not how it is notated.
@@aeonvg oh, that’s so sad!
Sisterday
@@DavidBennettPiano I have perfect pitch too, and again: it's a slightly lower G. you're mistaken because of the decrescendo on the G.
I have literally NEVER thought "Yes" was a different note than "-ter-day" at the top of the song.
AND, it makes perfect sense for it to change over the course of the song the way it does.
I agree
Same for me. I always sing three F notes in the beginning line
Same here.
Sorry, but the musical logic (if not Paul's performance) strongly points to the G. Listen to the melody on "far away" and "over me": he repeats the idea of a melodic contour that begins on a suspension above a chord tone for a dotted beat, then sings the chord tone for the remaining syllables. On "far away" it's also the 2nd degree of the scale of the chord in question (A minor), and on "over me" it's the 4th degree for the C major chord.
Opening the phrase on the 2nd of the F major, in a similar (albeit faster) rhythm, unifies the melodic line.
The fact that he does sing it that way in other verses only underlines that this is a matter of performance (whether a "flaw" or an interpretive choice: singers can choose to sing slightly flat or sharp expressively), not of what the actual melody is.
I trust Paul McCartney as a writer of melodies more than the rest of us ;-)
I've ALWAYS heard it as the G...
The point you make at 3:33 nails it - people trust the sheet music more than their own ears... there are countless transcriptions out there that are obviously incorrect, yet every piano cover you see seems to play them as the sheet, not as the song - Bohemian Rhapsody is a classic example, there's at least two parts of that song that are not right in the sheet, yet everyone plays the incorrect transcription instead of trusting their ears...
This is why I like drumming in band class. If I feel like a part is incorrect I can usually change it
So true, and I thought the same when David Cameron hummed his ditty - it was not so straightforward to transcribe, and someone from Classic FM came up with [G - C - G - D#] - a dubious spelling of a C minor triad. Many musicians composed Cameron pieces on this motif, without questioning it, or thinking 'why does it have that quirky quality if it's just a common-or-garden C minor triad?
When top-notch pianist Gabriela Monteiro entered the fray (ua-cam.com/video/APFSsFBw6a0/v-deo.html) she put the matter to rest.
Not everyone is able to hear notes and intervals this precisely. I have been practicing my relative pitch for a while now but still struggle to play by ear. Therefore, most people just have to rely on people who transcribe the sheet music.
I play several instruments including piano but I'm pretty much completely unable to play anything I haven't practised before without sheet music. I have some intuitive understanding of relative pitch when it comes to singing but that just doesn't translate to instruments for me. I can usually only tell if two notes are the same or different. If they're somewhat close together I even have trouble telling if the melody is going up or down. To play a simple melody just from hearing it I basically have to try out a whole octave for any pair of consecutive notes until I find the correct one. As soon as the music is polyphonic in any way I'm completely lost without the sheets.
Yes... and some people don't realize that pianos are purposely *not* tuned to perfect pitch on the grand staff; not all eighty-eight keys are in absolute tune. I guess that it is going to sound slightly off, when played on a "perfect-pitch" keyboard/synthesizer.
literally only like a minute and a half in and “yesterday” doesn’t even sound like a word anymore
"Yesterday doesn't exist anymore" sounds philosophical, doesn't it?
MWSin1 it really does, and it’s kinda messing with my brain
It’s weird isn’t it! This effect is called Jamais Vu (just if you want a weird fact to impress your nerdy friends)
@@TSutton Cool! I didn't know that.
I’m hearing “yes, daddy”.
When you realise you made a whole movie called “Yesterday” but you didn’t even play the song correctly
Lmao.
You're not half the man you used to be...
That movie is also one of the worst films I have ever seen. It just got worse and dumber as it went on. Horribly cheesy covers, awful acting, and a plot and character that fails to redeem itself over and over again. Sad that I can't get that portion of my life back. It's sad whoever owns the publishing rights stooped to the level of that movie and allowed them to use the Beatles' music.
@@ParhelionMedia the only saving grace was the music I guess, and this was how I started getting i. To the Beatles music culture fully so it wasn’t all bad
@@ParhelionMedia I liked it. To each their own.
Forgive me if someone's pointed this out, but the reason he's doing the higher notes on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th times is because he's coming down from a higher note in the bit before those ones, and it's natural to do that. Thank you for the post.
Him: Did you hear it?
Me not really hearing any difference: sure
massive difference for me. i get quite irritated when things sound wrong.
😂😂😂
I mean , some people (mostly musicians) can tell the difference , i can but its not as massive as the other dude says it is
@@jenniferschmitzer299 I can also hear the difference but I do not get irritated nor think that its massive.
I could hear the difference, but only when it was played back to back. Would’ve never noticed otherwise.
I prefer the F-F-F version because it has a sadder feeling, more akin to the song's theme.
True. Sounds more solemn as F-F-F
@@DeVibe. Wrong ! I'm a musician .. and I approve of triple F as the right way to begin this song .. mood wise. As I said it sounds solemn . Just that it's subtle.. and went under the radar of so many people .
@@DeVibe. ok.. visualise a person in a melancholic/sombre mood reflecting on a thought . He/she will not begin the song with a raised note . It will be a flat rendition of the word yesterday . It's ever so subtle a thing to notice .
I feel the same
To me - after so many listenings in life - it sounds same note thru the bar. The first stroke is 'accented' - some 'Musical Initial'. ;)
Paul was (is) a master at making slight variations in repeated lines. My personal favorite is at the end of Blackbird when he sings "you were only waiting for this moment to arise" three times and each time is slightly different. That subtlety adds so much to the song. Genius.
Sia Furler is the queen of variation. Not her new stuff, though. Give this a listen: ua-cam.com/video/TCXOXgWnfVc/v-deo.html
Constantly changing his basslines within songs too. A bass riff in the first verse won't necessarily be repeated note for note in 2nd and 3rd verses. He was always tinkering with little things to add interest. My favourite musician/song writer of all time.
@@pixiewings21_9 My favourite example of that is in Taxman. Around the second or third verse, the bass line doesn't play the iconic riff, but some really wild variation of it. Just great. Or, to pick another George song, Paul's bass fill after the first line of the third verse. Just exquisite.
It’s hard to know whether he does so more as a composer vs. as a singer/interpreter. Probably as both.
Nowhere Man bassline is a masterpiece as it's not the same every verse
Back in the early 90s, a bunch of little mini-studios popped up where for a nominal fee you could get a quasi-professional-sounding recording of your voice on cassette performing a popular tune. It was like karaoke, only instead of an audience there was just a guy in a booth recording you. My cousin and I did a rendition of "Yesterday," and it turns out that I sang the beginning note with the slightly sharp F just like Paul originally did, without even realizing it.
The way you described those mini studios totally reminded me of the episode of Nickelodeon's "Doug" where he goes and gets a recording of "Patti you're the mayonnaise for me"!
"What would you do if I sang out of tune..." indeed
...I'm going to make a video right now to check this out once and for all.
it's quite possible that paul was just flat when he sang it.
quite a sharp observation
@@ricochetsixtyten It comes to him naturally
They should put him in the movies.
It is just a simple word said differently, nothing to examinate, it's natural
@@ftumschk He *accidental*ly thought of it
i dont know about you guys but im starting to think that david likes the beatles a little bit
They’re alright I guess
@@DavidBennettPiano You cracked me up when you suggested the "Paul is Dead" theory as a reason why he's now singing the correct first note again 😂
Yeaaaahhh... just a li'l bit.
Kate your comment got so many likes!! Proud of you!!!
David Bennett Piano 😂
Couldn't it just be that Paul sang a flat G on the recording as it is the opening bar and not necessarily the easiest note to hit?
I reckon Paul could hit pretty much any note he wanted to hit.
My guess as well
It’s not that he couldn’t hit the G. He just sang it the way that felt the most natural. In the same way that our ears don’t really notice that he’s off pitch, he probably didn’t notice he was off pitch at the time.
Finally someone with a brain makes a comment. Thank you. As they say, the simplest explanation is usually the right explanation.
Most likely this, Paul isn’t a theory nerd and probably doesn’t even know he did this
Hip details! Being one of these transcribers I‘d like to point out that notation choices and how the sheet music appears in the end is rather informed by who you’re writing for and what the music publisher asks for, e.g. easy arrangements or exact transcriptions - vs. being lazy or making mistakes (also there’s proofreading) Especially when it comes to vocals there’s more pitch variety and variation than it would be practical to reflect in the notation. Any notation, or graphic depiction of sound is always just a very rough translation. Naturally music fits the notation grid only to a degree so always use the original recording in conjunction with sheet music.
He sang it in a more "spoken" style, that's why the pitch is not perfect but the fact that Melodyne recognizes two different notes shows that it's not the same note, he is flat, that's why everyone transcribed it as a G because F# would have been a Minor Second and if you play it in a piano it clashes more, it's an appoggiatura that happens so fast that your brain automatically tunes the note altough it's not perfectly in tune, to me it's just a "false note", a note that does not match any of the twelve pitches in equal temperament tuning but adds emotion to a Performance...Good Video
PlayTheGuitarra
that’s exactly what i thought, and you said it very well!
plus, the second note is flat too, so it sounds closer to a major second than anything else
te amo
Sos un genioooooo te admiro play the guitarra hace mas videos de teoria musical
@@inakiallende2118 Wajaja 🤣🤣🤣
Wuuuuuuooooooooo su crossover épico aguante play the guitarra me hiciste el día locoo te re amo
Yesterday doesn’t sound like a real word anymore
@Absolute Zero Gesundheit
"yes today..."
Yeah, its pretty weird isnt it?
Yes-ter-day... What even is "ter"?
Funny, I've never encountered this thing with English words including in this video since it's not my first language but I have it in my native language words many times. Is there anything to do with it?
@@Jajo372 :P
Unless you're serious, in whic case, it's because "yester" is one unit.
As a huge Beatles-fan, I bought myself guitars and learned to play them. My ambition was to learn my favorite Beatles-tunes. So I bought the complete Beatles scores sheet music. But even those contains errors. And talented people on UA-cam with lessons do it differently. And as pointed out in this video, even McCartney himself performs the classics differently now compared to before. This is perhaps why music is such a special and almost mystical art form. It lives in the now, just when it is performed. Unless you record it...
I'm not a musician, I'm just an amateur player. I listened to "Yesterday" many times. I was a small kid when it was first published back in the '60s so it's like it's part of my memory ever since. I feel the original version is still unsurpassed: that F# is in tune with the general sorrowful and dolente tone of the song. It could be accidental when it was recorded, but it witnesses the vibrant artistic mood McCarthy was living at the time
Was not expecting this to veer off into “Paul is Dead” territory there... 🤣🤣🤣
It's just a matter of time...
That bit was actually really funny !
It's easy: the note is "G", which sounds like "she". She is lovely Rita, and so Paul is awarning himself to take care on that crossing, and that's the reason of the name: "yesterday". Paul is speaking to his future Paul
@@Paul_VanGo sooner or later
Paul : "Sings out of tune a bit"
Him : THIS IS CONSPIRACY!!!!!!!
PAUL IS DEAD
@@nmappraiser9926 No, he isn't...
@@experi-mentalproductions5358 he's joking
@@sean6992 Ok Mr. Psychic.....
@@experi-mentalproductions5358 😂
In music theory/ear training class we learned to hear a descending major 2nd using the opening of Yesterday. This was how I was taught by my theory instructor. It's fascinating to know we were technically taught wrong. That being said I often have trouble transcribing music because the singer or musicians, especially acoustic bass, play and sing notes slightly out of tune as compared to what I play at the piano. Ultimately I just have to pick the note I think fits best.
I love your videos, David. Keep up the excellent work!
How do you even come up with topics like this!? Do you get tips about stuff like this? Very well made and very nerdy. Brilliant.
This one was discussed under a video, where he used Yesterday as an example.
Lucy Leesly Any idea which video this is? Would love to watch it!
I stumbled across this when transcribing Yesterday for my “melodic minor” video. I then used the “correct” transcription in that video and, of course, some people noticed 😂 Thanks for watching 🙏
Moreover, the title is actually "Yes To Day (And No To Night)".
😳
underrated ☺
Bollocks
darn bri ish people
Yes, great job! As soon as I saw the frame to the video, I thought could it be? Indeed, now I feel even more in the groove when I slide up to the F and bend a bit on my guitar.
Thank you.
I’ve noticed this since forever, THANK YOU!!!
I always thought something was off. Glad you're the one to clear it up.
It's just Paul's casual, semi-parlando intonation.
Yeah. I mean, just watch the analyzed waveform, the note is over in 1/10th of a second and a large chunk of it is the sharply bent onset. Using pitch detection to figure out what he intended is near useless in this case. Intuitively, it just sounds like he intended the first note to be higher than the following. The following verses confirm this.
Except it's not 'just' that. As the graph shows, he is singing pitches on those notes. His pitching isn't as fixed as, say, an organ - that's the expressive inflection of the voice you're referring to - but there's no doubt that his first note is not a G as given in sheet music.
That Paul sings this note inconsistently isn't a fault - as a solo singer you have more freedom than a choir, and melodies do have flexibility - what's remarkable is how it's been overlooked by so many musicians.
@Bob Schaaf: Exactly! In singing it can be surprisingly hard to "land" a pitch on exactly the note you want when starting from silence or leaping across an interval. It's easy to splatter onto the wrong pitch, and then on short-duration notes you don't have any time to correct. So I can easily imagine that Paul originally thought of this as a supertonic leading to the tonic (it leads strongly, after all), and then he was just a bit casual w/ intonation most of the times he sang it in this recording. In the example cited at 1:54 of this video, when he "slides in" to his target pitch (= much easier to stick), he ends up singing a supertonic to tonic, G to F.
I couldn't agree more. This whole video, frankly, seems to be overanalyzing plain old vocal sloppiness - even as it acknowledges about halfway through that this degree of sloppiness is a vital part of musical expression.
Bingo
A few years ago I spent ages trying to suss this very point out and it remained a confusion until this excellent video. Thank you Mr Bennett.
for someone so young, its mind-blowing your musical knowledge, espc the range.. from classical to recent pop
A little bit of wobbly pitch is what gives common non-classical music it’s humanity. Same with the bent notes in “Can’t buy me love”. I’ll BUY you diamond rings my friend...
Exactly. A lot of the personality & expression of singers is in their slight-pitchiness. If you absolutely pitch-corrected Lennon or Robert Plant or Bowie or Reed or Debbie Harry or Amy Winehouse or Thom Yorke or... it wouldn't sound half as good. Recent pop music has blanded itself out with all of its pitch-correction on the vocals along with all the gridification of the instruments and beats. Unless pitch-perfection is your thing (you're Karen Carpenter or Alison Krauss or PC music say) then it's not your friend!
Excellent comment
I'm curious how modern autotune deals with blue notes, like in Soul and R&B of a few decades ago you had quite often the use of this note, which is a really really flat or wobbly tritone.
YEAH - listen to Jorma Kaukonen's solo on "Somebody to love" Hits every note in between the notes. Very indian sounding.
@@stoferb876 You can selectively autotune only certain parts of a vocal recording. And if you want to be really anal about it, you're able to tune vocals to an exact cent rather than the nearest note, so you could in theory still autotune that.
I’ve heard “ yesterday” too many times today
Bruh
@@stayskeptic3923 today
Amusingly this comment was posted one day ago when I’m viewing 😂
Same, hopefully i'll stop hearing it tomorrow
@@Wind-nj5xz Yeah, hopefully it sounds better _tonight_
As someone who has always learned and played better by ear and used sheet music as more of a "reminder" of the notes, seeing the thumbnail really confused me because I've always known it to be the same note in the first verse. Good video. I've been getting a lot your videos recommended lately and they're always interesting to watch.
I love your channel and hard hard you work at this. I've learned a LOT of music theory from you. Thanks.
yesterday
yes today
just today
yes, teddy
jester day
Jess the day
ye, study
yells today
Cake my way
@@mariobrenes4264 that sounds nothing like yesterday...
@@applehack97 but it sounds very much like "right now"
@@cvoque what...
I am not a schooled musician. My, "I'm going to be a musician when I grow up" journey began in 1976. I was 8. I learned how to play several different instruments by "ear" alone, and practiced for (underestimating) thousands of hours (F U Maths!) I still practice a minimum of 2 hours per day.
That being said, the first "mistake" note simply sounds like a scoop on "ye", but it's such a small and inconsequential "note" in an otherwise brilliant accidental masterpiece. We could take practically every single pre-autotune era song and find these slightly off notes. Jazz and blues musicians utilize these seemingly micro tonal scoops/slides/bends as a way to put a feeling into a composition. Pianos may be limited when it comes to this, but it's still possible to create tension or feeling by playing "blue" notes. I'm sorry if I'm blathering on but, I would rather hear a "mistake" note over a perfectly pitched one. It's more honest and natural, and, well, human.
The live performance of "Je Suis Malade" featuring the talented Lara Fabian has, almost imperceptible moments of these notes, and it kicks me in the soul. It makes the melody so honest and pure. Check it out
Anyway, Great video!
The band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard actually has an entire album playing around with this called Flying Microtonal Banana, i highly recommend it
Great analysis! Finally a confirmation of my gut feeling, which was always laughed at in the past. Thank you sooooo much!
I never learned music theory, just okay by ear but watching at your videos has made me understand it more and enjoy music even more. Thank you!
News Alert: the beatles were sometimes flat
blasphemy!
Flat compared to what? Paul is under no obligation to hit a certain note just because it's the note on your music sheet.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that as long as the entire thing still sounds amazing. A slightly flat but emotionally raw and powerful performance is way better than a robotic albeit pitch perfect one.
I know, right? This almost gets like arguments over the word of God. I don’t believe that Paul was thinking about microtonality. Sometimes you just don’t hit the intended note squarely.
@@koalabandit9166 He hits the note on the sheet in a live performance that same year. ua-cam.com/video/wXTJBr9tt8Q/v-deo.html
This has driven me crazy in covers for years. The strange shift in that note adds so much to the song but is rarely replicated. Thanks for pointing it out!
Yeah me too 😅
Great video(s) David, keep up the good work.
This might be an over-analysis of what could be no more than artistic license. Not only Paul does this, but every singer puts they own spin on every song.
That's not the point: of course Paul can sing the song as he wishes. The point is that others have trusted their eyes more than the ears and dutifully followed the dots without listening. Putting music down on paper creates an 'Urtext', which this melody never was.
@@maskaraid4763 Yeah sometimes some people forget that music is about hearing, not reading it..
But yeah still I agree that this video kinda gets out of it a bit.
They've been singing Yesterday not accurately but not wrong. After all, music is for all people to enjoy to (except people with certain disabilities of course.) The thing is, even some people not realizing the note they sing is wrong it's not that important because the feeling about the song is still the same. It's still Yesterday..
I take back that the video is getting out of hand btw I probably just don't like how he tells that it's "wrong."
@@devo6413 I have always sang Yesterday as F-F-F (and probably in a similar pithciness to Paul, though definitely not intentional on my part). Not G-F-F.
I agree, and suspect that if you asked Paul to write it out, he'd do it with the G as the first note. I think we're reading way too much into vocal inflections (and assuming Paul's pitch was perfectly accurate) here.
The "ter" has a slight downward warble in pitch so the effect is heightened.
Literally never thought it was anything but F F F
What a cluster F...
Oh dear, now we'll never be able to unhear this detail.. good work, by the way.
This is why Leonard Bernstein suggested the term "exact music" to describe what most people mean by "classical music". However, a phrase that captures even better what Bernstein meant would be "composer-specified music". He said the difference between what most consider classical and other pieces is that the performers and the performances, and in many cases the arrangement, make a great deal of difference in other types of music, such that the pieces can share the same name and yet be extremely different, while the classical composer tries to be an auteur and specify the piece in great detail, allowing only sometimes for differences in instrumentation. Nobody thinks of a recorded version of a classical piece as a "cover" of the original, and it takes an aficionado's ear to recognize a difference in orchestra or conductor or performance.
If you’re listening late at night, you may think the band are not quite right, but they are. They just play it like that.
Very nice 😉😉
Clever! I won't spoil it by saying more. 😄
If you think the harmony is a little dark and out of key, you’re correct... There’s nobody there.
Have they told you there’s no one there?
(btw mate, it’s *when not if in the lyrics from the original comment^^ just sayin’)
GubbaNubNubDooRahKah, sorry, going on memory, I just wrote it like that.
That's what I LOVE about this channel! Being able to analyze and study the affect and relationship of ONE NOTE, and it's placement in a song! And of course The Beatles are a cornucopia of excellent examples.
Thank you 🙏
There was a similar story going around with people wondering why Cold Chisel and Crowded House sheet music was so complex. Don Walker of cold chisel said it shouldn’t be and the sheet music was transcribed by the lead singer of Icehouse who only had a portable record player which played records slightly slower than the real tempo.
Or, My Theory: This guy has thought about this ALOT more than Paul McCartney ever did or any sane person ever should
We're talking about how to correctly sing (or play) one of the most recorded songs of all time. What's your problem?
I mean you're not wrong but the point of this video is to talk about the theory behind the songs, and no it isn't a crazy thing to think about because this is barely even getting into music theory or what is even argued at higher levels of theory
Don't know why you had to point out what was already obvious and still be snarky about it
Almost like that's how people learn things
Listen to at 7:32. David agrees it doesn’t matter whether one sings F or G. The point is about how our brains change what our ears hear and remember. I will use this lesson going forward to make me a better listener and to be less rigid with sheet music. Thanks David for your insightful videos.
Damn guys, he cracked the code for every song analysis 😂
all of your videos are so eye opening i love itt
he recorded Yesterday in the same day he recorded I'm Down, a totally different song
he gets a pass for been a bit out of tune
also, both F# and G works
I'm sorry, but F# doesn't work
@@julessedee8637 to be fair every 12 tone equal temperament normie here is calling it an F# when it's not. It really is just a ever so slightly sharp F, which the ear generally just interprets as the same note as the next couple Fs. It's sharp enough to be noticeable if you pay attention but most people would perceive that part where he sings that note as just the note F with a little more emotional emphasis.
@@bragtime1052 just say the word (microtonality) and you'll be free
@@julessedee8637 yes it does
And also "I've just seen a face" although I don't know in what order they were recorded.
always awesome content man, great job!
Thank you!
Genius observation. Well done!
As a songwriter myself, albeit virtually unknown, I rarely sing my own compositions the same way twice.
Are you really writing it then if your melody is fairly random
@@Viper-dz2kw When you sing a song from the heart sometimes your heart is in a different place.
The amount of work that went into the analysis of this song is astounding
Great stuff David! You even mentioned PID! I have been arranging a lot of Beatles songs for two guitars for busking (guitar and looper) and the big problem I am having is that on certain songs it is really hard to tell if you are hearing minor or major thirds, something in between, or both. This is particularly hard on Helter Selter, Fool on the Hill, and Fixing a Hole.
Here is one I've always noticed. On the first occurrence of the lyric "Now I long for yesterday", Paul holds the F note for four beats. On the second occurrence of that lyric, Paul drops from F to C-Bb-A. Most other versions I've heard, do the F-C-Bb-A drop both times.
Really interesting stuff! For me, the F-F-F version sounds definitely more "correct" than the "G-F-F", at least at the beginning of the song, as a "cold start" so to say. It would be nice if Paul McCartney would give a statement of how he really "meant" the note ... if he actually knows himself!
Agreed 🙂
best comment on here.
he's also a northerner and and we northerners have flat vowel sounds.
I agree about the F F F cold start, then Suddenly sounds better with G F F.
@William G Danson I listened to two: one from the same year as the record was released (he sings a G) ua-cam.com/video/wXTJBr9tt8Q/v-deo.html
and one from recently (he sings an F).
This is a question which did not need to be asked, and has no answer.
Spot on David.
“Paul” sang G instead of F#, he is obviously a clone
Never has a piece of evidence been so forceful.
nope hes the real. faul didnt show up til later. haha
Super interesting, thanks for sharing!
Given that Paul isn't a trained singer, isn't it more likely he was just flat a couple of times during the recording?
Given that Paul sings really really well, it's also possible that he and everyone else in the studio just thought that it sounded good.
Is it more likeky that he sang it 150 cents too flat or 50 cents too sharp ? This argument makes no sense. What he sings is closer to an F, and an F makes sense in the context, so why would it be a very very flat G ?
@@samylemzaoui2298 Because this was a time period where you had to splice physical tape to get more than one take together for a track. People didn't do one section over and over until it sounded right, they sang the whole song and then compared takes to try and get something as close to what they wanted as possible. Not to mention a common problem for a singer to have is being off on the first note of a song. If he sang the first note kind of flat, but the rest of the take was brilliant, and the flat note still sounds ok, why wouldn't they just take it?
@@MegaMistborn i doubt many people will agree with you, but I think you make a great point
@@MegaMistborn yeah but why do you want that note to be a G so hard ? What you said could also be applied if he meant to sing an F so your point is invalid. Whatever he wanted to sing, he sang it a bit off, that is not the point. He is closer to an F so to me it's only logical that we notate it as F instead of G. Of course he could've wanted to sing a G, but there is no evidence leading you to that conclusion.
This is the kind of detail we want! Excellent video. Thank you for all of your hard work. :)
Thank you!
Gotten to really like your channel. The way you do it is great. Keep it up!
Yes! Yes! Yes! This has always bothered me and I, being (formally) untrained, always thought that the problem was with my ear. But it isn't! Thanks for another excellent video!
Another excellent video, thank you David.
Thanks Peter!
David, you've nailed the difference between "sang" and "sung"! Not just a musical genius and a talented teacher, but also a linguist. I'm proud of you! ;)
The three melodic variations are something I always thought curious, particularly because they occur on the lyric 'Yesterday', the title of the song. Paul sang it in a way that was natural to him, but the ensuing sheet music provided a consistency that supports the song title.
Amazing analysis. Thank you so much. And, yes, during my last year of piano lessons in college years my teacher often would tell me to "stop being so literal" and we're talking classical studies! He wanted me to put my own influence into my performance.
Additionally, a decade later when I began to work with guitar players in "worship band" I saw the printed music in a whole new light. At that point I looked at the notes and, yes, I could easily play it as written, however, it all became just a suggestion. I would add piano notes to the band in the way I thought best added to the song using the music only as a basic plan of where we were going. It would be funny after a service when someone would ask me what arrangement that was.
It could be that, even without hearing the later instances (2nd/4th occasions), we hear the first "Yesterday" as a descending phrase because it's a nostalgic, wistful song. Nostalgia/wistfulness/melancholy/etc are commonly conveyed by appoggiaturas ("leaning notes"), so perhaps we expect one to be there, even if it's not.
ftumschk Yes. And also in the first verse, you could say this motif&rhyme comes back as more appoggiaturas...(“far away” “here to stay”).
Take a shot every time you hear yesterday
I do not advise this
David Bennett Piano Even a shot of beer might be pushing it.
David Bennett Piano It’s a joke
Thanks for this, I am going to think about this every tiime I hear Yesterday.
I've analysed this so many times over the years and it has always frustrated me. Thanks for clearing it all up.
Thank you David... I've been trying to play it and felt that something is going wrong with the melody... but I wasen't able to detect the problem.. now you solved it.
😀
Thanx, mate. Confirmed my suspicions. You are awesome, as usual.
100%. I don't think I have perfect pitch but I know what many many songs should sound like and I can pick out a wrong note straight away. This song is a good example. Like Blackbird, it is a deceptively simple little melody that is in fact exceptionally difficult to replicate exactly.
Wow very comprehensive and technically advanced your software and editing
A pretty amazing detail to have recognised there, David. And your video is extremely well-presented! Such a keen ear you have. Enjoyed that immensely!! :-)
This is SO weird that you posted this. I'm recording vocals for a song of my own. It has some quick note changes. One of them is the same type of one-step walkdown that people think Paul sings in Yesterday. Anyway, at one point I did the same "slightly sharp root note down to the root note" pattern by mistake. I left it because I thought it sounded fine. And now I feel vindicated.
I would suggest the reason we hear the G is because of what happens at the end of the line (when he sings "far away") - another three note pattern, but this one does go from a higher note to a lower note. So we hear that motif, and we fill in the motif at the beginning of the phrase. And it happens again "here to stay" etc. Great video
Love how desultory the half sharps sound, it makes the singer sound very introverted, perfect for the sentiment. I wish you'd also played us an f sharp version
Very interesting David, thanks. I'm so glad to see young musicians, like you are, enjoying the Beatles so much.
So interesting. I always wondered why every cover didn't quite sound right, but this makes total sense. Great video!
Note identification is actually Fourier transformation. In short notes like this there are insufficient dots on the function (amplitude-time) to transform this tone accurately.
Also in my identification this is glissando. it's 4-5 44 not 5 44. However such a "slide note" is omitted on piano sheet as they can't gliss as guitars do.
I work at a piano shop and my coworker has been singing Yesterday wrong for numerous years. This shall now be my little secret
Actually love this video! X
Thank you!
❗️EXTRA DISCUSSION: A lot of commenters have suggested that Paul just sang flat, hence the “wrong” note. However, I think it more likely that he sang sharp!
Paul sang a slightly sharp “F”, so it’s more likely that he was aiming for the “F” and sang a little bit sharp. If Paul was aiming for “G” then he would be almost a whole tone flat which is quite significantly out.
Also, as I addressed in the video, he also sings verse 3 with a “A”, so to suggest he was a tone flat on the first verse, you would also have to suggest he was a tone sharp on the third verse.
Of course, perhaps Paul's intention was to sing the motif the same way all 4 times that it appears in the song. But even if that was his intention, surely the original studio recording of the song should be considered the ultimate, canon version of the melody? That, after all, is the version that The Beatles officially released.
Thanks for watching 🙏🎵
A straight f sounds crap, relating especially to the rest of the melodic motions.
@@DeVibe. a whole tone sharp? Absolutely not a common mistake unless you're tone deaf
I'm pretty sure Paul meant it to be F but it just sounds a bit sharp on the original recording. I just listened to a live version and his first "yes" note is clearly a same note as the notes on "ter - day" here: ua-cam.com/video/lH5x1ChYhcI/v-deo.html
@@LindonBindon
It does. And it doesn't sound as cool.
Like he's not concentrating yet.
I too think he sings sharp, in Melodyne you can see him sliding up from a “d” so he probably just slides too high by the time he starts the note. The “a” note is also some kind of “over-aiming”.
I think it's an ornamentation and that he begins on f and there's a slight ripple and then he's back on f. It's just a natural thing to avoid the monotonous (literally) repetition of f's. Just couldn't be bothered to make it up to the g.
Opening with a flattened G casts a depressed mood over the song, which you don't get on its first listen, but it adds its influence to the mood after the DJ plays it, say, about a thousand times in a weekend.
Obvious solution: get two of your friends and sing it as an FGA cluster chord
Get another friend to sing a C. Tada! You have the Fadd2 (or Fadd9) chord
Thanks for this video. For a long time, I thought people were not singing it right like Paul did. Now it is officially explained. This is so cool.
2:20 Actually had a debate on this with another Beatles fan at my high school a while back. They said I was singing this 3rd verse wrong. It couldn't be an A, could it? I've always had more of a go-by-ear mentality when singing music. I haven't learned vocal sheet music because of playing saxophone. So it made sense to my brain that McCartney would freshen up the new verse slightly to not seem like he's dragging John through another piece of "Granny Music", but my friend must've had a more structured thought process of songs than me. Just an interesting little note that sparked a conversation on the variation McCartney would sneak into his music.
Not only an F, or not even actually an F, But a "slightly sharp F." Well, that's interesting. I could hear it clearly as soon as you pointed it out. And IMO it sounds best as the slightly blue note, with that microtonal nuance. It really makes a difference. I can hardly wait till we get completely away from A-G (or A-H as some prefer) and talk about frequencies and frequency relationships. I've been waiting patiently since the early 1980s for the 12-tone equal temperament bias to die its long overdue death. The problem is that it's familiar and relatively "simple" and it works, up to a point anyway. So, who's going to be the genius who comes up with a new way forward that encompasses and empowers all that the human imagination can do with sounds as music?
I really enjoy all your videos David, I'm not a real musician (I'm a drummer LOL) but I love to discover new things about music and music theory. Your videos are well researched, well presented, and extremely informative. Thank you and keep up the good work
Thanks Michel!
Didn't know this! I think your videos are very informative! I'm a piano player and I'm very happy you can make something as boring as music theory really interesting!
That’s very well, I suppose.
However, the appoggiatura G>F melody makes way more sense than F>F.
Consider that the downward appoggiatura features another two times along the stanza (“far away” E>D over the Dm chord and "hide away" Bb>A over an F chord) and then the stanza closes with an upward appoggiatura ("yesterday" F>A over the last Bb and F chords).
I think that people can hear that McCartney *aimed* at a G.
I learn to play many songs by ear so on my violin I play it in G instead of F so I play A G G and so forth. So you're right in that my mind hears "re" "do" as the first two notes. I haven't listened to The Beatles original before I tried to play it. i also have the Beatles complete songbook(Hal Leonard) and the song begins on G. Thanks for the video.