free learn to play piano app Now it's YOUR turn to be the life and soul of the party!. Click Here 👈 [Music] hi everyone we...
free learn to play piano app
Now it's YOUR turn to be the life and soul of the party!. Click Here 👈
[Music] hi everyone welcome to a new series beetles ukulele with me maxad every lesson in this series we're going to take a new song by The Fab 4 we're going to analyze what's going on with the song I'll explain how to play it and I'll teach you all sorts of key skills including music theory chords up the fretboard chord Melody and all sorts of fun things we're going to really mix up with these some will be song analysis others will be teaching you to play chord Melody sometimes simple chords or chords at the fretboard and we're going to cover the entire span of The Beatles career looking at all the different periods rather than going chronologically I wanted to start with one of my favorite Beatle songs and Poss Paul McCartney at the peak of his songwriting we're going to look at the piece Penny Lane Penny Lane sh photographs of every head he had to know and all the people we're going to do a really interesting song analysis with this seeing how Paul mcney changes between two key centers really smoothly then I'm going to show you some chords up the fretboard to make the solo section really come alive and to cover the instrumental the song was written and recorded in 1966 for their seminal album Sergeant Peppa Lonely Hearts Club Band but because of pressure from the record company for a single it was eventually released as a double aside with Strawberry Fields Forever most critics agree that this single really Illustrated the two songwriters at the peak of their powers John Lennon with Strawberry Fields Forever and Paul McCartney with Penny Lane unlike Strawberry Fields Penny Lane really is a quite a nostalgic straightforward song and he mentions lots of things that he genuinely saw in his childhood on his bus route which briefly stopped at Penny Lane each day so the barber shop bees was really there and the bank too on the corner the only kind of artistic license he had was that the fire station was actually a few hundred meters down the road but not far from Penny Lane ble Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs of every head he had the pleasure to know and all the people that come and go stop and say hello on the corner is a banker with a motor car the little children laugh at him behind his back and the banker never wears a Mac in the pouring rain very strange Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes there beneath the blue Suburban Sky I sit and Meanwhile Back Penny Lane there is a firan with an hourglass and in his pocket is a portrait of the queen he lies to keep his fire engine clean it's a clean [Music] machine Penny Lan is in my ears and in my eyes for a fish and fing a p i sits and meanwhile back behind the shelter in the middle of the roundabout a prettiness is selling ppet from a train and though she feels as if she's in a play she is anyway Penny Lane The Barber shaves of a customer we see the banker Sitting Waiting for a trim and then the fireman rushes in from the pouring rain very strange Penny Lane is in my ears and in my [Music] eyes there beneath the blue Suburban skies I sit on while back penny Lan is in mys and in my eyes there beneath the blue Suburban skies I sit back Penny L though the song sounds really simple I think perhaps because of that bright bouncy piano sound the piccolo solo and the Nostalgia lyrics it's actually anything but simple and there's lots of really really interesting things going on in terms of the song structure here if we take a look at our song structure sheets here you'll notice that this song has two different key centers all of the verses are in the key of A and the choruses apart from the last one are in the key of G the original key for this was b and a but I've just brought it down a whole tone just to make it that bit easier to play and more appropriate for ukulele this is quite an unusual thing for a songwriter to do generally choruses tend to be in the same key as the verse occasionally they will go up in Pitch to create a brighter sound or they'll use the relative minor but McCartney Here takes things down a whole step McCartney does do this in an interesting way and it's quite an unusual thing for a songwriter to do because generally when we go to a chorus we stay in the same key or we use the relative Miner key occasionally songwriters will shift things up in Pitch to make them sound brighter in the chorus but we have the exact opposite here we have things coming down a whole tone so a in the verses and then G in the chorus the little let's take a look at how he does all this then the opening of the song the initial chords in the verse are really familiar to us they're a really common chord combination that happens in a lot of songs a625 progression you might have heard them used in songs like I got R I got music or heart and soul da da da da da da really common progression this 1625 so we start with the one chord our Plain Jane a major then we go to the six chords now the reason this chord so often follows that one chord is that there's only one note difference between the two so all you need to do is put an extra finger down on the second fret of the E string and as if by Magic we get an F minor a nice simple smooth change then we go to the two chord A really common chord in these progressions in this case we're doing it as a B minor 7 just bar the whole of that second fret get your finger as close to the metal fret as possible and push down for a beautiful B minor 7 the two chord always wants to go to the five chord that follows it and this is exactly what happens here the reason it works so beautifully is that two of the notes are staying the same and we have another two notes that are only one half step away so we get this lovely E7 chord so if we put those four together we have 1 6 2 5 or a F minor B minor 7 and then finally our E7 in terms of strumming on these opening four chords I like to just play bouncy down strum chords on on the beat it keeps things really nice and light and we get a bit of juter position when we get the Lovely a minus 7 coming in in just a moment so we just Bounce Down on every one of those chords now in terms of the physics of that I'm coming down with my strumming hand and as I do it I'm just squeezing I'm pushing my fingers into the strings with my fretting hand like this now don't worry about the fact that you have two open strings ringing out you get enough of a bouncy sound from the two closed strings that's absolutely fine so as you strum down squeeze with this hand and after you've strum down just release the tension so think squeeze squeeze it's a bit like squeezing a lemon squeeze squeeze just release the tension don't take your fingers off after each squeeze just let the tension go and you'll hear especially when we go to this FSH minor because we've got three fingers on the strings you'll hear a lovely bouncing sound do you hear that it's almost like a bouncy sound isn't it which is really lovely and then the chords are kind of cut short a little bit squeeze squeeze same thing on a B minor 7 this time we're covering all four strings so you really hear it here and then finally the E7 so all down strums if you want to put yard up strum in between chords that sounds really sweet as well in slow motion that will look and sound like [Music] this and at Tempo isn't that lovely now here's where things start to get really clever the next two chords give an idea that we're going to have exactly the same combination again we have our a major followed by our F Shar minor that's our one six combination but then instead of going to the B minor 7 that you'd expect we go to an A Minor 7 which changes the feel of the piece completely and this is where McCartney is really clever sounds like a straightforward song just like any other jazz song and then suddenly the me changes completely with this lovely a minor 7 chord giving a touch of melancholy at this point in the verse what's happening here is really fascinating if you've done any of my jazz lessons you'll know that one of the most important core combinations in jazz music is a 251 progression that's what we have here but in the key of G so if you have a look at the chords highlighted in blue here the a minus 7 and then the F minus 7 flat 5 it's a bit of a mouthful isn't it that one you can shorten it the the proper name for that chord is an fshp half diminished and this core combination the a minus 7 to the F half diminished is a 25 in the key of G generally in a jazz song in that case we would have a minus 7 followed by an F sharp half diminished and then that would resolve to a G chord such as G major 7 2 5 1 and that makes sense because Paul McCartney is taking us from a verse which is in the key of A to A Chorus which is in the key of G so to have a 251 progression in the key of G would make us want to go to a G chord which is really lovely and the reason that follows on from the key of A so beautifully is that we have an A Minor 7 rather than an a major so it AR is are kind of tricked in a way it's a really clever slight of hand now the the only thing is we don't actually go to the key of G quite yet because we have a repeat of another verse so what he does is really clever you kind of think that you're going to change to the chorus here because we have a 251 in G but rather than doing that he takes us chromatically from F Shar to e using an F major 7 a beautiful e suspended four chord and then another e this time an E major and because this e is the five chord in the key of A it makes us want to go back to the start the five chord in any key creates tension and it makes us want to go back to the one chord so he's very cleverly taking us from a form of F sharp to an F to an E which is chromatically the next note down and then that makes us want to go back to the start again very very clever you'll notice that even though we've got some exotic chords here I've arranged this in such a way that they're actually relatively easy to play and importantly they smoothly change from one to another creating a beautiful sound on our ukele the only real exception to that is the F minor 7 flat 5 the F Shar half diminished that is quite a tricky cord let's have a look at the a minor 7 first that's nice and easy easy peasy lemon squeezy right no fers at all gives us a a minor 7 then the F half diminished what we want to do is we're going to bth the whole of the second fret try and keep that thumb on the back if you can try not to let it ride over the top because that's going to create a really awkward arm position here we want a nice straight arm so thumb on the back nice bit of daylight this way like a circle and also try and get this finger as close to this metal fret as possible if we're over here we're more likely to get Chucks or kind of buzzes whereas if we're over here it's going to come nice and clean and make sure there's at least a tiny bit of your um finger coming over the top of the soundboard there we don't want it just touching that top string like that because that uses the weakest part of your finger if we just raise it up a little bit we've got some strength there next up we use our second finger here a little bit like we're going to play a D7 chord so that would be a D7 wouldn't it and then finally this is the tough bit we reach up and over to the four fret of the C string like so now you might have to experiment with this one it's quite a tricky chord to do see if you can move this finger up and down try not to let the strings fall into the grooves behind your knuckles and see if you can get a nice clean chord if you find that desperately hard to do what you can do is just turn it into a thre part chord like so just using three fingers if you do that just make sure you don't accident gently strum that g string but if you can four string chord like so then things get much easier when we go to the F major 7 a beautiful sounding chord but really easy to do what I want you to notice is that I'm using my middle two fingers here that's going to be really really important in a moment so middle two fingers on the fifth fret of the G and C strings like so the reason we're going to do that is we can e easily pull that back to create this beautiful e suus 4 Chord same two fingers notice that smooth change we just pull it back to e sus4 and then when we go to the E we drop our little finger down here on the third fret of the E string and if you can take your index finger and place it on the second fret of the a string like so okay that e looks really difficult like that but notice if we come at it from here to here it's not too bad we just get that one finger down and then that one there if you find it really tricky getting this index finger down you can get away with that E chord just playing the top three strings like so in which case we would take those back and this one down if you can get that one down as well for a lovely E major chord so that's a minor 7 F sharp half diminished like so [Music] F major 7 looks like this pull it back one for E sus4 little finger down here and First Finger here fantastic now to really emphasis that changeing feel from the A minus 7 onwards I like to really alter Dynamics in songs to keep them more interesting and really highlight that change that's what we're going to do here we're going to do something really really easy all we're going to do is in instead of this bouncy strum we've been doing so far and you're going to do this bouncy strum for the first six chords as soon as we hit this A Minor 7 we're going to go to a more standard up and down strum I like to do your Calypso strum down down up up down up down down up up down up phonetically you can think of that as walk running and running walk running and running and we do that to the end of the verse that creates a really nice juer position from that a minor 7 onwards I'll show you what I mean I'll do the chords all together starting with the bouncy ones from the start of the verse 2 3 4 [Music] see how the feel changed when I hit that a minor 7 and I changed the shum pattern let's give that a go at a really slow tempo 1 2 3 4 [Music] [Applause] [Music] fantastic let's do that together now slightly faster I'll put the lyrics in come in after one two three in penny Okay one two three in Penny Lane there is a bber showing photographs of every head he's had the pleasure to know and all the people that come and go stop and say hello fantastic well done everyone if you found that particularly tricky Don't Panic you can pause the video and come back to this once you've practiced it or you can just practice it later on in your own time there's some really beautiful chord choices there but I do recognize there's some difficult changes as well but really work at it it's such a beautiful um sounding song don't be put off by those exotic chord names practice them through and you'll be absolutely fine the next verse starts in exactly the same way so we have our heart and soul chords then we have half that progression again ah lovely changed to that beautiful a minor 7 the half diminished chord yet again now notice here we still have our chromatic progression going down from F Shar to F to e only this time after the F major 7 the E sus to the E major are played for two beats each so two down strums or two beats if you like of E sus for and then we go to the E major 1 2 1 two then what happens next is really lovely we go to a d chord D major and because we've done this shape here with two fingers here what we can do is we can just pull back these three fingers to a d chord like so I'll show you that with the close camera so F major 7 pulls back to E sus for these two fingers down and then just pull everything back take away that first finger to the D chord like so and here's Paul McCartney being clever again remember I told you earlier that chords that are five above another they really want to resolve to a chord that they're five above so that D chord if we count up to it it's five above g g a b c d so this D chord wants to resolve to a G chord and if I play that d notice a beautiful resolution to the G major tension resolution tension resolution so that D chord is McCartney's way of linking these verses that are in a major to the choruses that are in G major just one simple chord and it works perfectly what makes it really beautiful is that we have that chromatic movement from fshp to f to e and then back another whole tone to D and then that works as the pivot into lorus very clever really [Music] beautiful I see the core progression in the chorus itself is really straightforward just a 134 progression twice so G major to B minor to C and then we just repeat that G B minor and C so G major B minor just bar the whole of that second fret again try and get that finger as close to the metal fret as possible at least a bit of fingertip showing over the top and then reach over with your ring finger to the four fret of the G string like so so G B minor then we have a c chord down here and we repeat that G B minor and C to try and make arrangements on the ukulele sound more like the original and to just give a little bit of fun and Pizzaz to them I like to add little Snippets of Melody to as strumming I think it's really important so this next bit is optional but when you hit that c major chord like so try adding these extra notes as you strum we're can add this one here for an F note it's almost like we're turning turning it into a c sus four we take it away and then we put a finger on the second fret of the C string which is kind of like a cad n don't worry about the names too much but when you do that we get this almost like a mini mini Melody it sounds like this and I can do that again now when you do that of a strum you don't have to isolate the strings like I am just keep strumming you'll get this see how that's working in slow motion [Music] so slowmo spad up the second time I often don't add that D note because there's not quite [Music] time like so now it's completely optional but what it's doing is it's mirroring that lovely little trumpet line that's in the original any L is in my ears and in my it's that lovely little kind of mini Melody that's in there so if you want to you can put that in on the C penny Lan is in my ears and in my eyes or if you find that difficult just strum two C's Penny Lane is in my ears in my eyes notice I'm still just doing that simple Calypso strum at this point then we repeat that again the second time we go to C don't put that little riff in just keep it straight beneath the blue Suburban Skies then another little bit of cleverness by Paul McCartney we have an E7 chord now that E7 chord is doing something very very clever that E7 chord is five above an a chord if I count up from a a b c d e see how e is five above it so whenever we play a type of E chord especially an E7 it wants to resolve to a why does he do that well all of the verses all the solo are in the key of A so it's a clever way of joining back the chorus to the verse so from the verse to the chorus he uses a d to join them together because we're going down in pitch and then to come back up to pitch he uses an e to join them together really simple but really clever and beautiful let's try chorus together in slow motion one 2 three Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes there beneath the blue Suburban skies I sit and Meanwhile Back notice that on that E7 I play it as an NC and no chord whenever we write NC in music it means no chord but really we hit one cord and just leave it ringing out so let's do that again a little bit faster and when we hit that E7 we're just going to hit it once and allow it to hang like so come in after one two three penny 1 2 Penny Lane is in mys and in my eyes there beneath the blue Suburban skies I sit and while back yeah fantastic so so far we've had our verse another verse and then that lovely segue into the chorus the segue out of the chorus takes us into another verse then we have another verse just the same as the first one Penny Lane there is a fan with an hourglass and in his pocket is a portrait of the queen he likes to keep his fire engine clean whole measure of vus for it's a clean machine Andy then we go to the lovely instrumental section [Music] this point we go to the solo and here we have a beautiful solo by a piccolo trumpet that's a trumpet Which is higher in Pitch Paul McCartney wanted something sounded like the kind of Brandenburg kerto but he didn't know how to kind kind of really explain it so George Martin helped him transcribe it but the piccolo player mostly played from Paul McCartney Just humming what he wanted him to play now this section presented me with a bit of a dilemma as an arranger because if we try to do the piccolo solo there are so many notes it would be almost impossible to do on the ukele so most players wouldn't be able to do it also and I have seen a few videos of people at tempting it on yukin guitar it doesn't sound that great on a stringed instrument it's not designed the notes don't flow beautifully like they were on a piccolo trumpet so rather than doing the exact notes of the piccolo trumpet which would be far far too difficult for most players I believe what I've done is I've done a cordal progression which hints at the melody that goes along with that piccolo trumpet solo it also hints at some of the Melody from the lovely backing vocals that we have going on here from Len and McCartney I'd like as many of you as possible to really have a go at this solo section playing these chords Through they're really tough but is fantastic for your learning because these chord shapes that we take up and down a fretboard are used in loads of songs so it's really good for your learning it's good for your fingering practice and it's a really good thing to have a try at these but if you find them completely unachievable what you can do is just play the normal chords to a verse and that will work fine but what I've done here to make it sound more interesting and beautiful and kind of highlight the melody progression if you like as it goes up and down is I've taken the chords from the verse but I've played them in such a way up the fretboard that you have the feel of that Rising Melody can you hear it there if I play that if I really highlight the a string notes [Music] feel that upward feeling and that kind of matches with [Music] the I can't even sing that high it matches the feel of that picko solo without having to play every one of those individual notes which is really tricky so we start with our a major as before this is our setting off point then we've got FSH minor now this time rather than playing it this way we're going to use this four finger chord like so now if you prefer what you can do is bar the whole of the second fret and use two fingers on the fourth fret like this but I find it easier just to think of it almost like a diminished seventh chord which would look like this but it's being split apart so a bit of a stretch okay so a f Shar minor this B minor 7 is particularly tricky because you've got to almost be a little bit double jointed and bend this finger back on itself like so so it covers the bottom two strings of the fifth fret then we reach up and over with our third finger up here onto the sixth fret and this finger it's only touching this note up here this B note it doesn't have to pre press down on the whole of the the all four strings just this note here for this B minor 7 now if you find that really tricky but you still want to have a go and you can do this with um most of these chords just play the bottom three strings physically see E and A strings and just use your first two fingers and you can just use this shap okay doesn't have quite as much richness as the full chord but it gets away with it it sounds okay and likewise for the E7 if you really struggle just take that shape up two and again strum the bottom three strings so it's kind of three strings chords they'll look like this you could even do that one three fingers like that and then but with the full [Music] version okay and then this E7 this is like a an A7 that's been taken all the way up the fretboard like so isn't that lovely and we just keep strumming with those [Music] these next few chords are the trickiest in the whole piece but give them a go if you can it's a lot easier on a tener instrument this one because you have a bit more space soprano or concert things will get really squishy here but give it your best shot what we're going to do is we're going to take our index finger way up here to the ninth fret you can spot it because we have this gap of two here between seven and 10 so way up here to the ninth fret and then our little finger is going to go right down here on the 12 like so okay that gives us an a chord you might think how's that an a chord well we've taken a c to a c Shar to a d d Shar e f f Shar g g Shar a it's a movable shape that's been taken up next up we have another FSH minor and this is basically an A minor chord that's been taken all of the way up the fretboard like so now that's barring the whole of that night fret so this index finger hasn't moved at all but rather than having this little finger down here on the 12th our ring finger comes up here onto the 11th now I find that particularly tricky and even on my tenor I'm starting to run out of space here so I'll often actually change that to rather than doing an F minor like so I'll do an F minus seven which means just take your little finger away so I play it like this and you still get that lovely downward movement and you might think why am I doing that well just because it's close enough um to the original the reason I've written it as the original is that that's the chord that Paul McCartney has chosen at that particular moment but you can get away with this just fine next up we've got an A Minor 7 shape like so a really beautiful chord that quite tricky what's happened is that's a D Minor 7 shape which would look like this just taken all of the way up until it becomes an A Minor 7 up here really head for that gap between eight n and 10 so just think F shape D Minor shape and then little finger down really real squish that one try and keep that wrist just straight as possible like so again if you really struggle with that try a three-finger version like so okay just makes it that bit easier you can turn any of these chords into three fingers Just By ignoring the notes on the G string and strumming down those three there like so so all of those chords give that feel of that Rising Melody [Music] and then it starts to come back so then we pull back and we bring it down here for this next chord this F sh half [Music] diminish and then notice you get that feel of the melody coming back down and then resolution to the D which is really nice for that FSH half diminished you've got two choices you can bar the fifth fret second finger down here on the C string third finger down here on the a string or I prefer I can get cleaner sound to actually use all of my fingers so I do like a g shape on the top three strings and this one here then when I go to the next chord I just flatten down that first one like that so FSH half diminished F major 7 okay or you could do F sharp half diminish B and just take away this one for the F major 7 that kind of illustrates that nice kind of what I often refer to as voice leading where the chords are only one note different from each other that's why we get that lovely smooth transition coming downwards then to finish off finally something a lot easier at esus 4 again for two beats use your middle two fingers so you can put these ones down here for the e and then we come back here for this D major now this one I like to do a little bit of a triplet on triple it triple it down or you can use one finger triple it triple it down what that does is it creates this kind of drama before we get back to the chorus which kind of highlights what happens with the piccolo at that point now there's two ways you can do that what you can do is you can just take your normal strumming finger and we're going to go double time so faster than we were before down up down down up down down triple it triple it down down up down down up down down or you could do a traditional Hawaiian triplet where we come down with one finger or more triple it triple it down okay that's down with your finger down with your thumb up with whichever works and then again finger thumb triple it triple it down or one finger triple it triple it down fantastic notice when I do those triplets I'm only really hitting the outside couple of strings for most of that strum to keep it nice and smooth move really tricky those aren't they really really difficult so if you find yourself thinking absolutely nowhere in the world I'm going to be able to do those just play the chords to a normal verse and then come in on a chorus but let's just play through those chords in slow motion up close just so you can see them all together so I have a F minor B minor 7 E7 this a up here just bar the knife a minor 7 then a whole measure of the next one half diminish flatten for F major 7 E sus for e and then played more [Music] Tempo so we finish on this lovely D chord and of course what chord is D5 above well a d chord is five above a G right g a b c d so that D chord creates the tension to take us into another chorus which is in the key of G major which is exactly what we [Music] do in my [Music] eyes the [Music] so from that lovely dcod that takes us to another chorus just here in the key of G Penny Lan is in my ears and in my eyes a four of fish I'm finger pies in summer meanwhile back another verse behind the Sheltering in the middle of the roundabout a pretty n is setting Popp from a tray and though she feels as if she's in a play she is anyway whole measure of sus or measure of Fe Penny Lane The Barber shaves another customer we see the banker Sitting Waiting for a trim and then the fireman rushes in from the pouring rain very strange and of course PNY Lane is in my ears and in my eyes there beneath the blue Suburban skies I sit and mean while back remember all of those choruses finish with an E7 chord I remember what I told you that E7 wants to resolve to an a a b c d e e is five above a so it wants to go to an A and generally that would mean go to another verse wouldn't it but because we're coming to the lovely Crescendo the final part of the song rather than going to a verse he does another chorus but this time in the key of A so every single chord has just been shifted up One Tone okay or one pitch so everything that we were doing before like a G major is replaced by an a major okay and a B minor is replaced by a c Shar minor the chords aren't too tricky a major we've been doing all along then we go to a c Shar minor it's exactly the same shape that we do for B minor but two Frets higher which makes sense when you think about it right we've gone from B to C to C sharp okay so that c all you need to do is bar the whole of the for fret and then your ring finger up here at the six fret so we have our a major Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes a d now and just like we had those lovely little suspended notes for a c we can do them here like this [Music] just creating this lovely little suspended run just like we did with the c here we can to do a similar thing up [Music] here and you'll see in the visual representation of this final chorus notice I've done some little chord diagrams to help you as well so basically we have a normal D chord we add our finger here to tur it into a sus four take it away take away this finger gives you a sus two and then you do it again now at Tempo that will sound like this Penny Lane is in my ear and in my eyes okay just a little hint at that lovely trumpet part da da da da da da da again if you find that too tricky just stay on D for the whole measure then let's just carry on we have a major again there beneath the blue suburb and skies I sit and meanwhile back this time we stay on that D for two whole measures I like to slow things down or even sometimes just strum it once I me back and then we can finish on our a major you could shake it out with a bit of tremolo Penny Lan and that's that final resolution to the one chord the song finally feels finished and that's why we don't have an E7 at the end because that feel like a cliffhanger we want have one chord all finished so that final chorus Penny Lan is in my ears and in my eyes there beneath the blue superb and skies I sit and meanwhile back penny Lan isn't that lovely so he's taken that chorus and lifted it up to a which was the original key which we started the whole song in so it gives you lovely closure perfect ending and that's it folks you now have everything you need to play Penny Lane and enjoy it and even if you're not playing it right now I hope you found that song structure and chord analysis really interesting what I love about this song is how deceptive it is it sounds so bright bubbly and simple yet when you look at it there's a lot going on underneath the Bonnet isn't there some beautiful chromatic progressions some changes from one key into another and I hope that taught you something how to link one section to another it's really cool isn't it was a whole heap of fun to teach I really really hope you enjoyed that guys stay Fab stay wonderful and I'll see you for another Fab 4 lesson very very soon take care everyone you come [Music] ...
No hay comentarios