For those that have access to PBS in the States, last night we caught an excellent new music documentary; Deconstructing the Beatles. Especially if you’re a Beatles fan you should try to catch this.

Scott Frieman hosts this and from what I understand he spent 10 years of his life researching a deep-dive into the how and what behind many of their songs. And he’s produced an 11 DVD set that’s for sale.

The approx. 1-hour summary that is now being broadcast gets into chord progressions, and major, minor and diminished chords as he demonstrates concepts on his keyboard while showing the sheet music. He also drills into the lyrics. I have yet to see a deeper dive into music theory or The Beatles on broadcast TV.

He also gets into the Studer J37 4-track recorder and even breaks down which elements (drums, bass, vocals, guitar, etc.) ended up on which tracks for particular songs.

Along the way he shares stories such as George getting a bad case of the flu just prior to going on Ed Sullivan for the first time and how they needed to use a stand-in so the cameraman could do his framing.

I also came away with just how pivotal and musically talented George Martin was; the 5th Beatle as they say.

Guaranteed to learn something from this documentary . . . good stuff indeed.

Deconstructing The Beatles

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For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.