What is the chord that opens "A Hard Day's Night"?
It's something like Gsus13 or something like that, if I remember right.
No?
What?

Being the expert musician I am I consulted Wikipedia:

Opening chord
"A Hard Day's Night" is immediately identifiable before the vocals even begin, thanks to George Harrison's unmistakable Rickenbacker 12-string guitar's opening chord. The exact chord played by Harrison has been the subject of contention. According to Walter Everett (1999: 13,19,312), the opening chord is a major subtonic ninth (♭VII, read "flat seven", plus the seventh and ninth, in G major: F A C E G) — the major subtonic being a borrowed chord commonly used by The Beatles, first in "P.S. I Love You" (see mode mixture), and later in "Every Little Thing", "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Got to Get You into My Life" (in the latter two against a tonic pedal).

Contrastingly, Alan W. Pollack ([1]) interprets the chord as a surrogate dominant (surrogate V, the dominant preparing or leading to the tonic chord), in G major the dominant being D, with the G being an anticipation that resolves in the G major chord that opens the verse. He also suggests it is a mixture of d minor, F major, and G major (missing the B). Tony Bacon (2000: 5) calls it a Dm7sus4 (D F G A C), which is the dominant seventh (plus the fourth, G). For more information regarding chord functions see diatonic function.

Everett (2001: 109) points out that the chord is pandiatonic.

Dominic Pedler (2003) has also provided an interpretation of the famous chord, with The Beatles and George Martin playing the following:

George Harrison: Fadd9 in 1st position on 12-string electric guitar
John Lennon: Fadd9 in 1st position on a 6-string acoustic guitar
Paul McCartney: high D played on the D-string, 12th fret on electric bass
George Martin: D2-G2-D3 played on a Steinway Grand Piano
Ringo Starr: Subtle snare drum and ride cymbal
This gives the notes: G-B-D-F-A-C (the B is a harmonic). One of the interesting things about this chord (as described by Pedler) is how McCartney's high bass note reverberates inside the soundbox of Lennon's acoustic guitar and begins to be picked up on Lennon's microphone or pick-up during the sounding of the chord. This gives the chord its special "wavy" and unstable quality. Pedler describes the effect as a "virtual pull-off".

Jason Brown, Professor for the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University in Halifax, whose research interests include graph theory, combinatorics, and combinatorial algorithms, announced in October 2004 that after six months of reseach he succeeded in analyzing the opening chord by "de-composing the sound into original frequencies, using a combination of computer software and old-fashioned chalkboard." According to Brown, the Rickenbacker guitar wasn't the only instrument used. "It wasn't just George Harrison playing it and it wasn't just The Beatles playing on it... There was a piano in the mix." To be exact, he claims that Harrison was playing the following notes on his 12 string guitar: a2, a3, d3, d4, g3, g4, c4, and another c4; McCartney played a d3 on his bass; producer George Martin was playing d3, f3, d5, g5, and e6 on the piano, while Lennon played a loud c5 on his six-string guitar.

F Maj 7 add 9

that's FACEGF

The top F is from barreing at 1st Fret

Wow. Hasn't anyone simply ask them?

I don't see how you're getting those notes barred at the first fret, Phil. An E on the G string? A G on the B?

I thought it would look like

FAFGCG

I'd have to listen again.

OK, I just listened and those piano notes definitely make things difficult to discern.

Pandiatonic just became my new favorite word.


No, I don't care that I don't even know what it means.

+ =

My bad, I had been drinking heavily all afternoon and tossed off that post before I went drinking elsewhere.

It is an F dom 7 add 9, but the order of notes from Low E to High E are

F C Eb A C G So barre at 1st fret
1 3 1 2 1 4

And it resolves to the verse in G Maj.

Easy answer: it's the same chord XTC uses to open "This Is Pop".

That looks right. I thought you were working on some ultra-academic theoretical plane that I wasn't aware of.

The more you listen to that chord open that song, the crazier it seems. There's definitely a lot going on there.

Naw I was just drunk.

The reason that chord sounds so crazy, is that it's loaded with tendency tones. That is... notes that beg to resolve certain ways. If you take out the added ninth, F Dom 7 wants to resolve to Bb Maj

F A C Eb to Bb D F

The F is your common tone, and the Eb wants to resolve down the half to D and then the A and the C want to resolve inwards to Bb. It's a loaded chord to begin with, but when you add the 9th, it becomes alot more ambiguous because on paper that G ought to want to resolve down to an F and you're still in Bb, but they resolve up to the 9th using it as a pivot chord. So you're in Bb for exactly one chord and then bam, you're in G. So you're moving from two flats to one sharp, it's not the wildest jump ever, but for the time and in pop music, it's fairly nuts. Part of the reason it works is that the 9th is in the topmost voice.

So ...

F A C Eb G to G B D we already stated that Eb badly wants to resolve to D. The G is the common tone. The A and the C will gravitate to B natural and the F gets pulled up to G.

It's wonky. I love it.