wax&wires

Using Math to Decode the Beatles

So it took some big brains and fast computers to figure out the opening chord in the Beatles’ song “Hard Day’s Night”, a chord that has plagued guitarists in countless coverbands for decades.

Using the fourier transforms in Melodyne’s Direct Note Access (DNA), developed by Peter Neubacker, Dalhousie University professor Jason Brown was able to uncover that must have been the Beatles’ producer George Martin playing 5 piano notes along with the band to create the infamous chord.

I suppose it was too much just to ask how they played it?

I’ll create a follow up post on DNA itself, and what it can do. In the meantime, here’s the article: http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/10/how-a-professor.html.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 11:57 pm. It is filed under wires and tagged with classic, education, math, science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.