The Beatles Bible - Topic: Yesterday

mjb on Yesterday

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:03:55 +0000

PeterWeatherby said:

mjb said:

On line guitar lessons from Peter - I love it!

Be carefull though as you'll end up transcribing every song for us all

I can only do the bits I already know.

Surely you're learning all the time?

PeterWeatherby on Yesterday

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:04:23 +0000

mjb said:

On line guitar lessons from Peter - I love it!

Be carefull though as you'll end up transcribing every song for us all

I can only do the bits I already know.

mjb on Yesterday

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:21:12 +0000

On line guitar lessons from Peter - I love it!

Be carefull though as you'll end up transcribing every song for us all

RonnieRIG on Yesterday

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:39:54 +0000

I have a Beatles acoustic tab book. This song is definitely tuned down a whole step. You can pick it out pretty clearly just on the first chord, it's an F, but there's much more life to it than just a barre chord.

Joe on Yesterday

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:36:00 +0000

Wow, thanks for that. You're able to hear these things much more clearly than I can. I just bash away at the chords...

PeterWeatherby on Yesterday

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:36:40 +0000

Joe said:

Do you think he played an open or barred G chord? Barred seems more likely if he then dropped a semitone for the F#m7.

Open, actually, in more ways than one. "Open" voicing, but it's also an "open 5th" chord, so you don't get to hear the 3rd (the B natural). It's formed like so:

DGCFAD

-----------

3x0033

And the following F#m7 sounds like it's voiced this way (with the thumb fretting the bass note):

DGCFAD

-----------

2x222x

Everything else sounds pretty standard from there on, except for the closing chords (where he's singing the "mmm" bit), which he only plays on the upper two strings:

xxxx33 ---> ...

Joe on Yesterday

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:24:50 +0000

Thanks for that! I never knew. I've always tried playing it in F. I presumed the "...for you" comment was due to the string instruments being in a different key, but on reflection I don't think they are.

Do you think he played an open or barred G chord? Barred seems more likely if he then dropped a semitone for the F#m7.

PeterWeatherby on Yesterday

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:20:33 +0000

mjb said:
Ah-hah, that's what he meant. Always wondered why it was "F for YOU"

Yeah, come to think of it, Paul says it flat-out: "It'll be in F, for you ... I'm in G."

Ding! Light-bulb goes on for me, and suddenly the entire song is easier to play (and sounds better, too).

mjb on Yesterday

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:28:40 +0000

PeterWeatherby said:

And then the Anthology discs came out, and there was "Yesterday", but with all the pre-recording banter. Paul says, presumably to George, "It'll be in F ... for you." That's when I realized that he was playing it in G, but with his guitar tuned down an entire step: DGCFAD

Ah-hah, that's what he meant. Always wondered why it was "F for YOU"

PeterWeatherby on Yesterday

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:11:42 +0000

Always loved this song. Always had a bit of a hard time playing it, though, because it's in F, so playing it "straight" on the guitar means using lots of ham-fisted bar chords throughout. And it never seemed to have that nice, bassy resonance that I heard on the album.

And then the Anthology discs came out, and there was "Yesterday", but with all the pre-recording banter. Paul says, presumably to George, "It'll be in F ... for you." That's when I realized that he was playing it in G, but with his guitar tuned down an entire step: DGCFAD

The chords ...