The Holy Grail of Rock, "A Hard Day's Night" Chord, Solved by Math - Neatorama

Take that, sweet mystery of rock 'n roll. Math has just solved the Holy Grail of Rock: the mysterious "A Hard Day's Night" chord.

Dalhousie University math professor Jason Brown applied Fourier transform to solve the Beatles' riddle: there was a mystery piano!

... the frequencies he found didn’t match the known instrumentation on the song. “George played a 12-string Rickenbacker, Lennon had his six string, Paul had his bass…none of them quite fit what I found,” he explains. “Then the solution hit me: it wasn’t just those instruments. There was a piano in there as well, and that accounted for the problematic frequencies.”

Two things: 1: old news. 2: grammar - "...applied Fourier transform" should read "... applied a Fourier transform ..." (or alternatively "... applied Fourier analysis ...").

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I wish someone asked me before I read the solution – just because now it seems dreadfully obvious that there's a piano in there (you can hear the slight reverberation) and I wonder if I'd notice that before

pretty neat though!

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This is the holy grail of rock? What instrument was being played in a certain song?

I get the impression I'm missing something here.. :P

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I never heard of this and I dont think I would consider it the holy grail of rock.

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liphttam1, I'm curious, what would you consider to be the holy grail of rock? (Maybe Monty Python's "Lumberjack"?)

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Actually, the holy grail of rock is what was really said in the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie"

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According to the Simpsons, there's a recipe of vegetarian soup when you play Sergent Pepper backwards. THAT is the holy grail of rock.

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It's like Guitar Magazine said, "A hijacked church bell announcing the party of the year", that chord. When you think about it, that makes sense. After that, the invasion began, and if it weren't for Motown, American music wouldn't have been played much on its own radio stations in '65.

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The Holy Grail of Rock is the Big Bopper's casket, now available on eBay.

Let me get this straight - the music was recorded about 40 years ago; at least one of the band members are still alive; presumably, others who helped in the recording are still alive, as well. This is a mystery what instruments were used?

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Oops, at least one IS still alive, not ARE.

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