Beatles keyboards, who played what, including outside musicians

Paul played piano on the main parts of 'A Day In The Life'. Though during rehearsals of the song John played piano there first and Paul was on (hammond?) organ.
George Martin played celesta on 'Baby It's You'.

Actually it was our famous four plus Mal Evans hitting the chords on piano... and George Martin playing harmonium (possibly overdubbed later).

A similar technique was made on 'Lovely Rita', also with George Martin playing piano slightly sped up.

Probably all four played the moog. I saw some photos of George and Ringo with it.

 

George Martin on misery?.

 

Roy Young, in the Hamburg days. He was also on the cover version of "Got To Get You Into My Life" which Paul produced for Cliff Bennett And The Rebel Rousers.

 

Paul played it using the ribbon controller

 

George Harrison was not on the ending chord of a Day in the Life. It was John and Mal Evans on two different pianos, Paul and Ringo together on an upright and George Martin on harmonium.

 

whoever played the piano on Rock and Roll Music (George Martin?) did a splendid job

 

It was played by Paul, John and George Martin on one piano.

Ondra

 

Paul played Moog on that one.

 

That's what Derek Taylor's original liner notes say, but Lewisohn says it was recorded in one take with no overdubs, and that it's just Martin on piano. And then there's Geoff Emerick's claim that it's Paul on piano and George on bass. I'd tend to think Lewisohn is right.

 

Was listening to the mono version on Mono Masters. It sounds like John is not playing in time with the music. Like it’s out of sync.

 

Times were tough then at EMI, and they could only afford one piano as opposed to three ...

 

Lewisohn can't be correct because the piano part is played by more than just two hands. So it seems that Derek Taylor is correct.

Ondra

 

But maybe George Martin pulled out this old trick of Jerry Lee Lewis --- hands and feet!!:

 

And there are two guitars. Which means that the backing track had the Bestles on their regular instruments.
Doesn’t the piano also shift tracks in one place? And dissapear altogether in another.
There is now way Lewisohn can be correct.

 

The Recording Session's book is wonderful, but there is a lot of wrong info on it.

 

No.

 

One other key ingredient: he played it a full octave down.
All in all, very effective as well as brilliant.

 

When I was in jr. High playing my hand me down white album LP, I was fascinated and mesmerized by the intro to Martha My Dear. So I'll go with that.

Runner up is the layering of the Moog on Here Comes the Sun. That beautiful quivering sound they got just makes the track otherworldly and made it so unique. Subtle yet musical and great arranging.

Any Mellotron is awesome.

 

You can't have too much mellotron, can you?

And yes, the moog on Here Comes the Sun is lovely.

 

I enjoy John playing Hohner Pianet all over the Help! album as he uses it as a rhythmic rock instrument, not for the sort of ornamental flourishes they often used keys to provide.

Interestingly I believe the Pianet was tuned (likely at the factory) below concert pitch, with the result that they tuned to this and nearly all the tunes from these sessions are below concert pitch. The give away is You Like Me Too Much which is at concert pitch in the segments with an acoustic piano and below concert pitch in the segments with the Hohner EP.

 

Everyone wanted to touch it!:

 

Similar story with Paul on the intro to While My Guitar..?

 

It is just that beginning part with him on piano.