Beatles 1st U.S. performances in the wrong key???

And I always thought it was a monkey organ!:



You learn something new every day... Cheers, Arnie

 

this is pretty common within televised live music from that era. think it would be a pretty colossal mistake to expect audiophilic accuracy from 50s and 60s television broadcasts

 

Not expecting audiophile sound by any means, but having it play back at the correct recorded speed I don't think is too much to ask. After all, they seem to have somehow managed that with the 2nd Sullivan appearance.

 

by and large, I'm not sure anyone on the production end gave a crap about the accuracy of televised pop/rock music until maybe the late 60s

 

We're only talking about possibly the most iconic live TV performance in the history of rock music here. Not sure if you or whoever else gives a crap about it, but I sure do. In any case, we're not talking about an issue with the original production here, but how it may have been mishandled in later transfers to other media.

 

and you're talking about it retrospectively, 50 years after the fact. when that Sullivan broadcast and other TV broadcasts of "rock & roll" bands were actually happening, do you really believe the people working behind the scenes at television stations really took these bands seriously? more likely than not they grudgingly went along with it while waiting for the clock to run out on those "noisey kids who needed haircuts." consider the time.

 

All of the tuning issues are interesting to me. Going through all the BBC recordings (all recorded through many different means and transfers) confuses me, because some songs don't sound right when you pitch them correctly. Meaning, their voices sound very different than they do on other correctly pitched recordings. Tempos will often be wildly off, because many of these songs weren't played regularly at the time they recorded them. Then sometimes, within one specific show, one song will seem to be aired originally at a different pitch (was it sped up by the BBC for time restraints?).

If the Beatles are tuning to a mouth organ, they will probably have occasionally been slightly off pitch. Instruments frequently don't hold tuning well due to the climate and the first one of them to tune may have used the pitch from the mouth organ but got slightly off (one way or the other). Just the distraction of people making noise and talking while tuning can cause this quite easily. Then if everyone else tunes to that person and they are close to pitch but not right on... This is SO common even for many bands who used electronic strobe tuners on stage, but didn't have techs preparing and checking tunings throughout a show. How many shows have you heard from the 70's where various band members are doing some minor tuning and adjustments by ear on stage.

So I have a feeling it's partially that they were close to concert pitch, but not exactly there and then transfer issues along the way. - I can't imagine Paul going to sing "Long Tall Sally" and it being a full 1/2 step down and him not realizing something wasn't 'quite' right. So either it was intentional. (But why?) Or it was one of those 2 things or a combination of both.

I will have to go back and listen to those specific shows with pitch correction. I wish I had perfect pitch to really help determine, because I only use references and I guess like most people, sometimes my ears get a little exhausted and I'll go back and think "wow, I went a little sharp on that!"

 

Interesting points, and that brings up something else I haven't mentioned prior; they actually don't seem to be a full half-step down. I've actually had the best results in pitch correcting at a setting of 71 cents (100 cents being a full semitone), so it's more like 3/4s of a step. Which I think lends further creedence to the possibility of it being a transfer issue rather than an intentional tuning one.

 

I know nothing about any of this but it is a fascinating thread. I immediately thought of the Plangent Process guys and sure enough they may have looked at this. I don't know if what they reference as the "quad video" suffices, and you will have to tell me if it explains in any way what you are describing.

"Beatles Sullivan - 50 years today. From the quad video there's a leetle tiny trace of video sync at 15734 ---- and it's trackable. Heres the before:"

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=629891670392874

 

After:

"Beatles Sullivan - There's a little teeny trace of video sync at 15734 and it's trackable. Here's the after (plangent deflutter) take a listen to the Gretsch chords."

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=629597590422282

PS. Might as well put this here, as I am also interested in any comments anyone has with Plangent Process. All I know is the GD Europe 72 box set sounded stellar and I have to think getting the playback of 40 year old tapes off of a tape machine 40 years ago had to help.

http://audiophilereview.com/analog/plangent---a-better-way-to-transfer-analog-tape.html

https://www.facebook.com/PlangentProcesses?hc_location=timeline

 

I think it was the trousers.

 

No, this is from the Miami rehearsal, not a broadcast.

 

Ok, in my best Gilda Radner voice, Never mind!

 

Well, I can tell you it sounds way better here than any DVD version I've heard of the 2nd Sullivan appearance. There was never a 'wrong pitch' speed issue with this show like the other two Sullivans from their first visit, but I always wondered why it came out sounding like crap. This is a vast improvement.

 

You haven't listened to enough "Get Back" session tapes.

 

Only the earlier "dark suits" show was down a half step. The later "light suits" performance is in correct pitch. If you have footage of these shows, check out George's Rickenbacker, you can see that he's got the capo on the 6th fret for the earlier show and it's on the 7th fret for the later performance. I'd post youtube clips but I can't find the song clips (with orig. audio) up there.

 

Man, they really must have been high for those shows. Arnie

 

But that doesn't make sense. If they were tuned lower during the earlier show, AND George had the capo a fret lower than usual, then they would effectively be playing TWO frets lower than they were at the later show.

 

I think that interval sounds more like a tuning issue than a transfer issue.

 

Except, again - the Beatles always seemed to make a point to tune to concert pitch at least through 1965...and, as mentioned earlier, they're playing in the right key at the correct pitch in the original broadcast shown in the Maysles clip (of the family watching it live on TV)...

 

My thinking is that they decided to play 1/2 step down for that performance and instead of tuning the Ric down a half step, George just simply moved the capo down 1 fret and fine-tuned from there.

 

Right, I see. I'll have to take another look.

Is there any other music in those episodes to check against?

 

That's true - I don't have access to everything that is available.

But there's a difference between not knowing and not caring...

 

can anyone compare any of the other musical acts that played on these sullivan broadcasts? or the in-house orchestra and what they're playing, and compare these non-beatles performances to the known keys of these songs?