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Fadd9 Chord, or Dm11? THAT "Hard Day's Night" Opening Chord
- John Lennon may have played the note C on his 6-string guitar.
- Put them all together and you get: D F A C E G, which is the chord Dm11 (D minor eleventh), which is the same as the chord D minor (D F A) and the chord C major (C E G) played simultaneously.
The next chord on the record is the tonic chord, G major, which begins the verse. The Dm11 chord, then, is a jazzy variant of the dominant seventh chord.
Later analysis showed that Dr. Brown pretty much got it right: the chord is actually Dm11, not Fadd9, as has been widely misreported. Yes, Harrison did play Fadd9 on his 12-string guitar, but McCartney's bass D note makes the chord Dm11 because of the sonic weight of that bass D. The only ting Dr. Brown may have gotten wrong was the note E -- did George Martin play it on the piano? We'll probably never know.
So if you want to reproduce the "Hard Day's Night" chord on a keyboard, play the following notes, bass to treble:
D F A C G
Some ornery folks dispute Dr. Brown’s findings. Marshal McDillon was thinking seriously of locking them all up for the commotion they cause, because that’s a cliche of law ‘n’ order in a Classic Western like this one. Then Ms Puma wisely reminded Marshal McDillon of the importance of free inquiry. She poured him a double bourbon and he drunk it down in one swallow and didn’t cough like the late Billy Joe up there on Boot Hill.