Billy Preston's Solo in The Beatles' 'Don't Let Me Down' - Tutorial
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ม.ค. 2025
- This is a detailed tutorial on Billy Preston's great Fender Rhodes solo at the end of 'Don't Let Me Down' by The Beatles.
Here is a link to the sheet music:
drive.google.c...
#poppiano #popkeyboard #thebeatles #billypreston
This is the most accurate and well explained video and audio of this tune. I usually figure out stuff by ear, but this was very useful.
Preston's solo is perfection. Cannot imagine the song without it.
True dat!
What do you expect to someone who played with Ray Charles ?
I learned more watching this video than any other video in years. Christian has a way of explaining the difficult so that it makes sense. Thank you.
Thank you so much, I appreciate that 🙂🙏
This channel is unreal. Thank you so much.
I really appreciate that 🙏
Another brilliant detailed beautifully explained and transcribed analysis. 🙏
Thank you, John 🙏
Nice video of a brilliant piano part of the genius Mr. Preston.
Thanks for another very educational video of a genius piano player and a legendary song. I will be re-visiting this video.
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Wow, now that's a detailed lesson! Thank you so much - I know what I'm gonna work on this afternoon.
I try to be thorough 😀
There are many ways to look at things, to me it is very important to think about it as E major blues and not as its relative minor. Notes are the same.
But it makes way more sense to think about major pentatonic or major blues especially if you are using it to play Key centered approach. You are just thinking on the proper key scale.
Also you can think about the other 2 major pentatonics that you could use On 4th and 5th degrees of the key signature.
Thinking about major pentatonics it is very helpful for pop, simple, tonal music.
You can get a lot out of them just thinking on the key signature.
Think of the major first and add the blue notes as tensions.
I learned minor blues scales as most people do. When I got to learn and think in terms of major pentatonics and the 3 major pentatonics of any key signature that made a lot of sense, also helped a lot to make better phrases to treat the notes of the minor blues scales as tensions if playing minor blues scale over a dominant chord or a major chord
I thought this was clarifying…but can you also state what the “three major pentatonics of any key signature” are? Thanks-hope you see this!
Excellent analysis, thank you.
Thank you, Alison, I appreciate that 🙏
Ive been doing that "submediant" thing for awhile. Honestly i always though of it as the major pentatonic though not the minor from a minor third down. Thanks always loved this solo!
Yes, a major pentatonic with an extra chromatic note is another way to look at it; some people also call it a 'major' blues scale. I prefer to think of it as a regular blues scale built on the submediant because I'm lazy and I don't wanna learn two different scales when I can get the same result with one 😀
@@christianklikovitsJust think of it as another mode of the minor blues scale you're used too 😆
This was an excellent tutorial! Thank you for all of the effort you put into it. If you have the time, it would be awesome if you could do a tutorial on the entire song. Billy Preston’s riffs between the vocal lines are absolutely sublime.
I agree, his playing in the whole song is great. I'll do a video on it at some point...
Amazing Rhoades part. Elevated an amazing song into the stratosphere with this part.
I want to learn this, but still a bit beyond my ability right now.
Great job, man! You've got a golden ear.
Thank you, Sergio, I appreciate that 🙏
Thank you. That’s my piano learn goal no. 1
A worthy goal 🙂🤘
BRILLIANT!
🙏🙂
Amazing analysis
🙏
Thank you for this. Excellent. Very helpful to me.
My pleasure 👍
I'm a new fan. Great analysis!
Thank you, Eldad, I appreciate that 🙏
Muchas gracias por tu trabajo. Excelente material.
🙏🙂
Thanks for the breakdown! I would say that the scale he’s using is the E major blues scale. Which is just an E major pentatonic scale with an added blue note (G).
@@AndersRomin yes, whatever is easiest for you to think about it
Superb video
Thank you 🙏
6:50 But it adds something that the left and right hands are slightly different. It's like the notes are dancing around each other.
I still think it wasn't necessarily intentional, but these imperfections add a human element to music that you don't get so much when you fix, tune and quantize the life out of every note like we do nowadays.
Excelent, trank you!
Thank you 🙏
0:50 Chord / Scale Improvisation is common in rock guitar solos though.
that is true 👍
7:30 YES YES YES -- there is a very strong connection between black soul music and white country music - remember that Ray Charles breakthrough album (and most famous) is Ray Charles Plays Country and Western
R.I.P Billy
It's a great solo. I don't think there's any need to emphasize the theory behind, as it's using the minor pentatonic, extended into blues scale with the flat 5 (or can be seen as a passing note), which is the most common scale used for soloing in rock and pop music. And when it's not exclusively that scale, it is usually mixed with notes from the chords. As for the blues scale from the key (in E here), it would only be an option with a blues chord progression, which is not that common in rock music (more common in a type of rock music that leans towards "country").
What really makes this solo so good is HOW he uses the scale, and how tasteful it is.
I would just call it the E major blues scale. It's a simpler analysis and acknowledges that E is the center.
Is it C sharp blues scale? ITs just E maj pentatonic with the G being used as a flat 3 which is vey common in blues, think day tripper riff also in E which uses both the g natural and the g sharp
@@danmillward7358 it is a C# blues scale, but if it’s easier for you to think of it as E major pentatonic with an extra note, that works too 👍
@@christianklikovits how is it C sharp when the key centre is E, your not resolving to a C# with a minor third, your resolving to an E with a major third....its a really important difference.
I'm not saying the key is C#, I'm saying the notes he uses add up to a C# blues scale, which they do. It is not uncommon in improvisation to use a scale over a certain chord where both have different roots. For example, a B altered scale is just a C melodic minor scale starting on B, so I can choose to think of it and practice a B altered scale, or I can recognize that it's a C melodic minor scale, which I may have already practiced, and just think of it that way. I'm not saying your way of thinking about this is wrong, but neither is mine; it's just two different ways of looking at the same thing.
@@christianklikovits tomatoes lets call the whole thing off....end of the day great tutorial and what a wonderful solo from mr preston....
1:55
Uhhm isn’t there a B7 in between the F#m and E chords? Also Billy’s simply playing the pentatonic scale as the solo with a couple of passing notes using the blue note.
Paul often plays a B towards the end of the 2-bar F#mi phrase, but the chord instruments stay on the F#mi. So you could look at it as implying B9sus or F#mi/B, but definitely not B7.
The guitars and bass are not in tune with the piano. It’s slightly off. 🧐
Good work Christian. Calling Billy out for being slopping. HA!!!
Obviously, no disrespect intended to the genius of Billy Preston 🙂
All in fun. Billy could make it sound right. I learned a long time ago in music improv, "just keep moving".
@@davidapatrickmoore Very true!
Why did you remove the 4 sharps at the key on the last 2 bars?
@@andrea-mj9ce sorry, that was a mistake; the key signature should be there, of course
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Great content, really wonderful!
Now work on your Tscherman accent please... The sound of language is music too.
The Beatles were stupid: They broke up just when they got good by adding Billy as Beatle No 5. How good would they have been if he was added a a permanent member and they toured during the 70's.
6th beatle. Billy Shears was the 5th.
Yeh, they could’ve made it big.
@@MarkGibbonsCh Haha!!!
They already broke all records. Billy was lucky to have been there, and if he was still around he’d tell you the same.
The song is out of tune, Why did they ignore this?
Many Beatles tunes were intentionally sped up/slowed down by adjusting the tape speed during mixing. This was a common practice in pop music that was recorded to tape.
😆 out of tune? Maybe ween off the autotune a bit
I don,t think the millions and millions and millions of people who have listened to this song have noticed. So why bring it up ?
Sounds pretty good to me. It must be quite a burden for you to go through life with such pedantic perfection.
Several of the songs were fed from the live performance, on the Abbey road roof, with a feed down to the recording studio. It was biting cold. Which can be a challenge for tuning.