Sergeant Peppers Lonely Heart Club band CD, sheet music - guitar, voice and piano

Image via Wikipedia

Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band

Hearing the Beatles album 'Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band' for the first time is something I will always remember with great affection. I remember getting my first copy of the Beatles Sergeant Peppers album near my birthday. I had remembered hearing the album with a friend the day before and being immediately taken by 'With a Little Help From My Friends'.

I was fascinated with the fact that musicians could record on different layers of a tape machine and so were able to produce music that a 4 or 5 piece band would find it impossible to do normally. For better or worse it also relieved composers from having to write their music down on a score. For some people this could be incredibly tedious and for non-reading musicians it would have been impossible.

As a guitar player and 'try to be' songwriter I set about studying the Sergeant Pepper album by listening to the whole album once a day during my 6 week school holidays. From the amazing songwriting and incredible arrangements of the Beatles and George Martin this gave me a wonderful musical education in songwriting and arranging.

After getting over 'With A Little help From My Friends' I soon discovered that there were many more fascinating tracks on Sergeant Pepper. One of my favourites even to this day is the seemingly simple song 'Fixing A Hole'. Listen to how the bass guitar has its own strong melody and how this acts as a wonderful counterpoint against Paul McCartney's vocal.

All the tracks grew on me in time but I still think 'Lovely Rita' and 'For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite' are so incredibly original. George Harrisons indian influenced track 'Within You Without You' takes you on another journey as well as the classical sounding 'She's Leaving Home' with the beautiful arpeggiated harp introduction.

To round it off comes the epic 'Day In The Life' which seems to be a John Lennon song and a Paul McCartney song cleverly sown together. Strangely this is the only song on the album with a full orchestra. The orchestra has the incredible building crescendo at the end which give the album a definite end to a journey through many musical styles and emotions.