[Harp-L] Re: Love Me Do - John Lennon

["Metts" <jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is one of the first songs I learned to play on harp.  Actually, I can still only do the beginning -- I never learned the solo near the end, but I should now that I can probably handle it.

Lennon uses some partial bends to get that "loose" sound you are hearing, and it's also just part of his personal playing style, which I love.  I've always heard that he played this song and most of the early Beatles harp parts on a chromatic, but most of them are quite possible on diatonic.

Also, I would not necessarily trust old videos of the band.  "Music videos" and even some live performances back then were sometimes badly lip-synched for television broadcast.  I've seen a particularly blatant video of Stevie Wonder faking his way through a song when he was a teenager.  I don't think the musicians had much choice back then; they did what the TV producers told them to do.