Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Guitar Tutorial (HD) - Epiphone Casinos

The opening track to arguably The Beatles greatest album!

Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (the song) was recorded over the course of four days. On February 1, 1967, The Beatles recorded nine takes of the rhythm track - of which only the first and last were actually complete. They then recorded drums, bass and two guitars.
The next day McCartney recorded his lead vocals and He, Lennon and Harrison (and Mal Evans!) taped their harmonies. A month later, the french horns were overdubbed and McCartney recorded lead guitar.
Finally on March 6, the audience noises and the orchestra tuning up were thrown onto the front.

THE GUITAR PARTS:
Oh boy...there's so much to cover here, but I’ll try to condense it to the just important parts. First of all Id like to establish whos playing which part on the screen. From top to bottom its; Harrison, McCartney, McCartney.

Harrisons part is more of a second lead. Obviously not as all over the place as McCartney’s part but he does add some tasteful little fills around the song. Starting at 0:43 and ending at 0:58, Harrison plays these bends in between McCartney's guitar parts. They’re based around a D and F note, but you bend upwards to them. Going back before that though at 0:33, Harrison slides up to a D note for some reason? I have no idea why, it could have just been a mistake. I always thought that the riff at 1:24 was part of McCartney's lead track, and Im honestly a little surprised that it wasn't because it's so prominent in the final mix. One more thing about this part, at 1:11, George stays on a G note. It works, but I just found that a little bit interesting. Everything else with Harrison’s part is just picking through the chords.

McCartneys lead is incredible. I tried to replicate his tone on the record the best I could. Its close, but not 100%. It starts with that famous riff around the A chord. I'd also like to mention that McCartney is in drop D, meaning that the low E string is turned down a full step to D. You can hear it most clearly at 0:09. The lead comes in again at 0:44 during the chorus where Paul plays power chords following the root chords. He comes in for the last time at 1:25 with that blistering guitar solo (is it technically a solo??) and he ends with a run that is abruptly cut off. Once again, pay attention to McCartney's aggressive playing style (especially the vibratos!!).

McCartneys second guitar part is the simplest one out of the three. He's playing eighth-note dominant 7th triads around the root chords throughout the whole song. I call this part the gallop the guitar because it helps chug the song along.

Harrison played his 1965 Epiphone casino
McCartney played his 1961 Epiphone casino for the gallop guitar and his 1966(?) Fender Esquire for the lead

Slow the video down if you have to if you want to see clarification on something!

My videos are made for more experienced guitarists who want to improve the way they play songs from The Beatles catalog. I’m definitely not a teacher so this is the best way I can share how to play these songs.