7 levels of reharmonising Eleanor Rigby

Reharmonisation is when we set an existing melody, for example The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", to a new chord progression. So today let's look at 7 different ways we could approach reharmonising the chords to this classic tune!

And, an extra special thanks goes to Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇

0:00 Introduction
0:40 Level 0
1:21 Level 1
2:52 Level 2
3:37 Level 3
4:19 Level 4
6:30 Level 5
7:43 Level 6
8:33 Level 7
10:57 Outro

[thedankestmemes]

Wow, you just released a nearly hour-long iceberg and now you’re uploading again. It isn’t often that one of my favorite content creators uploads regularly. Thank you for the serotonin

[teagueolewiler]

This needs to become a series with many songs. This is such a good way to learn about writing music

[EVILmonkey]

"Find a chord with an A, for example...A" brilliant delivery there lol

[whatever]

Eleanor Rigby is probably my favorite Beatles song, so this is quite fascinating to me. I do miss the more complex string accompaniment that exists in the original song.

[sammydoueck]

You are literally mentoring the rising generation of musical artists! And you don’t ask for anything else in return!

[PaulH]

I like this exercise, but I'm not so sure that the melody fits well with most of these new progressions. Maybe it's just because I'm already very familiar with the song.

Update: I wrote this comment before hearing level 7. I actually think that the vocal melody fits better with the level 7 chords than with several of the earlier levels.

[Galileo_Galileo]

Hello! Just want to say that I love your videos so much! When I got into the rock band Queen, I found other rock music that (as we all know) opens so many doors to musical experience. I decided to study music seriously when I knew I felt something with music, and discovered your channel. So far I've learned to understand time signatures such as 6/8, today, chord progression (which I hope to incorporate to my piano playing), and a LOT of music theory. Don't know if you read that or not, but the point is: I really love how you use rock music to give examples of music theory. It's very helpful! Keep it up.

[PlanetoftheDeaf]

That was fascinating. I would have loved a Level 8, where you just chose WRONG chords with no connection with the melody, to see if the wrong chords could still produce listenable music!

[theBRT]

I'm just a beginner at songwriting and this concept is something I really needed to hear about. I think this will really help me express the ideas that my favorite artists have put into my head. Thanks loads, you're a brilliant teacher!

[lebronzejames]

this is a video i've been looking for for a long time just never knew what to title it. great job! thanks!

[jeremiahlyleseditor]

You're very good Dave.
6 and 7 are tough to listen to for very long.

[jordanelmhirst]

Another great vid. Explained in layman’s terms, clearly and precisely. That last one sounds banging and all mate, would love to hear an album full of reharmonised songs from you.

Thanks again mate you’re a legend

[juliusdeguzman]

The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby
Level 0: 0:43
Level 1: 1:23
Level 2: 3:20
Level 3: 4:02
Level 4: 4:50
Level 5: 7:10
Level 6: 8:17
Level 7: 9:00 9:55

[justinwilliams]

Great work man. Imo tends to show how they got it right in the first place

[victorwilburn]

This is a great exercise and very instructive, but I hope you don't take it amiss when I say that it just points up how elegant the original harmonization was.

[igrieger]

That's exactly why I love your channel!

[battleframestudios]

Its crazy how changing the chords to the relative major key suddenly makes the melody sound so joyful without changing a single note.

[Theunit]

Wow I love what you did with level 7. Great work!

[BenjaminNavillus]

David, this is your best video so far - I really enjoyed it, thanks.

[EddieReischl]

The last one was interesting ending with Dsus4 and D. That sort of works pretty well musically with the original song, although it seems to imply that there was a positive resolution to Eleanor's existence, which doesn't really fit with the lyrics. Lots of things to mull over when composing music. Really good content.