Learn to Sing the Harmonies of Famous Beatles Songs with Master Harmonist Galeazzo Frudua

A recent Metafil­ter post intro­duces us to Galeaz­zo Frud­ua, a musi­cian from Bologna, Italy who, “pos­sess­es an uncan­ni­ly good ear for har­mo­ny, and has pro­duced a series of videos that painstak­ing­ly and expert­ly ana­lyze and demon­strate for you the vocal har­monies employed in var­i­ous Bea­t­les songs.” These detailed tuto­ri­als, writes the Metafil­ter poster, are made all the more watch­able by Frud­u­a’s “per­cep­tive com­men­tary, capa­ble singing voice, unas­sum­ing man­ner, impres­sive video edit­ing skills and, hey, his charm­ing Ital­ian accent.”

In his first tuto­r­i­al, for “Nowhere Man” (above), Frud­ua begins by intro­duc­ing “Lennon voice”: “Lennon voice is very sim­ple, and it goes like this.” And, hand­i­ly, flaw­less­ly, it does. Frud­ua, who seems to be record­ing in the back of a restau­rant, match­es the tone of Lennon, McCart­ney, and Harrison’s har­monies sep­a­rate­ly and togeth­er impres­sive­ly. He par­tic­u­lar­ly favors Rub­ber Soul. Hear his “In My Life” below. He calls it “one of the best per­for­mances ever of John Lennon in the Bea­t­les” as well as “a fan­tas­tic cam­pus on learn­ing how to sing.”

Anec­do­tal­ly, hav­ing worked with choir singers, opera singers, and a capel­la singers, I can say that Frudua’s abil­i­ty is not par­tic­u­lar­ly rare but is the effect of con­stant prac­tice. One Metafil­ter poster puts it well: “It’s not hard if you have a bit of an ear, and some expe­ri­ence.… Har­monies are a kind of lan­guage. Spend some time learn­ing the gram­mar and a few phras­es and it can open up quick­ly.” Frudua’s not only a mas­ter of vocal har­mo­ny, he’s also an expert luthi­er and builds cus­tom gui­tars for dozens of Ital­ian artists. In his break­down below of “You Nev­er Give Me Your Mon­ey,” the intro to the Abbey Road med­ley, Frud­ua takes on a par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult har­mo­ny, as he explains in great detail in his care­ful intro­duc­tion to the song’s har­mon­ic gram­mar. He tells us we can use this tuto­r­i­al “as a guide for your Bea­t­les’ trib­ute band or repro­duce them in your home record­ing.” You may do those things if you wish. Or you could watch Frud­ua do them bet­ter. See his full series here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Tracks for The Bea­t­les’ Cli­mac­tic 16-Minute Med­ley on Abbey Road

John Lennon’s Raw, Soul-Bar­ing Vocals From the Bea­t­les’ ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ (1969)

Decon­struct­ing The Mas­ter Track of The Bea­t­les’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band”

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.