Sorry Alexis i wasnt basing it on that last video just in general, im not really to sure tbh, do you think george puts as much thoughti nto his parts as say Paul and John ? or do you think he just tries to find the comfy middle ground and plays it safe ? i think the reason its hard to differentiate from him and john is that he follows Johns Harmonies and occasionaly might veer off to a safe note.
I wish I knew more about writing harmonies than I do, I think that would give me better insight into your excellent question, fendertele. When I write 3-part harmonies, I find that I sometimes "run out of notes" for the middle singer to sing, getting squeezed between the lower and upper singers. So from that point of view, sometimes I don't see a choice between a comfy middle ground and something more creative ... it's like "whew, I'm glad this note is left over and available!". That upper singer has the entire universe to choose a harmony note from, as long as they can sing that high, I think Paul definitely took advantage of that, from the earliest days.
So, I wonder if there were often more daring choices George could have made for harmonies, or whether he was pretty much constrained by the other guys and had to be satisfied with sloppy seconds (or thirds in this case).
Having said that, I've never imagined a harmony as adventurous as George's on "Yes It Is". Not only is it all over the place with relation to John (starts below, crosses over and goes above, then below again), but he winds up sort of switching "allegiances" between the two other singers. I think what I mean by that is that he starts the song harmonizing with John (a 3rd below John's G#), then moves up to harmonize with
Paul (a 3rd below Paul's E - two half tones above John :-/ ), then drops down to the 5th below
John's B note/chord, How crazy is that!
Oh well, back to trying to actually sing that without needing to peck it out at the same time on my keyboard ...(tongue5)