John Lennon's instrumentation

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Lennon's guitars.

John Lennon was a multi-instrumetalist who experimented with variety of sounds and contributed to the uniqueness of many tracks (with The Beatles, and after). His many creative ideas were recorded with introduction of sounds from a variety of his instruments, like bringing his own Mellotron to the Abbey Road Studios for the recording of Strawberry Fields.

Lennon played various guitars with The Beatles, and later, during his solo career, most notably the Epiphone Casino, Rickenbacker and various models of Gibson guitars, and Fender guitars. Lennon also played several other instruments to a professionally acceptable standard. His piano playing was different from that of Paul McCartney's, and according to George Martin, Lennon was using piano mostly for striking chords to support his various ideas for melodies. However, John Lennon composed several songs on the piano. Lennon's jamming on a piano together with Paul McCartney led to creation of their first best-selling hit 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' in 1963.

“

We wrote a lot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball. Like in 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' I remember when we got the chord that made the song. We were in Jane Asher's house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time. And we had, 'Oh you-u-u/ got that something...' And Paul hits this chord [E minor] and I turn to him and say, 'That's it!' I said, 'Do that again!' In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that—both playing into each other's noses.^[1]

”

Lennon's creativity and inventiveness is reflected in the variety of instruments he played, and also a variety of other sources of sounds he used for his songs, such a radios, resonators, and even his own heartbeat. He recorded his own heartbeat sounds on the Wedding Album. During the 60s and 70s he frequently played harmonica and guitar in the same song. He also played various percussion instruments and flute in studio and live performances.

Most famously, Lennon composed his greatest hit "Imagine" on the Steinway piano he bought for his home in London. The Lennon's piano was bought by George Michael at an auction for $2.1 million.^[2] Later, the Lennon's piano was on charity tour.^[3]