Editing John Lennon (section)

==Musicianship==
===Instruments===
{{Further|John Lennon's musical instruments|List of the Beatles' instruments}}
[[File:John Lennon's Les Paul Jr..jpg|thumb|Lennon's [[Gibson Les Paul Junior|Les Paul Jr.]]]]
Lennon played a mouth organ during a bus journey to visit his cousin in Scotland. Impressed, the driver told Lennon of a harmonica he could have if he came to Edinburgh the following day, where one had been stored in the bus depot since a passenger had left it on a bus.{{sfn|Harry|2000b|p=313}} The professional instrument quickly replaced Lennon's toy; he often used the instrument during the Beatles' Hamburg years, and it became a signature sound in the group's early recordings. His mother taught him how to play the banjo, later buying him an acoustic guitar. At 16, he played rhythm guitar with the Quarrymen.{{sfn|Harry|2000b|pp=738–740}}

As his career progressed, he played a variety of electric guitars, predominantly the [[Rickenbacker 325]], [[Epiphone Casino]] and [[Gibson J-160E]], and, from the start of his solo career, the [[Gibson Les Paul Junior]].{{sfn|Prown and Newquist|2003|p=213}}{{sfn|Lawrence|2009|p=27}} ''[[Double Fantasy]]'' producer Jack Douglas claimed that since his Beatle days Lennon habitually tuned his D-string slightly flat, so his Aunt Mimi could tell which guitar was his on recordings.<ref>{{cite magazine |first=Steve |last=Appleford |title=Yoko Ono Discusses New John Lennon Documentary |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=6 August 2010 |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/yoko-ono-discusses-new-john-lennon-documentary-20100806 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170614163611/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/yoko-ono-discusses-new-john-lennon-documentary-20100806#ixzz2myfyJ4yY |archive-date=14 June 2017}}</ref> Occasionally he played a six-string bass guitar, the [[Fender Bass VI]], providing bass on some Beatles numbers ("[[Back in the U.S.S.R.]]", "[[The Long and Winding Road]]", "[[Helter Skelter (song)|Helter Skelter"]]) that occupied McCartney with another instrument.{{sfn|Everett|1999|p=297}} His other instrument of choice was the piano, on which he composed many songs, including "Imagine", described as his best-known solo work.{{sfn|Blaney|2005|p=83}} His jamming on a piano with McCartney in 1963 led to the creation of the Beatles' first US number one, "[[I Want to Hold Your Hand]]".{{sfn|Everett|2001|p=200}} In 1964, he became one of the first British musicians to acquire a [[Mellotron]] keyboard, though it was not heard on a Beatles recording until "Strawberry Fields Forever" in 1967.{{sfn|Babiuk|2002|pp=164–165}}

In 2024, a guitar of Lennon's that was thought to have been lost was found in an attic and auctioned at [[Julien's Auctions]] for $2.9 million (2.68 million euros)<ref>{{cite web |title=Найденная гитара Джона Леннона была продана почти за три миллиона долларов |url=https://ru.euronews.com/culture/2024/05/30/john-lennons-long-lost-guitar-record-sale |accessdate=6 June 2024 |website=ru.euronews.com |date=30 May 2024 |lang=ru}}</ref>

===Vocal style===
Lennon's vocal style was heavily influenced by [[Little Richard]], [[Larry Williams]] and [[Little Willie John]]; the British music writer [[Ian MacDonald]] noted that "no white singer" had been able to imitate them successfully before Lennon and McCartney. MacDonald contrasted Lennon's singing voice, a "brassy [[Northern England|northern]] roar flecked with bluesy moans", with the "conventionally glamorous" voices of earlier artists such as [[Elvis Presley]], [[Dean Martin]] and [[Cliff Richard]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=MacDonald |first=Ian |author-link=Ian MacDonald |url=https://archive.org/details/peoplesmusic0000macd |title=The People's Music |date=2003 |publisher=[[Pimlico]] |isbn=978-1-84413-093-1 |edition= |series= |location=London |pages=107–108}}</ref> The British critic [[Nik Cohn]] observed of Lennon, "He owned one of the best pop voices ever, rasped and smashed and brooding, always fierce." Cohn wrote that Lennon, performing "[[Twist and Shout]]", would "rant his way into total incoherence, half rupture himself".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ImX4CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT210 |title=The Beatles: Paperback Writer: 40 Years of Classic Writing|editor-last=Evans|editor-first=Mike |year=2014 |publisher=Plexus Publishing |isbn=978-0-8596-589-66|access-date=28 October 2020|archive-date=17 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230417075421/https://books.google.com/books?id=ImX4CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT210|url-status=live}}</ref> When the Beatles recorded the song, the final track during the one-day session that produced the band's 1963 debut album, ''[[Please Please Me]]'', Lennon's voice, already compromised by a cold, came close to giving out. Lennon said, "I couldn't sing the damn thing, I was just screaming."{{sfn|Wenner|2000|p=14}} In the words of biographer Barry Miles, "Lennon simply shredded his vocal cords in the interests of rock 'n' roll."{{sfn|Miles|2001|p=90}} The Beatles' producer, [[George Martin]], tells how Lennon "had an inborn dislike of his own voice which I could never understand. He was always saying to me: 'DO something with my voice!{{nbsp}} ... put something on it{{nbsp}}... Make it ''different''.{{'"}}{{sfn|Coleman|1992|pp=369–370}} Martin obliged, often using [[double tracking|double-tracking]] and other techniques.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Andrews |first=Travis |date=3 October 2018 |title=He did the impossible and made John Lennon sound like the Dalai Lama |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2018/10/03/he-did-impossible-made-john-lennon-sound-like-dalai-lama/ |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Hodenfield |first=Chris |date=15 July 1976 |title=George Martin Recalls the Boys in the Band |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/george-martin-recalls-the-boys-in-the-band-115547/2/ |access-date=1 June 2024 |magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]}}</ref>

As his Beatles era segued into his solo career, his singing voice found a widening range of expression. Biographer Chris Gregory writes of Lennon "tentatively beginning to expose his insecurities in a number of acoustic-led 'confessional' ballads, so beginning the process of 'public therapy' that will eventually culminate in the primal screams of '[[Cold Turkey]]' and the cathartic ''[[John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band]]''."{{sfn|Gregory|2007|p=75}} Music critic [[Robert Christgau]] called this Lennon's "greatest vocal performance{{nbsp}}... from scream to whine, is modulated electronically{{nbsp}}... echoed, filtered, and double tracked."{{sfn|Wiener|1990|p=143}} David Stuart Ryan described Lennon's vocal delivery as ranging from "extreme vulnerability, sensitivity and even naivety" to a hard "rasping" style.{{sfn|Ryan|1982|pp=118, 241}} Wiener too described contrasts, saying the singer's voice can be "at first subdued; soon it almost cracks with despair".{{sfn|Wiener|1990|p=35}} Music historian Ben Urish recalled hearing the Beatles' ''[[The Ed Sullivan Show|Ed Sullivan Show]]'' performance of "[[This Boy]]" played on the radio a few days after Lennon's murder: "As Lennon's vocals reached their peak{{nbsp}}... it hurt too much to hear him scream with such anguish and emotion. But it was my emotions I heard in his voice. Just like I always had."{{sfn|Urish|Bielen|2007|p=123}}