Lennon composition and meter changes
Joel Phillip Friedman
I remember hearing the Anthology outtake of I'll Be Back and how it went
from compound meter (each beat divided into 3 equal parts) to simple
duple meter (each beat divided into 2 equal parts). The problem was he
couldn't fit the words (the rhythm of the melody) into the meter at the
given tempo.
It seems to me that at that time since he was "just a rocker" he didn't
know that he could fit the rhythms and CHANGE the meter according to the
words (something that happens all the time in contemporary classical
music) as opposed to having the dance-oriented rigid beat rule
everything. (a simple idea I wish more rock/pop people would do!)
Later on all these Lennon songs start appearing with... meter changes
(somewhat rare for rock songs): She Said, All You Need Is Love,
Strawberry Fields, Happiness... and the list goes on. More than even
Paul (perhaps the "better" musician?), Lennon just let things flow where
they should and came up with some wonderful, very startling musical
moments.
I wonder if the former was the beginning of the later?
Any thoughts?
Joel
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Joel Phillip Friedman
"Alan W. Pollack" wrote:
> I think your observation of the facts here are right on. However, I have
> trouble following your question at the end about "former" and "latter."
>
> I would be happy to repsond to your post if you can clarify what you're
> trying to say on that point.
>
> Regards,
> Alan
>
Alan,
Yes, it was grammatically confusing. Sorry! What I meant was that events
like the earlier "failed" attempts at text setting - trying to "shoehorn" the
word in - may have spurred on his interest and flexibility later on -
especially as words became more important to him and he became a better
musician. So, without "I'll Be Back" we wouldn't have "Strawberry Fields."
I hope that's clearer and I'm interested in hearing your thoughts!
Diana
>I remember hearing the Anthology outtake of I'll Be Back and how it went
>from compound meter (each beat divided into 3 equal parts) to simple
>duple meter (each beat divided into 2 equal parts). The problem was he
>couldn't fit the words (the rhythm of the melody) into the meter at the
>given tempo.
About having difficulty making the words fit the meter, I heard what I think is
the same thing with Strawberry Fields Forever. John said, "I canno' do it, I
canno' do it." But he did it! (By changing the lyric.)
>It seems to me that at that time since he was "just a rocker" he didn't
>know that he could fit the rhythms and CHANGE the meter according to the
>words (something that happens all the time in contemporary classical
>music) as opposed to having the dance-oriented rigid beat rule
>everything. (a simple idea I wish more rock/pop people would do!)
>
>Later on all these Lennon songs start appearing with... meter changes
>(somewhat rare for rock songs): She Said, All You Need Is Love,
>Strawberry Fields, Happiness... and the list goes on. More than even
>Paul (perhaps the "better" musician?), Lennon just let things flow where
>they should and came up with some wonderful, very startling musical
>moments.
>
>I wonder if the former was the beginning of the later?
>
>Any thoughts?
Lyrics came first with John, so my guess would be that he found a way to make
them fit, using meter changes in this practical manner. Then later used the
meter changes, or syncopations that passed for meter changes, for their
inherent effect.
- - - - -
"To suggest that the personal life is not an
essential element in the creative life is absurd."
paramucho
>
>I remember hearing the Anthology outtake of I'll Be Back and how it went
>from compound meter (each beat divided into 3 equal parts) to simple
>duple meter (each beat divided into 2 equal parts). The problem was he
>couldn't fit the words (the rhythm of the melody) into the meter at the
>given tempo.
I think not. The Anthology version of "I'll Be Back" sounds more like
someone noticed that parts of the song have a natural 3/4 feel and suggested
"why don't you try it in 3/4". When he got to the bridges he found the idea
didn't work and they reverted to 4/4.
>It seems to me that at that time since he was "just a rocker" he didn't
>know that he could fit the rhythms and CHANGE the meter according to the
>words (something that happens all the time in contemporary classical
>music) as opposed to having the dance-oriented rigid beat rule
>everything. (a simple idea I wish more rock/pop people would do!)
The Beatles played around four hundred songs or more before they hit the
recording studio. They had done most of their learning *before* they became
famous. The idea that Lennon was "just a rocker" is contradicted by the
songs he wrote such as "Ask Me Why" or "Please Please Me". Lennon's use
of triplets in 4/4 time would be hard to match.
In fact, Lennon says that it was his "double offbeats" that led to some
of the time changes, a habit he seems to have had for many years. It is
quite possible that some of his earlier songs had this quality but were
"cleaned up" for recording. We see this, for example, as late as the WHITE
ALBUM, where a bar of 1/4 (!) in the demo of "Bungalow Bill" is extended to
2/4 for the recording. If you listen to the Anthology demo you will hear
Starr getting lost every time they hit that odd beat.
>Later on all these Lennon songs start appearing with... meter changes
>(somewhat rare for rock songs): She Said, All You Need Is Love,
>Strawberry Fields, Happiness... and the list goes on. More than even
>Paul (perhaps the "better" musician?), Lennon just let things flow where
>they should and came up with some wonderful, very startling musical
>moments.
>
>I wonder if the former was the beginning of the later?
Again, I suggest you go back to the songs that they sang in the fifties
and early sixties. The Beatles performed "A Taste Of Honey" for many
years, a song that switchs between triple and duple time. Some of Roy
Orbison's and Noel Coward's songs have odd constructions.
What I think happened in 1966 and 1967 was that musicians felt not only
free to experiment, but more importantly, felt almost compelled to do so
if they were to express the zeitgeist of the times.
The outtakes we hear on Anthology like tiny peeks into their world. Not
enough for us to draw major conclusions from.
Ian
paramucho
>About having difficulty making the words fit the meter, I heard what I think is
>the same thing with Strawberry Fields Forever. John said, "I canno' do it, I
>canno' do it." But he did it! (By changing the lyric.)
His problem on that Anthology demo was with the finger-picking style that he must
have been trying to pick up in Spain. After saying "I cannae do it", he reverted
to a typical strumming style.
Nancey99
trained classical composer/musician that also played on alot of their
recordings. George Martin
Joefriedman wrote:
I remember hearing the Anthology outtake of I'll Be Back and how it went
from compound meter (each beat divided into 3 equal parts) to simple
duple meter (each beat divided into 2 equal parts). The problem was he
couldn't fit the words (the rhythm of the melody) into the meter at the
given tempo.
It seems to me that at that time since he was "just a rocker" he didn't
know that he could fit the rhythms and CHANGE the meter according to the
words (something that happens all the time in contemporary classical
music) as opposed to having the dance-oriented rigid beat rule
everything. (a simple idea I wish more rock/pop people would do!)
--
Tom
>Again, I suggest you go back to the songs that they sang in the fifties
>and early sixties. The Beatles performed "A Taste Of Honey" for many
>years, a song that switchs between triple and duple time. Some of Roy
>Orbison's and Noel Coward's songs have odd constructions.
>
That great rocker, Noel Coward? Two more songs that change time signature
are "You're On My Mind" by the Birds. (Not the Byrds, Ron Wood wrote this
one) and "Why do I Cry" by Barry and The Remains, who later opened for the
Beatles on their last tour.
Nyarlathotep
joelfr...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
> It seems to me that at that time since he was "just a rocker" he
didn't
> know that he could fit the rhythms and CHANGE the meter according to
the
> words (something that happens all the time in contemporary classical
> music) as opposed to having the dance-oriented rigid beat rule
> everything. (a simple idea I wish more rock/pop people would do!)
>
> (somewhat rare for rock songs): She Said, All You Need Is Love,
> Strawberry Fields, Happiness... and the list goes on. More than even
> Paul (perhaps the "better" musician?), Lennon just let things flow
where
> they should and came up with some wonderful, very startling musical
> moments.
>
> I wonder if the former was the beginning of the later?
>
Very few rock bands employ changing meters and odd times, and the
ones that do usually do so very self-consciously. In Lennon's case, as
you note, there's an exceptionally "natural" quality to the
meter-changes and the use of odd time signatures. I didn't even
_notice_ that the verses of "All You Need is Love" were in 7/4 until it
was pointed out to me -- and I'm a devotee of odd time-signatures!
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
paramucho
>
>>Again, I suggest you go back to the songs that they sang in the fifties
>>and early sixties. The Beatles performed "A Taste Of Honey" for many
>>years, a song that switchs between triple and duple time. Some of Roy
>>Orbison's and Noel Coward's songs have odd constructions.
>>
>That great rocker, Noel Coward?
Of course not, and that's my point.
Look at the early songs Lennon wrote:
"Please Please Me" is barely syncopated and sounds more like a Xmas Carol
than a boogie. He names his influences on that song as Bing Crosby and Roy
Orbison. Eighteen years later he names Orbison again is reported to be
listening to Crosby and/or Coward at home every night. I've just obtained
some of May Pang's posts where she says he was a real fan of Doris Day.
"Do You Want To Know A Secret" : the influence was the Walt Disney film
"Snow White". His mother use to sing him the song "Wishing Well".
"There's A Place" : they were influenced by the #1 album of the early
sixties: WEST SIDE STORY.
"Ask Me Why" was the song he was touting in 1962. Not exactly Chuck Berry
or Little Richard. "Hello Little Girl" wasn't either.
"Bad To Me", written for Billy J. Kramer, is 100% Tin Pan Ally.
If the Nerk Twins had been right and Latino had been the Next Big Thing,
Lennon and McCartney would have had no problems fitting right in. Lennon,
in particular, defined himself as a songwriter after they had a recording
contract and the type of material required became clear.
>Two more songs that change time signature
>are "You're On My Mind" by the Birds. (Not the Byrds, Ron Wood wrote this
>one) and "Why do I Cry" by Barry and The Remains, who later opened for the
>Beatles on their last tour.
For some listeners, time changes are a bit of a shock. They're not a big
deal to musicians. I've played fast 7/8 versions of "All Along A Watchtower"
with a band and taken amateurs through a 5/4 song called "Stupid" (5/4
sounds a bit stupid). It's not hard to do and quite the norm in other cultures
(try Greek music!) The two top selling albums of the early sixties were
the from the shows WEST SIDE STORY and THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Berstein's score
is riddled with great rhythms. THE SOUND OF MUSIC has lots of tempo changes
and some odd bars here and there.
So, I don't think the problem is knowing how to play in non-standard time
signatures. I think it's more a matter of having something to say that
"needs" those odd bars and tempo changes. It was the psychedelic period
1966/1967 that posed that challenge and also led to radically different
use of tonality as well.
After that it became more conscious. Lennon seems to have wanted to put
some time twist in almost everyone of his songs on the WHITE ALBUM.
Ian
paramucho
wrote:
>Very few rock bands employ changing meters and odd times, and the
>ones that do usually do so very self-consciously. In Lennon's case, as
>you note, there's an exceptionally "natural" quality to the
>meter-changes and the use of odd time signatures. I didn't even
>_notice_ that the verses of "All You Need is Love" were in 7/4 until it
>was pointed out to me -- and I'm a devotee of odd time-signatures!
I thought I had them all worked out until I finally transcribed
"Surprise Surprise" from Lennon's WALLS AND BRIDGES a couple of years
ago. The funky little guitar riff that opens the song turns out to be
in 5/8.
Of course, the verses of "All You Need Is Love" have some 7/4 bars in
them, but it's not all in 7/4. That 7/4 period occurs first in the
chorus of "Good Day Sunshine" and oddly enough has the same little
three note figure on bass/keyboard to finish it.
Alan W. Pollack
response to it.
You might say that the songwriting Beatles forever liked to "think outside
the box" (to borrow a currently popular cliche) with respect to a number of
compositional parameters, not least of which is changeanle meter. Evidence
and examples of this tendency can be traced amazingly far back in their
career.
Just staying with the metrical issue you raise, it would make for a
wonderful study to spell out the "taxonomy" of specific techniques that fall
under this category, and to trace examples of them across the Beatles
catalog, keeping an eye out for trends or patterns that run across time, or
along lines of the individual songwriters.
An off the top of my head outline for such a study ...
Taxonomy of techniques w/conspicuous examples:
- Slow Triplets superimposed on 4/4 meter ("I Want To Hold Your Hand")
- Meter based on a prime number ("Within You Without You" mid section, "All
You Need is Love" verse)
- Uneven phrase lengths with meter held constant ("Yesteday" verse)
- Uneven phrase length caused by throwing in an odd half measure ("I'll Be
Back" bridge)
- Localized change of meter for an instance ("Two of Us" verse)
- Unpredictablly changing meter for a whole section or longer ("Good
Morning" and "She Said She Said")
- Tempo modulation ("I Me Mine")
Yes, I predict John will come out "on top" of such a study in terms of both
frequency and audacity of using such metrical tricks. Somehow I imagine the
impetus for this coming from a combination of a poetic feel for free verse,
and also the "rebels" perverse job in breaking the rules and shocking the
complacent establishment.
No, I'm not conviced that the specific example from the "I'll Be Back"
session is correctly attriutable to his trying to force fit words to musical
meter.
Most interesting of all (IMHO, of course) is while us fans may find his more
adventurous work to be the most interesting and "best of all," John himself
maintained an apparent ambivalence about much of his musical
experimentation; at least that's how I interpret his many Beatles-hating
regretful/disdainful comments made in later years about the likes of Sgt.
Pepper, and his roughly contemporaneous desire to play straight out rock and
roll. Yeah, I know alot of those negative comments were directed at Paul,
but I detect no small element of regret about his own contributions to such
projects.
-- Alan
"Joel Phillip Friedman" <joelfr...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:3887A370...@mindspring.com...
>
>
>
> Yes, it was grammatically confusing. Sorry! What I meant was that events
> like the earlier "failed" attempts at text setting - trying to "shoehorn"
the
> word in - may have spurred on his interest and flexibility later on -
> especially as words became more important to him and he became a better
> musician. So, without "I'll Be Back" we wouldn't have "Strawberry
Fields."
>
> I hope that's clearer and I'm interested in hearing your thoughts!
>
> Joel
>
saki
paramucho wrote:
> "There's A Place" : they were influenced by the #1 album of the early
> sixties: WEST SIDE STORY.
I don't mind admitting that I've missed something
here or there...and this one I missed. Did the
Fabs comment somewhere that this LP inspired this
song, or that some particular portion of the
musical inspired it? Just curious.
> "Ask Me Why" was the song he was touting in 1962. Not exactly Chuck Berry
> or Little Richard.
And much better than "Besame Mucho". :-)
> For some listeners, time changes are a bit of a shock. They're not a big
> deal to musicians. I've played fast 7/8 versions of "All Along A Watchtower"
> with a band and taken amateurs through a 5/4 song called "Stupid" (5/4
> sounds a bit stupid).
Not to Paul Desmond....
--
"I've been thinking about the good old days,
decorated in a candy glaze...."
----------------------------------------------
sa...@ucla.edu
Alan W. Pollack
"paramucho" <i...@hammo.com> wrote in message
news:38906648...@news.remarq.com...
....
That 7/4 period occurs first in the
> chorus of "Good Day Sunshine" and oddly enough has the same little
> three note figure on bass/keyboard to finish it.
I don't think so. GDS parses out for me as 3 + 3 + 2; scanned over two 4/4
measures. You can sort of even march around the room to it :-)
-- Alan
interstate5
stated:
>
>
>paramucho wrote:
>(5/4
>> sounds a bit stupid).
>
>Not to Paul Desmond....
>
Or Pete Townshend.
interstate5
d.
> paramucho wrote:
>
> > "There's A Place" : they were influenced by the #1 album of the early
> > sixties: WEST SIDE STORY.
>
> I don't mind admitting that I've missed something
> here or there...and this one I missed. Did the
> Fabs comment somewhere that this LP inspired this
> song, or that some particular portion of the
> musical inspired it? Just curious.
Perhaps Ian heard that they borrowed from a well-known song from "WSS"
that includes the line 'there's a place for us.' Aside from that
similarity, I see little in common between the two pieces, thematically
or anything else. Hopefully he'll elaborate.
One of McCartney's lesser-known recurring stories is how Lennon hated
"West Side Story" and how the two of them always found musical theatre
cheesy and embarrassing. He recounts variations on this story on the
1986 BBC "Paul McCartney Special" and also, if my memory serves me
correctly (and without going and watching the tape all the way through!)
on the 1984 South Bank Show documentary on the making of "Give My
Regards to Broad Street."
--
"Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects." - Will Rogers
"I spit on the critics!" - Paul McCartney
northcut at mindspring.com
paramucho
>paramucho wrote:
>
>> "There's A Place" : they were influenced by the #1 album of the early
>> sixties: WEST SIDE STORY.
>
>I don't mind admitting that I've missed something
>here or there...and this one I missed. Did the
>Fabs comment somewhere that this LP inspired this
>song, or that some particular portion of the
>musical inspired it? Just curious.
The information comes from the Barry Miles/McCartney book:
"There's A Place", another product of the front room at Forthlin
Road; co-written, co-sung but with a bias towards being Paul's
original idea because he was the owner of the soundtrack album
of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story with the song "There's A
Place For Us", which is where the title phrase came from.
Many Years From Now, p95
Ian
JNugent
>saki stated:
>>paramucho wrote:
>>(5/4
>>> sounds a bit stupid).
>>Not to Paul Desmond....
>Or Pete Townshend.
Or to Andrew Lloyd-Webber - a lot of the music in "Jesus Christ Superstar" is in 5/4...
Another well-known 5/4 song is Jethro Tull's "Living In The Past".
paramucho
wrote:
>
>"paramucho" <i...@hammo.com> wrote in message
>news:38906648...@news.remarq.com...
>....
>That 7/4 period occurs first in the
>> chorus of "Good Day Sunshine" and oddly enough has the same little
>> three note figure on bass/keyboard to finish it.
>
>I don't think so. GDS parses out for me as 3 + 3 + 2; scanned over two 4/4
>measures. You can sort of even march around the room to it :-)
The 7/4 periods of the chorus/refrain occur in the coda, as you note
yourself:
In these two immediate repetitions of the refrain we actually do
get a break in the 4/4 meter for the first time; a tremendous
illustration of the secret art of knowing when to avoid a foolish
consistency. The break in the meter occurs in measure six (refer
back above); i.e., the second measure of the sustained E chord is
only three beats!
Alan Pollack, "Notes on Good Day Sunshine".
Here is the coda with the 3/4 bars marked:
4/4 3/4
coda |B B F#| F#6 |B B F#| F#6 |E E9 E6| E7 |
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3
4/4 3/4
|B B F#| F#6 |B B F#| F#6 |E E9 E6| E7 |
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3
4/4 |F F9 F6| F7
|F F9 F6| F7 |F F9 etc
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
As to the parsing of the chorus: Almost all write it as above as a
slow 3+3+2 quarter note figure spread over two bars (as you do).
Others write it, as Stravinsky might have, to emphasize the accents
which does have one advantage because the shortened 4/4 bar of the
coda falls on a main accent:
3/4 5/4 3/4 5/4 3/4 4/4
coda |B B |F# F#6 |B B |F# F#6 |E E9 |E6 E7 |
1 2 3 |1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 1 2 3 4
It's a notational choice. Just as, notationally we write 4/4 as the
main time signature instead of 12/8 (for both songs). It's a device to
simplify the score, but it glosses over what's happening at the detail
level. For example, where do the syncopated accents of the chorus
fall?
Good Day Sun shine
B ?B F# ?F#6
|1..2..3..|1..2..3..4..5..|
It's hard to pin down, but I have the feeling they're splitting that
triplet into two beats.
Good Day Sun Shine
|1 + 2 + 3 + |1 + 2 + 3 + 4 5 | duple
|1 + + 2 + + 3 + + |1 + + 2 + + 3 + + 4 + + 5 + + | triple
x x x x x snare
f# g#b piano
In the latter instances of the chorus and in the coda the bass also
snap on to those syncopations. You'll note that the drums keep away
from anything else except the main beats of the sung area, possibly to
avoid any confusion at the eighth note level.
It's difficult to hear it exactly. But they seem to know precisely
what they're doing.
Ian
Joel Phillip Friedman
>
> Most interesting of all (IMHO, of course) is while us fans may find his more
> adventurous work to be the most interesting and "best of all," John himself
> maintained an apparent ambivalence about much of his musical
> experimentation; at least that's how I interpret his many Beatles-hating
> regretful/disdainful comments made in later years about the likes of Sgt.
> Pepper, and his roughly contemporaneous desire to play straight out rock and
> roll. Yeah, I know alot of those negative comments were directed at Paul,
> but I detect no small element of regret about his own contributions to such
> projects.
>
> -- Alan
>
Alan,
you hit it on the head when I referred to Lennon as "just a rocker" (notice the
quotes). As Ian mentioned, of course he wasn't in either his influences or his
writing but I thought he often had an ambivalence towards the "art" part of
music (even though he did it so wonderfully). I'm just a composer, not a
Beatle specialist, but wasn't he directly quoted (as well as on 2nd hand
quotes) as thinking of himself as someone who wrote and played rock 'n' roll?
I also thought there were moments when he was against some of the string
writing/arranging Martin did and the "classical" pretensions McCartney
sometimes expressed (the idea of concept album-medley/suite form, etc.).
If all of this is true I think the final arbiter, for me, is the work.
Sensitive pieces like Julia etc. illustrate how he was really a very broad and
first-rate composer, much more than a guy who wrote 12 bar blues songs!
perhaps is was a bit of embarrassment on Lennon's part (we should all be so
embarrassed! :-))
Also, I didn't mean to imply that I'll Be Back was THE perfect example, or was
a portent of things to come. It just struck me as an early example of working
things out and the drastic changes that occur to material in the process -
which in this case certainly included a change of meter. I don't know if there
are other examples of his songs where similar changes took place and whether
meter changes became more prevalent as time went on. It certainly is a nice
idea to say that a pattern was forming and this was part of it. I think a
pattern WAS forming, whether I'll Be Back had anything to do with it or not.
Just my thoughts.
Joel
paramucho
>>> "There's A Place" : they were influenced by the #1 album of the early
>>> sixties: WEST SIDE STORY.
saki wrote:
>> I don't mind admitting that I've missed something
>> here or there...and this one I missed. Did the
>> Fabs comment somewhere that this LP inspired this
>> song, or that some particular portion of the
>> musical inspired it? Just curious.
d. wrote:
>Perhaps Ian heard that they borrowed from a well-known song from "WSS"
>that includes the line 'there's a place for us.' Aside from that
>similarity, I see little in common between the two pieces, thematically
>or anything else. Hopefully he'll elaborate.
My point was to show that early Lennon was not "just a rocker" as the
initial post suggested. I did that partly by listing some of the influences
on the early 1963 songs. "There's A Place" was suggested by WEST SIDE
STORY, according to McCartney. See the earlier posts in this thread.
I can hear no musical connection between the two songs. I note, however,
that a number of the musical associations that Lennon has named for the
early songs have been hard to follow. Sometimes it's just a single
melodic or rhythmic idea that might have even got lost during the evolution
of the song (and there are signs of a slightly different initial chord
construction in "There's A Place").
In fact, Lennon says this:
"There's A Place" was my attempt at a sort of Motown, black thing.
It says all the usual Lennon things: "In my mind there's no sorrow..."
It's all in the mind.
Lennon DSL163
It's also difficult to see a clear Motown influence in the finished product.
Ian
Howard Lester
> It seems to me that at that time since he was "just a rocker" he didn't know
> that he could fit the rhythms and CHANGE the meter according to the
> words (something that happens all the time in contemporary classical music)
> as opposed to having the dance-oriented rigid beat rule everything.
Yes Joel, I appreciate your comments reguarding John Lennon in the above
quote, and, I agree with you...many "musicians" have difficulity with Meter
changes, and the like....funny thing too;
It dosen't surpirse me through, being a musician myself, many "players" and
so-called "musicians" aren't from the "old school" in other words, they do not
have the training and schooling in music reguarding composition, rhythm, meter
changes etc....
It would serve them best to "look into" all of that and help keep the quality
and context of music properely "formulated" but,
with so much "free form" music and the like any "joe" off the street can
"create" music with a sample machine and even
"rip off" a noted musicial artist, we hear it all the time don't we?? :-)
Well, thank you for your comments reguarding the Lennon composition and meter
changes. I enjoyed your insights and comments.
I perceive that you are a musician yourself?
Thanks again, Sincerely H. Lester
MusicM...@aol.com
Howard Lester
Joel Phillip Friedman
> quote, and, I agree with you...many "musicians" have difficulity with Meter
> changes, and the like....funny thing too;
> It dosen't surpirse me through, being a musician myself, many "players" and
> so-called "musicians" aren't from the "old school" in other words, they do not
> have the training and schooling in music reguarding composition, rhythm, meter
> changes etc....
> It would serve them best to "look into" all of that and help keep the quality
> and context of music properely "formulated" but,
> with so much "free form" music and the like any "joe" off the street can
> "create" music with a sample machine and even
> "rip off" a noted musicial artist, we hear it all the time don't we?? :-)
> Well, thank you for your comments reguarding the Lennon composition and meter
> changes. I enjoyed your insights and comments.
>
> I perceive that you are a musician yourself?
> Thanks again, Sincerely H. Lester
> MusicM...@aol.com
>
> Howard Lester
Thanks for the kind words Howard. I am indeed a musician - composer, mostly of
concert music and some musical theater, although my background is in rock and
jazz. I got into music because of L&M and still love their work, along with
Beethoven, Berg, Bartok, etc. After a long period of composing and teaching
primarily concert music I find myself playing bass in a student's band and
teaching both a jazz/rock course and now a Beatles course(!) so this sort of
thing is on my mind of late.
The further I go in music the more impressed I am with what the Beatles did. It
is pure great composition, plain and simple. Wonderfully musical minds knowing
their craft and asking "what if?" which is, for me, what it's all about. If they
had been different people in different circumstances they could have produced
great string quartets, or whatever (There's a fantasy for you: imagine L&M having
and wanting the "training" as "classical" composers, sort of along the lines of
Hector Berlioz. Les Enfants Terribles!).
I must not be alone (witness this group!) as my class is officially closed and
over enrolled with 18-22 yr. olds (over 40 of 'em and counting)
Joel
Maurizio Codogno
paramucho <i...@hammo.com> wrote:
: >I remember hearing the Anthology outtake of I'll Be Back and how it went
: >from compound meter (each beat divided into 3 equal parts) to simple
: >duple meter (each beat divided into 2 equal parts). The problem was he
: >couldn't fit the words (the rhythm of the melody) into the meter at the
: >given tempo.
:
: I think not. The Anthology version of "I'll Be Back" sounds more like
: someone noticed that parts of the song have a natural 3/4 feel and suggested
: "why don't you try it in 3/4". When he got to the bridges he found the idea
: didn't work and they reverted to 4/4.
Just because they did not dare using a mixed meter, probably. I believe
that a "mixed meter" version should sound interesting. If I ever venture to
sing another Beatles song, I'll try it.
_A taste of honey_ was a cover, so they just copycatted the rythm they
heard, while concentrating to the arrangement.
This should be taken with a BIG "IMNRHO", of course!
ciao, .mau.
sartanglor
sounded downright resentful of the fact that fans seemed to think he just 'threw
songs together' with no thought at all. His early pop writings were precise and
meticulous ('Yes It Is', 'If I Fell), chockful of intricate and beautifully
rendered harmonies. AS far as the rock and roll goes- Paul has stated that John
was the one who pushed him to scream and yell like Little Richard.
Is there any band ever more remembered for all the wrong reasons? Nice thread,
by the way.
"I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I preach to."
-J.R. 'Bob' Dobbs
"Alan W. Pollack" wrote:
> A handful of reactions to your post thought not necessarily in direct
> response to it.
>
> You might say that the songwriting Beatles forever liked to "think outside
> the box" (to borrow a currently popular cliche) with respect to a number of
> compositional parameters, not least of which is changeanle meter. Evidence
> and examples of this tendency can be traced amazingly far back in their
> career....