Beatles as Musicians
saki
>McCartney's intuition was always that training would damaging.
>Huh?
I suppose it's analogous to the idea that one should be a "natural"
artist to fully express oneself---someone untutored in the precise
details of composition, painting, etc., which one imagines might prove
a restrictive burden to creativity.
I don't buy it, either.
If you shift the milieu from musical composition to visual arts, it
*does* seem a little silly, I admit. After all, art school was a
popular refuge for young Liverpudlians and they weren't expected simply
to be expressive and explore their own primitivist capabilities. They
were taking demonstrably instructional classes that taught the basics
of whatever specialty they'd chosen, or even sought to expand the
artist's horizons. John Lennon wasn't simply taking lettering courses
(his special subject); he was enrolled in drawing and painting classes
as well. Did that hamper his creativity? Was Stu Sutcliffe ill-served
as a painter by studying with mentors in Germany?
The illusion that learning to read music, or learning music history,
would somehow destroy a pop composer's chance to be creative is a
misapprehension of reality, IMHO. One might as well say that poets
should never learn how to read other poetry before embarking on their
own careers. Come to think of it, studying poetry in depth might have
helped one latter-day, would-be poet of our acquaintance.
Clearly Paul can read music in some sense; he's not chord-challenged,
and he's used some kind of compositional software to help him realize
his classical works. But this "fear" of reading music simply may have
been an early superstition that Paul held for reasons that are
antithetical to logic. I'm not sure his philosophical approach to
musical notation is explainable in any other way.
----
"The boys have written more than 100 of their own songs...."
------------------------
sa...@ucla.edu
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Michael Davis
> Clearly Paul can read music in some sense; he's not chord-challenged,
> and he's used some kind of compositional software to help him realize
> his classical works. But this "fear" of reading music simply may have
> been an early superstition that Paul held for reasons that are
> antithetical to logic. I'm not sure his philosophical approach to
> musical notation is explainable in any other way.
I find it amusing that he has this anti-notation phobia when a number of
pop/rock/whatever composers can read music. Elton John and Brian Wilson are
two that come to mind with at least some formal training. Last I checked
they were pretty good composers. ;^{)
Seriously, I find this bias exists amongst guitarists more than any other
musicians. Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page are two examples of
guitarists/composers who cannot read sheet music. The proliferation of
chord sheets and tablature certainly do not encourage proper musical
training.
Mike Davis, who had a full three years of junior high school band...
******************************************************************************
"They've forgotten all about God, but He's the only reason we exist..."
--George Harrison (1943 - 2001)
http://kepler.pa.msu.edu/~davism -- Check out my music on mp3!
******************************************************************************
The Walrus was Danny
> and he's used some kind of compositional software to help him realize
> his classical works.
I'm gonna stick my neck out and say that the "Can't Read Music" groove is
bullshit. I would reckon that it stands until about '65/'66. Macca would
have sussed out that staves and such existed when he did the Family Way. By
Pepper it was deffo. OK so I can dig that stuff was written by ear rather
than otherwise, but curiosity would have demanded that certainly Macca would
have wanted to know how the stuff was written down. I mean I can't *read*
music but I can work out a melody from bits of dots written on paper,
eventually.
...and I bet that Lennon knew about weird time sigs for Good Morning Good
Morning! Willing to be shot down though. It doesn't hurt me. I bare my
buttocks. Baby.
Danny
R.A.G. Seely
news:Xns91A5736D5A...@169.232.10.66:
I think there is a distinction that is usefully made here: the fear that
training might result in a loss in creativity vs the fear that knowing how
to read music might have such an effect. If Paul said the latter, I
suspect that nevertheless he really meant the former (and even if he
refused to learn how to read music, that still was an indication of the
former, with the latter as merely a symbolic reflection of that fear).
Consider: formal musical training would come with a certain amount of
"baggage": a set of "default" assumptions about what sorts of rhythms,
chordal and tonal structures, song patterns, etc, are "correct". Many of
these would conflict with the patterns and expectations of rock and pop
music, and would put a straight-jacket around the sorts of musical
structures the Beatles were creating. In effect, he would learn theory
only to have to "unlearn" or ignore large parts of it. But learning this
sort of theory is a very different thing from knowing musical history,
techniques, and the context within which he worked. I don't know if
learning classical theory would have hindered or augmented Paul's
creativity within the pop-rock world, but I can see an argument either way,
and fearing so wasn't entirely irrational.
As for the analogy - I think comparing artistic technique with classical
musical theory isn't quite "on": better analogies would be artistic
technique vs musical technique (and as far as that one goes, Paul and the
rest of the Beatles were never unhappy about learning their instruments
better), or artistic theory vs musical theory (and that seems less
obviously a counter argument - would Rousseau have been a better painter if
he'd known more about Renaissance painting? Not so clear. To learn
techniques and to learn theory are quite different things, and that
difference is clearest when you consider that theory is an analytical tool,
not really a creative one.) And re studying poetry: the lads did study the
equivalent of their "poetry" - they listened to music, of many genres, and
were intimately familiar with a lot of their precursors. They knew the
musical context, they were keen to increase their technical prowess, the
only thing they were really missing was the *analytical language* to
describe what they were doing, or what they wanted others to do (hence
George Martin's role as "interpreter" frequently). Not such a big gap,
really ...
-= rags =-
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paramucho
In the fifties, when the Beatles would have been able to study, the
only musical education available was in classical music. You use the
arts as an example: by comparison, that field of study had become much
more liberal. My music teacher, who studied in England under the same
traditions that prevailed in the fifties, was failed at the Royal
College Of Music for playfully introducing some blues notes into a
tune in an examination. He was failed for the entire course on the
strength of that misdemeanor.
The gap between school and street musicians at that time was
unbridgeable. Rock was the devils music, literally. I left my course
partly because I couldn't handle the attitude. The only "liberal"
teacher was the one who had himself been failed as described.
Most classical composers took lessons in harmony and counterpoint.
They didn't usually study Indian, Arabic or even western Renaissance
music theory. They studied the type of music that they were going to
write and the kind of music that they listened to. No music course in
rock was available at that time. It would have been largely a waste of
time to study classical music.
Further, much of what they would have learned would have simply been
wrong, and still is wrong, when applied to rock. They would have had
to have acquired deep theoretical skills to sort out that dilemma.
In any case, I think this debate misses the point: the Beatles had one
of the best musical educations available. Thousands of songs in many
different styles. Great ears. Bright minds and total dedication.
What were they missing?
>Clearly Paul can read music in some sense; he's not chord-challenged,
>and he's used some kind of compositional software to help him realize
>his classical works. But this "fear" of reading music simply may have
>been an early superstition that Paul held for reasons that are
>antithetical to logic. I'm not sure his philosophical approach to
>musical notation is explainable in any other way.
Reading notation, in itself, is of no particular use in itself. In the
fifties there wasn't any decent notation of pop songs. The Beatles
seemed to be able to pick up a song *completely* with a few listens in
the NEMS booth. I think "Chains" is an example and their cover is
perfect.
What we tend to notice is that the Beatles can't *articulate* their
musical knowledge. When working with each other they didn't need to:
good musicians can talk music with each other by demonstrating what
they mean with an instrument. The Beatles typically whistled or hummed
the parts they wanted to talk about. That was just as good as notation
for their ears.
In fact, there's something to be said for musicians who let their ears
do the talking.
Ian (all you need is ears)
na
"The Walrus was Danny" <thewalru...@totalise.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3c5749b0$1_3@mk-nntp-
> I'm gonna stick my neck out and say that the "Can't Read Music" groove is
> bullshit. I would reckon that it stands until about '65/'66. Macca would
> have sussed out that staves and such existed when he did the Family Way.
By
> Pepper it was deffo. OK so I can dig that stuff was written by ear rather
> than otherwise, but curiosity would have demanded that certainly Macca
would
> have wanted to know how the stuff was written down.
doesn't mean he was proficient or even well versed in sight reading it.
and writing notation would have even more unlikely for any of them.
no, its totally understandable that paul makes those claims.
> ...and I bet that Lennon knew about weird time sigs for Good Morning Good
> Morning
no, he just knew how he wanted the song to go.
he knew what to play, and he got george m. to write the charts for the
horns.
lennon was a belligerent fuck in more ways than just mouthing off to
journalists and such.
he was belligerent of his talent and the music and FORCED it into odd time
signatures by the sheer brute force of his will.
puntomaupun...@example.invalid.cselt.it
: > ...and I bet that Lennon knew about weird time sigs for Good Morning Good
: > Morning
:
:
: no, he just knew how he wanted the song to go.
:
: he knew what to play, and he got george m. to write the charts for the
: horns.
:
: lennon was a belligerent fuck in more ways than just mouthing off to
: journalists and such.
:
: he was belligerent of his talent and the music and FORCED it into odd time
: signatures by the sheer brute force of his will.
I disagree.
While it's rue that John had always been belligerent, I personally believe
that the odd time signatures derive exactly from his unformal training.
*I* found it really difficult to compose a tune in 5/4 or 7-8/4 like _All
you need is love_, but I had a formal training.
But it is true that he knew what to play, of course!
ciao, .mau.
--
Tra poco / Coming soon: http://xmau.com/
paramucho
<thewalru...@totalise.co.uk> wrote:
>> Clearly Paul can read music in some sense; he's not chord-challenged,
>> and he's used some kind of compositional software to help him realize
>> his classical works.
>
>I'm gonna stick my neck out and say that the "Can't Read Music" groove is
>bullshit. I would reckon that it stands until about '65/'66. Macca would
>have sussed out that staves and such existed when he did the Family Way.
Macca hummed a couple of tunes to George Martin for THE FAMILY WAY.
Apart from some suggestions for the instruments to be used, that was
it. The rest is George Martin.
The Beatles had no use or need for notation.
They didn't even write out their chord progressions. Lyrics yes. Chord
progressions were always in their heads.
They *saw* music.
Ian
puntomaupun...@example.invalid
: They didn't even write out their chord progressions. Lyrics yes. Chord
: progressions were always in their heads.
:
: They *saw* music.
I never understood how people can *not* keep chord progressions in their
heads :-)
BigStar303
<< The illusion that learning to read music, or learning music history,
would somehow destroy a pop composer's chance to be creative is a
misapprehension of reality, IMHO. One might as well say that poets
should never learn how to read other poetry before embarking on their
own careers. >>
Yes, but isn't there a difference between *learn[ing]* to read other poetry"
and simply *reading* other poetry?
As Ian pointed out, The Beatles had done the musical equivalent of the latter
with regard to rock 'n' roll and related forms a thousand times over. They also
had the benefit of thousands of hours of actual performance under the belt by
the time they reached the stage of seriously composing their own material.
Whether this enhanced their composing ability is open to argument; but I do
know from my own experience that the more you play, the better and more
creatively you play. I've gone through periods in my life where I've played out
steadily two and three times every week, and those when I've not been playing
at all.
While I'm a very good rhythm guitarist, my lead skills are somewhat
rudimentary. I know the basics of music theory in terms of how chords relate to
one another, but I don't know scales or modes. Nevertheless, I listen to tapes
made when I was playing regularly and say, "How in the hell did I come up with
that lead line? I wouldn't have a clue how to do it now."
Back to your poetry analogy; no doubt a poet who has read a lot of poetry by
others will have an advantage over one who has not. He or she has been exposed
to something of what poetry *is*.
But will the poet who has spent years studying the *mechanics* of iambic
pentameter and A B B A rhyme schemes -- or alternately, one who has read reams
of critical analysis of others' poetry -- necessarily turn out more worthy
poems? I'm not so sure.
The point here is that sometimes just going out and doing it -- repeatedly,
doggedly, enthusiastically -- can bear as much fruit as years of academic
study.
It would be very interesting to take a couple of lists (God knows there are
plenty of different ones) of what are considered to be the greatest and most
enduring songs of the rock 'n' roll era, and determine how many of them were
composed by people with formal musical training vs. how many were not.
In the long run, this would be the proof of the pudding. Surely a rock 'n' roll
song's worthiness is not determined by the complexity or sophistication of it's
chord structure or melody -- as often as not, simple is better. By the same
token, an alternate route to memorability can be to take the unexpected melody
line or chord structure and somehow still make it *sound* simple or at least
accessible in context -- as The Beatles, Brian Wilson and a few others did.
Come to that, Brian Wilson is the ultimate example of this. Here's a guy with
little or no formal musical training who within two years or so of beginning to
compose (November 22, 1963 to be exact) wrote "The Warmth of the Sun," whose
chord progression and harmonies were unlike ANYTHING that had been attempted by
a rock 'n' roll composer heretofore. Yet it hung together to make a haunting,
breathtakingly affecting song.
Listen sometime to the vocals-only tracks of some of The Beach Boys' more
popular tunes. Could the intricate harmonies on "Wouldn't It Be Nice" -- so
tightly locked that you don't even realize how gorgeous and complex they are
until you hear them in isolation -- have somehow been even *better* if only
Brian had studied theory and harmony?
As far as I know, he never did. Instead, he simply locked himself in his room
and absorbed Four Freshmen harmonies (alongside his favorite doo-wop groups)
and took it all in. Then he went to the piano or gathered his brothers and
cousin together and did his best to replicate what he heard. That he couldn't
put a formal name to any of this mattered little.
Eventually, he went from copying to creating. He would go to the piano and just
let it all flow through him. And the one piece of terminology he did come up
with for all of this is revealing.
Brian said, "I just go to the piano and play 'feels.'"
robertandrews
>I'm not sure his philosophical approach to musical notation is explainable
in any other way.
Paul's lack of classical music training extends beyond the inability to read
notation. But music theory can be expressed in different ways, & one's
understanding of it will likely change over time. We all hear & feel music
somewhat differently.
The Beatles learned to play various instruments, sing, sing harmony, compose
complete songs (words & music), perform live & make records. Their broad
tastes gave them a huge palette from which to compose. Unlike many pop
musicians today, they copied & studied some of the greats that preceded
them -- that's the traditional method in Western art.
dave...@spamcop.net
> I'm gonna stick my neck out and say that the "Can't Read Music" groove is
> bullshit. I would reckon that it stands until about '65/'66. Macca would
> have sussed out that staves and such existed when he did the Family Way. By
> Pepper it was deffo. OK so I can dig that stuff was written by ear rather
> than otherwise, but curiosity would have demanded that certainly Macca would
> have wanted to know how the stuff was written down. I mean I can't *read*
> music but I can work out a melody from bits of dots written on paper,
> eventually.
What was the story about "golden slumbers"? Something to the effect that
he was reading the words in a songbook, but couldn't read the melody so
he made a new one up? I agree, that seems unlikely.
> ...and I bet that Lennon knew about weird time sigs for Good Morning Good
> Morning!
"knew about them and was able to make use of them", and "was formally trained
in the music theory of them" are definately two distinct things.
> Willing to be shot down though. It doesn't hurt me. I bare my
> buttocks. Baby.
Um. Nope, not gonna touch that one, in either sense of the term.
> Danny
Dave Hinz
na
<puntomaupun...@example.invalid.cselt.it> wrote in message
news:a38pud$h...@beatles.cselt.it...
> na scripsit:
> : > ...and I bet that Lennon knew about weird time sigs for Good Morning
Good
> : > Morning
> :
> :
> : no, he just knew how he wanted the song to go.
> :
> : he knew what to play, and he got george m. to write the charts for the
> : horns.
> :
> : lennon was a belligerent fuck in more ways than just mouthing off to
> : journalists and such.
> :
> : he was belligerent of his talent and the music and FORCED it into odd
time
> : signatures by the sheer brute force of his will.
>
> I disagree.
> While it's rue that John had always been belligerent, I personally believe
> that the odd time signatures derive exactly from his unformal training.
which is what i am saying( perhapss i wasnt very celear).
let me rephrase it:
i believe john came up with those time sigs because he has the song in his
head, and he made his hands play the chords and strum the tune in such a way
that those changes he heard were manifested in his playing.
in other words, he didnt think " oh this is a 7/4 bit or here we'll use a
bar of 5/4 here", he simply played the chnages as he heard them in his head
and those odd and quirky passages were realised.
he may or may not have realised any given passage was any given time sig,
but he knew what he wanted to hear and he knew how to make it happen thru
his talent and experience.
robertandrews
>*I* found it really difficult to compose a tune in 5/4 or 7-8/4 like _All
you need is love_, but I had a formal training.
Dropping a beat every now & then isn't really composing in other time
signatures. By all indications, John arrived at these effects naturally,
without referring to "5/4" & the like. I suppose it's possible that John or
someone else decided to count it at some point -- to communicate or
understand the idea. I don't think this is necessary, though. Rhythm, like
all other aspects of music, can be expressed & understood in various ways.
paramucho
There's a demo of him working on this on piano. I think he's hitting
bare octaves like a percussion instrument. What's driving him to those
rhythms are the natural rhythms of the vocal line he's come up with.
NOTHin to DO _ to SAVE _ his wife _ CALL the dogs in etc :-)
Did he have to know the details of poetry meter to sing those rhythms?
Of course not. The same applies to music.
Billions of people speak using perfect grammar without having ever
studied it. Grammar is probably more complex than music.
Studying and learning do not require a teacher or a textbook.
Creativity, a good mind, diligence and thousands of hours suffice to
learn many things.
In any case, musical training in the fifties, or even now, wouldn't
have taught them half of what they needed to know.
Ian
Doug Campbell
could call a kind of loss of innocence. Not for better or worse, but
knowing all the theory and being able to relate music upon hearing to
theory makes it a different experience than that of an untrained
listener, who has a less mediated appreciation. I'll bet this is not
uncommon: the maestro who wishes he could forget it all for a few minutes.
DC
Mark Steven Brooks
It's interesting-the end of Strawberry Fields as we know it ("Strawberry Fields
Forever dum dum" ) etc.
Is in alternating bars of 3 and 4 -a 7 beat phrase, but the demo version on
Anthology doesn't do that-just stays in 4. I always wondered if that time
change came as a result of Martin's input.
elat...@aol.com (Mark Steven Brooks/Elaterium Music)
paramucho
wrote:
>In academic study of the arts there is a change that occurs that one
>could call a kind of loss of innocence. Not for better or worse, but
>knowing all the theory and being able to relate music upon hearing to
>theory makes it a different experience than that of an untrained
>listener, who has a less mediated appreciation. I'll bet this is not
>uncommon: the maestro who wishes he could forget it all for a few minutes.
The true master does, I think, and that applies to classical, rock or
whatever.
Ian
paramucho
wrote:
>There's a demo of him working on this on piano. I think he's hitting
>bare octaves like a percussion instrument. What's driving him to those
>rhythms are the natural rhythms of the vocal line he's come up with.
>
>NOTHin to DO _ to SAVE _ his wife _ CALL the dogs in etc :-) >>
>
>It's interesting-the end of Strawberry Fields as we know it ("Strawberry Fields
>Forever dum dum" ) etc.
>Is in alternating bars of 3 and 4 -a 7 beat phrase, but the demo version on
>Anthology doesn't do that-just stays in 4. I always wondered if that time
>change came as a result of Martin's input.
Why would have it come from George Martin?
The basic component is Lennon's 6/8 refrain bar, "strawberry fie-lds
for", which leads back to 4/4 during the song.
In the coda Lennon has this:
straw... straw... straw...
|6/8 |4/4 |6/8 |3/4 |6/8 |4/4 |
On the demo's that bar of 3/4 is 4/4, as you say, but the least bar is
sometimes:
|3/8 |!
|2/4 |!
We also hear radical changes in the "Good Morning" demo from verse to
verse.
A little later a single beat is inserted into two verse of "Across The
Universe", probably because it was felt that the transition to the
following verse was rushed. A single beat -- no standard musician adds
a single beat, they add a half bar or a full bar.
In one of the "Strawberry Fields" demoes Lennon stops playing in a
verse and says, "it seems to go too quiet" there. It's quite possible
that he felt the coda was a bit dead with the bar of 4/4 and took a
beat out. That's something that only a Lennon would do (as per "Across
The Universe" above). I doubt it was a Martin.
In the end, we just don't know, but I see no reason to think it would
have been George Martin.
Ian
Mister Charlie
"na" <m...@deja.com> wrote in message news:a39pjn$d6f$0...@dosa.alt.net...
Exactly! And the other three were also experienced enough to pick it up
quickly and add their own bend to it all.
>
>
>
>
puntomaupun...@example.invalid
: Dropping a beat every now & then isn't really composing in other time
: signatures. By all indications, John arrived at these effects naturally,
: without referring to "5/4" & the like.
This is what I wanted to say. John felt the flow of the melody and did not
bother to count if there were four beats in a bar and the like: I cannot
manage to do it. OK, he was a much better composer than I am :-)
ciao, .mau.