How Many Members of the Beatles Knew How to Read Music?
Why did The Beatles never learn how to read music?
This is kind of astonishing for someone who doesn't read a note of music
None of The Beatles could either read or write conventional musical notation — what Paul McCartney sometimes refers to equally 'dots on a page'. This was largely through pick and was not unusual in guitar based pop music.
They were what Hollywood composers called 'hummers' — as in 'y'all hum the tune and I'll play it.' Doing this effectively relies on a very skillful 'ear' ( the ability to identify and reproduce the pitch) and on musical memory.
These qualities were central to the Lennon and McCartney songwriting method. From the beginning they practical a 'catchiness' test on every new song. Could they think the tune at their adjacent session? If not, they abandoned work on it. Only memorable melodies would survive the ruthless jukebox jury of teenage radio listening.
How much did they understand of music theory?
The Beatles started with a pragmatic musical ambition. They wanted to learn how to play the songs they liked. Unable to read sheet music — which was in not available for many of their favourites in whatever instance— they relied on conscientious listening. This enabled them to work out the words, the bones chord progression and the melody. Song harmonies always came naturally to them — and this was an area that Paul's father had provided informal tuition.
Aspiring popular musicians also shared details of chords, words, rhythms, melodies and strumming patterns with their peers. Most of the starting time meeting between John and Paul was taken upwardly with this. After George and Paul helped John transpose the banjo chords his mother had taught him to the guitar.
Without recourse to textbooks — or YouTube tutorials — many musical discoveries were made past chance observation. It was a Slim Whitman concert affiche that taught Paul that he could restring his guitar to play left-handed.
Chord progressions
A central characteristic of the music they enjoyed was the utilize of familiar chord progressions. Put simply, a chord progression is a series of guitar chords played in a fix sequence on a scale. 3 or iv chords can provide the tools to playing hundreds of songs.
In their songwriting, Lennon and McCartney relied heavily on some of the most common chord progressions. I–V–six–4. LET Information technology Exist (in the key of C) is a typical example(C, C–Grand–Am–F).
Sometime they contrary-engineered songs they admired, modifying melodies and chord sequences. Please Delight ME started life as John Lennon's attempt to write in the manner of Roy Orbison. A change in tempo suggested by Brian Epstein disguised these origins.
Within this framework, The Beatles adult a distinctive approach. They were innovative in their variations of the standard chord progressions — swapping major and minor chords (as in NOWHERE MAN for instance). Until the mid Sixties, however, they largely stuck to the conventions of the standard popular song.
Keeping Time
A inkling to the musical Deoxyribonucleic acid of The Beatles was contained in the proper noun — they were all about the (back)crush. Generally this was 4/4 or common fourth dimension. Some musicians criticized the relentless repetition just Leonard Bernstein noted that they introduced 'exciting' variations — the switch to a three vanquish bar in GOOD DAY SUNSHINE, for example.
Bernstein describes songs in abstract technical terms — the mixolydian mode, counterpoint etc. Typically, The Beatles were focused on the musical practicalities. Most the heart eight of We CAN WORK It OUT, Paul has said, 'It was George Harrison'due south idea to put the middle into waltz time , like a German waltz.'
Reliance on application rather than theory was as well shown intheir approach to more complex time signatures. Ringo was initially baffled past George Harrison's instruction to play 7/4 in the 'sun, sunday, sun, hither information technology comes' section of HERE COMES THE SUN
'He might too have talked to me in Standard arabic. I had to find some way to physically practise it {taps out the rhythm on his knees}. I had know way of going 1 234567 — that'south non my brain
In his excellent video, David Bennett demonstrates The Beatles practical use of counting beats and bars. Paul counts in All My Loving 1-2-three-four-ane for example, because the vocal begins on the 3rd crush of the starting time bar.
How did they accelerate to writing more musically circuitous songs?
In 1962 George Martin was underwhelmed past potential of his new signing. Their musicianship was crude and their original songs 'crap': plodding variations on overworked on over-familiar themes. His starting time task was to help bring them up to an acceptable commercial standard.
For Delight PLEASE ME, he advised Lennon to speed up the tempo. With SHE LOVES You, he moved Ringo'south drum fill to create an explosive starting time, while opening CANT Buy ME LOVE with chorus has the same effect.
Over the next three years Martin facilitated a dizzying advance in the scale of their musical ambition. Standard chord progressions had been replace by complex sound experiments (TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS) sophisticated orchestral arrangements (YESTERDAY, ELEANOR RIGBY) and compositions from a radically different musical tradition (Dear Yous Too).
Perhaps the key event in this accelerate was the recording of YESTERDAY. This was the outset vocal they recorded without their standard line-upwards — simply McCartney performs alongside the string players. Even radical was:
'George Martin's disclosure to them of a hitherto unsuspected world of classical music colour.' Ian MacDonald The Revolution in the Head
Did not reading music hamper The Beatles musical evolution?
Sales of shut to two billion records would suggest not.
The piecemeal nature of The Beatles musical education appeared inefficient but it encouraged resourcefulness and innovation. They developed an effective methodology, based on an implicit agreement of essential concepts like keys, scales, chord progressions and time signatures.
The theoretical foundations were there in that location, though they often did not utilize the standard technical terms to draw them. Nor were they bound past the 'rules' that inhibited experimentation. Swapping to 3/4 in 'the center' of Nosotros Tin WORK IT OUT was not orthodox but George Harrison sensed information technology would work. And George was right.
Following The Beatles, an elitism crept into the some quarters of the rock world. Some, like Ginger Bakery, scoffed at their self-confessed 'primitive' musicianship. Others took the Bernstein view that they were as good every bit they needed to be for what they wanted to exercise.
The writing of GOLDEN SLUMBERS is an instructive example in point. The inspiration for information technology came from Paul McCartney seeing his stepsister's piano music — an arrangement of the folk song CRADLE SONG laid out for a lesson. Paul looked at the unintelligible ocean of black dots on the page. He and so imagined the tune they might represent.
They don't teach that in composition class.
Source: https://medium.com/the-beatles-faq/why-did-the-beatles-never-learn-how-to-read-or-write-music-87da36b87973
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