Did the Beatles know much about music theory?

I've made this point before, but, in my experience, the hot-shot guitar theory guru at the guitar store who gives lessons and can play every Led Zeppelin solo note-for-note* is either (1) incapable of writing original songs at all or (2) incapable of writing memorable original songs, while technically "incompetent" self-taught musicians like Peter Buck, Neil Young, or even Lennon ("I can't really play, but I can make it howl and move") and McCartney are the ones who write the songs that millions hum on their way to work each morning. Go figure.

*One could take this argument even further, and note that highly technically sophisticated soloists such as Jimmy Page are also incapable of writing original songs, at least compared to more "limited" players such as Pete Townshend: it is well documented that many of Page's "compositions" are nothing more than re-workings/re-arrangements of others' songs/arrangements - i.e., "Whole Lotta Love," "Dazed and Confused," "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You," and many, many others.

 

On the other hand, the problem with only knowing three chords is that you can only write songs with those three chords in them.

 

"highly technically sophisticated soloists such as Jimmy Page"?????

John, I know you love to slam Led Zep, but you are SO far off on this. Page is nothing but a blues based lead guitar player! He's no Steve Vai!!! And to say Jimmy wasn't capable of writing original songs is , sorry to say ... DUMB!

 

Compared to say, John Lennon, Page was a technically sophisticated soloist. And I didn't say that he was incapable of writing original songs, just that he was less capable of doing so than less sophisticated soloists such as Townshend or Ray Davies. It is well documented that much of his "songwriting" for Led Zeppelin was very similar to what he did as a studio musician prior to Led Zeppelin, i.e. polishing/refining/rearranging and soloing over someone else's orignal idea. Some people successfully sued and won credit, i.e. Howling Wolf's estate for Page's theft of "Killing Floor;" some didn't; i.e. Jake Holmes for Page's theft of "I'm Confused," Spirit/Randy California for Page's adaptation of "Taurus," but the fact remains that Page didn't "write" "Dazed and Confused" in the same way that Lennon and McCartney wrote the majority of their songs, i.e. by wholly and completely making them up on his own (although of course there are cases such as Lennon lifting the lines from "Baby, Let's Play House" for "Run Your Life" - he didn't do that kind of thing anywhere nearly as freqeuntly as Page, though).

 

Mel Brooks said that he "hums" the songs that he writes. They are in his head.
Bob Dylan, Hank Williams did ok.

My point is, most popular musicians didn't read music in those days and it may still be that way today. John and Paul were gifted musicians, so was George after a slow start. It's like jazz, or jam band improvisation.

 

It seems to me most of the pillaging of blues songs was to be found in Plant's vocals. Look at "Travelling Riverside Blues" -- does that really bear any musical resemblance to the original song apart from the words?

 

This article pretty much says it all on the sources of Page's "songwriting."

http://furious.com/perfect/jimmypage.html

As the article points out, "The Lemon Song" and "Bring It On Home" and quite a few other Led Zeppelin songs feature not just lyrics, but riffs and chord changes from blues songs. Getting back to the original point of the thread, this just proves my point that people who know too much about music are condemned either to repeat it or, in the case of composers such as Schoenberg, go to extreme, unlistenable lengths not to repeat it.

 

If you're generalizing that knowing how to read and write music well somehow stifles creativity, you will have to make exceptions for Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Gershwin, Beethoven etc....... It may not be essential to write and play pop music but it is certainly no detriment. Didn't hurt Bacharach a bit.

And if you're interested in other styles of music, such as jazz or classical, it is of great benefit to learn to read and write music. I play chromatic harmonica, and when Zoot Horn Rollo asked me to play a simple part on his album, he put a piece of music in front of me and expected me to read it, which I did. Proably wouldn't have gotten the gig otherwise. While agile sight reading can be a challenge, learning to read and write music isn't that difficult.

Tone

 

Exactly. I wouldn't counsel the world's prospective composers to know nothing about theory just because Paul McCartney thinks it would stifle his creativity. The more you know, the more you have to work with.

 

It's a combination of knowing how to read and write together with an awareness of the achievements of predecessors in one's genre that combine to stifle creativity. Harold Bloom had a whole theory about this called "the anxiety of influence." W. Jackson Bate wrote a good book about this problem in English literature titled The Burden of the Past and the English Poet, as did George Steiner - his book was titled In Bluebeard's Castle. And Beethoven, by his own admission, I think, had a harder time with the creative process than did Mozart - Beethoven wrote fewer symphonies than did Mozart, and it was more of a struggle for him to write them. Then Wagner in turn had to wrestle with the example of Mozart and Beethoven, Strauss had to wrestle with the example of Mozart, Beethoven, and Wagner, Schoenberg had to wrestle with the examples of Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and Strauss, and so on, until "classical" music died in its refusal to write hummable melodies, because that "had all been done before." It took two musically illiterate twenty-somethings from Liverpool to write modern "classical" songs, or at least songs that exhibited some of the same virtues as classical music, such as "And I Love Her," "Yesterday," "For No One," etc. They were able to do this because they were ignorant of the vast weight of classical history, a weight that kept another twentieth-century English genius, like, say, Benjamin Britten, from doing the same thing. Yet, still, they had to have a classically trained "helper" in the form of George Martin to translate their ideas into "classical" forms, whether it was the piano solo in "In My Life," or the arrangement/co-composition of "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yesterday."

 

All art forms are like this to some degree. Probably everyone knows somebody who has all the best camera equipment, but has no eye for a good picture (while someone else can get a great picture out of a disposable camera). But I don't know that I would ever tell someone who wants to be a photographer "You don't have to know anything about cameras."

 

As I stated in my previous post, that is the exact opposite of how things play out in the real world. Those who know the most, whether it is Schoenberg in the classical genre, or Coltrane and Eric Dolphy in the jazz genre, end up trapped in modernist blind alleys precisely because of their awareness of what has been done before. As I said in my first post, George Martin told the Beatles that it was "corny" to end "She Loves You" on a sixth harmony. If Lennon and McCartney had known as much as Martin did about theory and music history, they probably would not have written the song the way they did, because they would have "realized" that it was "corny," too. But their ignorance allowed them to stumble on an idea that the more knowledgeable, and therefore, inhibited, Martin, never would have considered. People in the intermediate stages of this dilemma, such as Charlie Parker and Beethoven/Wagner, solve it for a while by exploring crazier/more dissonant intervals than the sixth that Martin thought was "corny" - i.e. ninths, elevenths, thirteenths, etc. Parker famously stated that the old changes/intervals were played out, and that his breakthrough came when he began improvising on the higher intervals from the root note/chord. But this led to the problem of "ordinary" listeners being unable to recognize the song/changes he was allegedly covering - he might still have been playing over the "I Got Rhythm" changes, but at such "far-out" intervals that ordinary listeners could no longer recognize the song as such. The Beatles didn't have this problem - they might have dressed up their songs with classical strings and instrumentation, but they didn't know enough about music to play the same modernist games with it that Schoenberg and Parker played.

 

That's true. I'm sure McCartney can notate, most likely in a pedestrian way but, maybe even better than we realize. It's not that hard to learn what those notes mean and anybody as intelligent as PM would have to have worked very hard to NOT pick up some basic knowledge.

But I don't think that he wants to write it out. It's not his ambition. I can't read music but I have to write it out when I want the string players or whatever to know what I want. I can figure it out slowly and get it done. It saves me quite a bit more money that way.

As far as theory is concerned, I find there is a middle ground between "no-nothing" musicians and "technically schooled" musicians. In this middle ground you will find the self taught ones who are able to recognize the theory eventually just by learning songs and writing their own songs.

These musicians have a keen ear and (like Lennon, McCartney and Harrison) recognize little things (like the V chord seems to want to lead to the I) and beyond. Working with George Martin didn't hurt- that's for sure. I think anybody who worked in the studio for a week with GM would come back a better musician in some capacity.

Learning music isn't that complicated but it's application can be extremely complex. So anyone who thinks they will become worse writers because they know more (IMO) they are afraid of their own artistic shortcomings. So it's like playing the lottery and hoping you might hit on something that's different. But you'll never really know will you.

Peace Love and Do Re You
Marky

 

So... only people who know nothing about musical theory can write good music? I find that hard to believe.

And the end of She Loves You IS corny!

 

Marky, Paul says he can't read or write music. I posted some of the liner notes from Standing Stone a page or 2 back where he says this. Ron

 

Well you are certainly right about this and know your theory. Parker was way ahead of his time, and while true that many people couldn't understand what he was on to at the time, his exploration of advanced theory led to many of the great jazz and pop songs and melodies that followed years later.

I do agree with your point that the Beatles freedom from the constraints of formal music probalby allowed them the creative freedom to succeed as they did.

Tone

 

Anyone who plays guitar for more than a week is going to recognize that the V wants to lead to the I. There are underlying mathematical reasons for that. People who don't know "the rules" will inevitably stumble on some of them anyway. Really talented amateurs like Lennon and McCartney will discover that changing the IV to a minor chord produces a pleasing change. The problem comes when people, whether it is classical composers, or twentieth-century "progressive" rockers, decide that the V leading to the I is "boring" because it's been done too many times before, and then write a song where the I leads to the flatted fifth or some interval that is not naturally pleasing and that ordinary listeners can't relate to. Meanwhile, musically illiterate musicians such as Joe Strummer or Avril Lavigne keep right on writing songs where the V leads to the I, and laughing all the way to the bank.

I believe in the principle that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Again, you look at musically/technically illiterate rock musicians such as Peter Buck, who are able to come up with songs that move millions of people. But Buck came up with arguably his greatest/simplest song, "Losing My Religion," after reaching somwhat of a dead end on the guitar after an initial burst of creativity when he had no idea what chords he was playing. In order to write "Losing My Religion," he had to "unlearn" how to play guitar and move to the unfamiliar, differently strung mandolin, which allowed to come up with an archetypal riff/chord progression that has probably been "written" dozens, if not hundreds, of times before in the past few centuries of traditional/folk music. Keith Richards went through a similar burst of creativity when he "unlearned" how to play guitar in traditional tuning (not that he was ever anything close to a virtuoso on the level of Page or Beck or Clapton to begin with) and moved to a five-sting open G tuning. Neither Buck nor Richards is probably capable of moving through the intermediate stage of theory where you are aware that the V leading to the I is "corny," but still don't know enough theory to do anything about it or come up with interesting alternatives to the V leading to the I. Somebody like John Coltrane was capable of moving through that intermediate stage, and ending up in a place that let him compose an album like Giant Steps, but even that level of knowledge has its pitfalls, which, in Coltrane's case, led him to play tuneless modernist music for the rest of his life that no one but fellow musicians, if anyone, is able to understand or enjoy.

 

I know, Ron, and I've heard him say it too. Though I believe he can and just as I can without being schooled. Being around it, you can't help but figure it out. I'm sure they taught him what a G clef was and what notes looked like and meant WAY back in elementary school. Not that he retained it or used it but, I think he's somewhat aware. I think their are some Beatles lies or self-perpetuated myths. I think he knows that the average person think it's cool to not be able to read and write but still be the best.

This is all my opinion, of course. But it's somewhat knowledgable because I play many instruments and write my own songs. And I learned it all on my own just by doing nothing else, eventual realization and common sense. And I've lived my life in a vacuum compared to Paul. I just don't believe he couldn't figure out how to write down a simple musical passage if he really wanted to try. I'd think he'd have to know at least some basic principles by now that could get him through. I don't think he wants to though. I never really wanted to either. It's very time consuming.

Peace Love and Victorian principles
Marky

 

I think a lot of people lose their inspiration, but as long as they have it, they can continue writing, just like Paul McCartney. Isn't Joe Zawinul still doing some pretty challenging stuff? People burn out for all sorts of reasons, but I don't think reading and writing music is the dividing line.

I don't think it's THAT easy. Maybe for you it is. True, it doesn't take too long to figure out where the notes belong on the staff and draw the ovals and either fill them in or not. But I think it takes a fair bit of skill to be able to write out music and have any hope that it will be played the way it's heard in one's head. That involves more symbols that represent how the music is to be played, indication of time changes if there are any, all the notes above and below 'Every Good Boy Does Fine'. I'm talking about this...

 

I don't think Paul 'writes' songs down, to be honest. I think he sits at a piano or strums his guitar and melodies come to him. Sometimes he places the melody to lyrics, usually he fits lyrics to match the melodies. But I don't think he ever writes anything down, other than the words and maybe the key of the song. I'm not saying he couldn't figure this out, or hasn't... just that he chooses not to write this way.

My guitarist is like this too. A fantastic player, he knows every possible chord and transpositon, but he can't and doesn't write them down either. Everyone is different I suppose. I don't think Paul writes down all that much, preferring to demo his latest recordings and going from there. John worked in a similar vein too. Back in the day, he recorded every single demo into his trusty portable cassette tape. We can hear a song such as Real Love, or Starting Over evolve from snatches of melodies long stored in his brain... Often he took bridges of incomplete songs and added them to others. And sometimes entire melodies were fitted to a different set of lyrics. John never wrote down his compositions either... just the lyrics. Ron

 

I know music theory, but I don't obey it. Paul has often said that he deliberately looked for ways outside the key. As Bowie said, "once you know the rules, it makes it much easier to break them." To the poster who asked for the Beatles analytical site, it is Alan Pollacks Notes On series.

 

Do you think Coltrane became too bored with conventional music, even at the Giant Steps level of sophistication? I wonder if his last few years of recording was almost academic----being a student of advanced harmony and scales, instead of interpreting songs that could challenge him.

 

You would think so, John. For the typical musical mind, But rock and roll has made it possible for many non-musical minds to join in the fun too.
I know guys who've been playing for years and STILL don't know that the V leads to the I. And they can't write songs either. In popular songwriting it doesn't matter how many times you take the V to the I or the ii to the V or whatever. It's the melody that goes on top that will make it fresh. For pop music - you mostly just need a new lyric over it. And even that can be argued.

An artistic mind will find a way to be artistic using whatever tools he has. It's not the size of his tool ...it's his ability to combine the vibrations/words/sounds to reach people in a profound way.

If I want to relearn guitar and not know what chords I'm playing. A simple retuning always does the trick. To look at guitar in a different tuning and know instinctively where every note is would be difficult more most any player. I don't know what kind of mind can do that.

Peace Love and 3 minutes to Wapner
Marky

 

It's not so much "burning out," as I've argued, it's rather more a problem of being aware of the vast history of music bearing down upon you (Walter Jackson Bate calls the achievements of the past "a giant inverted pyramid" bearing down upon "modern" poets) that cause you to become self-conscious about repeating what's been done before. Being able to read and write music is a corollary to this main problem. Joe Zawinul has the same problem as post-Wagner classical musicians - he is aware of the development of jazz harmony from Armstrong to Parker to Davis Coltrane to Shorter to . . . where he found himself with Davis in 1969, so he and Davis had to go beyond the "modal" approach of the Kind of Blue band and the "time no changes" approach of the Miles Smiles band to something even more abstract in order to be "original." Some rock fans dug In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew because of the "rock" instrumentation on those records, but I bet a lot of people listened to them once and never again, because Zawinul knew too much about music for his own good, or at least too much to be able to write a "popular" tune that ordinary people could relate too. He may have solved that problem with "Birdland" and some of the mid- to late-70s Weather Report materail - I don't know, because I know just enough about music to be more interested in the more "difficult" music on the Miles Davis and early Weather Report records than in their later stuff.

 

A bit OT, but Coltrane was, according to his own words at the time, looking to free himself of the constraints of western music, including melody, and eventually, time-keeping and compositional structure itself. He was looking for something in the realm of "completely free expression". Whether he achieved that, and whether it allowed him to connect with listeners in any way, is down to the individual listener.