Did the Beatles know much about music theory?

The thought has been put forth more than once that, had The Beatles been schooled in formal music theory, they never would have come up with some of the stuff they did...because they would have been taught that it was "wrong" (or to put it another way, "you can't do that"!).

As for the debate between Eli and Maxbialystock, I tend to fall more on the latter's side. Not counting professional "pop" songwriters like Bacharach, you find most members of self-contained rock bands working primarily in three- or four-chord mode prior to The Beatles. Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison and Brian Wilson come to mind as about as adventurous as you can find prior to them.

Beyond their sense of adventure with melodies and chord progressions, The Beatles also expanded rock's view in terms of style and musical texture. After demonstrating considerable expertise in the traditional guitar/bass/drums mode, they started going well beyond it. Others were spearheading this transformation at roughly the same time, but The Beatles always seemed to be in the forefront.

 

I put music theory into the same category as any language. In the right environment, children learn how to speak and communicate effectively long before they come near to a complete education in the grammar of their spoken language. Likewise, when we are having a conversation, we aren't usually thinking about grammar, we're just using the words that we know will get our point across. When you speak the language, you don't think about the language.

Which is also why I generally dismiss it when people claim that "if you learn theory, you'll become a musical robot." I know many musicians who are very theory oriented who aren't very interesting as players, but I also know hundreds of well educated musicians who are brilliant. It's all about the attitude. All my years of schooling in the English language never gave me the impression that I couldn't say what I wanted to say. There is no good reason for the learning of music theory to limit someone's writing or playing.

 

The Beatles had had a good "practical" musical education in Hamburg and before; their repertoire consisted of 50's rock'n'roll and r'n'b, sure, but also lots of pop tunes with more complex chords ("'Til There Was You" being only one example). They were well primed for what George Martin was to show them later on. Their versatility was in large part learnt in a do-or-die environment, where requests had to be played, or one might get thumped!

 

The Beatles knew squat, that's why they made great music.

 

4 lads from Liverpool.... I'd say they winged it, experimented, learned from others and were basically musical sponges with a great ear for music. If someone had something to teach, I bet they were there taking notes!

 

But the point is, they knew; they listened with intent. Most other groups of the period knew the punk-rock "three-chord" minimum, bupkis otherwise. The Shadows, Ray Davies and Brian Wilson were other exceptions to the general rule, along with the Fabs.

 

Me too. And "Blackbird", which took forever. I learned pretty much everything with my headphones on and guitar in hand. It can be done.

 

Many of us learned that way... but few of us can take what we've learned then create and write new works based on this knowledge. It's damn hard being creative and innovative for sure. Ron

 

That's because three- and four-chord rock & roll was a reaction to the highly orchestrated and melodically sophisticated music coming out of Tin Pan Alley. Rock & roll was meant to be stripped-down and accessible for kids who were not classically trained, with the emphasis on rhythm and energy over melody and virtuosity. It wouldn't have made sense for Chuck Berry to write songs like "Strawberry Fields Forever" -- that wasn't his revolution to fight. The Beatles' complex, studio-bound music arose, in turn, as a reaction to the limitations of early rock & roll, which was already on the outs in 1960. My point is, you can't have The Beatles without Chuck Berry. I think we can praise The Beatles without putting down everyone who came before them. 

 

For me, the jury's still out on how musically-knowledgeable they were in the early days. Paul's Father WAS a band-leader in his day, so there must have been some basic grounding going on there somewhere. Later, after they were established, it is said that he was tutored by no less than Bernard Herrmann! Apparently, it was arranged, and paid for, by the publisher. George Martin went so far as to state that Eleanor Rigby's strings were influenced by Herrmann.

And the fact that he has written a few classical pieces, says to me that he could probably read a piece of music, if it was put in front of him.

As to John, I think he remained a bit more 'primitive', if you will, but it worked out fine, if you ask me, and he certainly had a great mind for melody.

 

They were music fans, they were naturals, they were passionate and they soaked music up like a sponge from all around them. They also honed their craft the old fashioned way; on the road in some of the worst dives and dank pits you could imagine and in time they got better and better...by playing, eating, sleeping, dreaming MUSIC. They had drive, talent, genius; they had it all.

 

You're welcome.

What I left out about mixolydian is that it is only mixolydian, in the case I cited, in relation to the key of C. So if you are in C major, the mixolydian is the octave from G to G, played on top of C. Thus you have this G-sounding mode (but not really G because of the F natural instead of F#) played on top of a C major foundation. Hence the strangeness. These kinds of relationships between modes, scales, and keys is one of the bases of Kind of Blue.

 

OH MAN...that reminds me. There is a musicologist/music theory guy who put up a website a few years back that dissects every single Beatle song in such intricate detail that it makes your head spin.....it's almost more than I can take in and I can read music. The site is h-u-g-e.

But I can't remember where it is. I know I bookmarked it and wrote it down in several places so that I would never lose it...but of course I can't remember where the link is at the moment.

Anyway, this guy picks apart every single song, a measure or verse at a time and explains the exact way the choice of chords/melody work in relation to musical terms/theory......where they used the same ideas on which songs, exact instances of clever uses of this and that. I mean, this stuff is down to the nitty gritty in totally technical musical terms. It is SO interesting to read and armed with the notes, one can write a song (as an exercise for example) by connecting the dots.....it won't be a Beatle song....but you can use the theory and come up with some incredible writing experience. Or, you can read the notes about the songs and just marvel at the process.

Dang...where is that site?

 

You misunderstand me. The very last thing I would ever do is put down Chuck Berry. I've been playing and singing his songs for close to 35 years now. And he was an absolutely essential building block to The Beatles' sound. And he himself was an innovator...no one else sounded like Chuck Berry before Chuck Berry came along, and he basically codified the very essence of rock 'n' roll. Finally, most certainly no one wrote lyrics with his level of sophistication in a rock 'n' roll context.

Further, there is absolutely nothing wrong with finding a formula that works for you and sticking to it. As long as it's a winning formula to begin with, you can work endless variations within it and still make music that's completely worthwhile. I, for one, can tell you I never had the slightest desire for The Ramones to "progress" to more sophisticated music as their career rolled along.

My observations about three- and four-chord rock 'n' roll are also fueled by my knowledge of the live music scene in the pre-Beatle era. Contrary to your assertion that this kind of rock 'n' roll died out in 1960, it was still very much to the fore in the U.S. at the beginning of 1964. It was the stock in trade of most any local live band...it may have been of a frat-rock flavor rather than pure Chuck Berry (though guaranteed there wasn't a frat rock band extant that didn't do one or more Berry tunes), but that's still what it was.

My point was that The Beatles changed the rules of what you could do in the basic guitar/bass/drums format...by adding melodic and harmonic dimensions that largely weren't there before -- and also with the revolutionary idea that a self-contained band might write its own songs too (only Buddy Holly had done this to any great degree before...and yes, Brian Wilson had a year or so head start, but his earlier surf/hot rod tunes showed only the beginnings of this sophistication).

Their other contribution was being open to outside influences to a degree that hadn't been seen before. Granted, there were increasing numbers of outside influences there for the taking in this era (with the folk boom, the blues renaissance, George's chance encounter with Indian music, etc.), and they weren't the only artists to do so.

It was a happy confluence...the influences were there, and The Beatles had the native creativity (and the drive...one thing you can never accuse them of is being lazy) to grab ahold of them and make of them something even newer.

 

Not quite. What you described is diatonic melody in the key of C (the C major scale beginning on the fifth degree - G). It will not sound strange at all. A prior post did a nice job explaining the modes. As he pointed out, the scale mentioned above must be played over a G major chord (turning it into a dominant 7th chord) with G being the tonic, not over a C as you suggest as that will only sound do re me...

If you want a mixo sound in C you must flat the b note.

Kind of Blue is considered modal jazz because the harmonic rhythm is incredibly slow or even static. That is, the band hangs on one chord for a long time and blows using the corresponding modal scale (mostly dorian minor).

 

I agree with this 100%. There is the famous anecdote about George Martin telling them that they couldn't end one of their early songs ("She Loves You"?) on a particular chord/harmony, because it was "too corny." Anyone trained in music theory, as Martin was, is, to some degree, I think, bound by "the rules" to a degree that unschooled musicians are not. I've mentioned this before, but I was personally a more creative songwriter before I knew what key I was playing in than I was when I did have some idea of what keys and scales were. I'm not saying that one can't get over this initial hurdle and put theory to good use, as I guess Coltrane and may jazz musicians did, but I was personally never able to get that far.

In addition to knowing music theory, knowing the history of Western music can be inhibiting. Thomas Mann wrote a modern retelling of the Doctor Faustus story based around this premise. To make a very long story very short, that's why composers such as Schoenberg had to invent serialism and twelve-tone music - because they knew too much about traditional "tonal" music and believed that it was played out. John Lennon and Paul McCartney obviously did not suffer from this problem. George Martin did, to a degree - he never could have written a "neoclassical" song such as "Eleanor Rigby" or "Yesterday" precisely because he was too aware and self-conscious of the forms he would have been "pastiching" in his mind. But Paul McCartney never could have orchestrated those songs on his own, either. Martin did more than just "transcribe" what McCartney huimmed to him.

The peak of the Beatles career - "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Penny Lane," and Sgt. Pepper - could only have been achieved by the combination of naive, unschooled geniuses such as Lennon and McCartney and an older, classically trained father figure such as Martin. Alone, neither side of the partnership could have come close to the same achievement. This is the same sort of successful marriage of opposites that Jane Austen describes in Pride and Prejudice and Emma, for those who are familiar with her work.

 

I've written a lot of songs based on what I learned. That isn't to say they were good, let alone innovative, but I think learning Beatles songs (the chords, the melodies, how the chords are used, the transitions in and out of different parts) is like learning the building blocks of pop music. What you do with it is an entirely different matter. In my case, I was able to write very good (IMHO) fascimiles of my favorites, not that I intended to do so, but thats how it turned out. The Beatles, themselves, initially copied their favorites but eventually developed their own style. That's the crucial step.

You can have a hung jury if you want, but Paul has said numerous times that he can't read or write music. I think he says it at least once whenever he does interviews for a new album. It's not like he's ashamed of it. I wouldn't be surprised if he has picked up a few things about how to arrange strings, what the different instruments can do, or some of the terminology, but what I doubt he can do (because he said so) is write a score that accurately (or even remotely) reflects what he hears in his head. Nor do I think he could pick up a guitar along with sheet music for "Cinnamon Girl" and make head or tails of it. He could learn it by ear quicker. Nor do I think he could write out the bass line he plays on "Getting Better".

 

Yes. Jazz and pop songs are understood, in harmonic terms, in chord progressions patterns such as "I vi ii V7" etc....... The Beatles clearly understood these patterns and redefined many. (John was especially fond of the minor iv chord and the strong dominant II chord).

The Beatles studied melody and made great efforts to improve theirs, as Paul and John have stated in interviews. Compare early songs like "Love Me Do", which the melody simply repeats, to later songs like "Strawberry Fields" where the melody goes on and on before repeating.

Tone

 

Thank you for clarifying what I ineptly was trying to say, that is, a key that drifts between C and, to use your case, F major (which has the Bb).

 

He has gone further than that and repeatedly stated that he believes it would negatively impact his creativity if he were to learn how to read and write music.

This has probably already been mentioned, but George did learn Indian notation when he studied under Ravi Shankar, I believe.

 

If I'm not mistaken, Ravi insisted that George learn to read Indian notation. He didn't want George taking any shortcuts while he was studying. Paul also uses a type of sythesizer/software package that automatically notates what he plays. Not for his edification, but to assist his arranger. From the liner notes to Standing Stone... The initial keyboard "sketches" for Standing Stone were written down from cassette tapes by the jazz musician Steve Lodder. Later (Paul) began to use an electronic keyboard linked to a computer, complete with software to translate what was being played into printed music.

On the earlier Liverpool Oratorio CD Paul played pieces on the piano and co-collaborator, Carl Davis transcribed them to paper. Also from the liner notes: I agreed to do what became the Liverpool Oratorio without even thinking, which I'd say is one of my saving graces. If I thought something like that through too carefully then I might get paranoid. A little voice would start to say, 'But you can't read or write music.' Ron

 

Me and a couple of my non-reading musician friends used to say "the more you know, the more you blow". I've worked with pianists (who almost always know how to read, if not write as well) and their stuff was almost always insufferably boring. Just awful. I made a point of learning my scales, and how chords are constructed and what the different notes mean. I started learning to read in order to play jazz bass lines that had specific parts. I was okay at it, but I didn't keep it up. Jaco Pastorius said that when he'd ask if someone could read and they said "I can read a little" that meant they couldn't read. Jaco was right.

 

That remark wasn't directed at you. It was in reference to Maxbialystock's remark that "Chuck Berry was a brilliant pioneer... But he was unable to create a 'Strawberry Fields' or 'Day In the Life.'"

I said it was on the outs, not that it had died out. I was speaking in commercial terms. Fifties-style rock was definitely in commercial decline in 1960 -- orchestrated teen pop, girl groups and Motown were coming up. Artists were already looking beyond the basic guitar/bass/drums format and incorporating more of the orchestration of sophistication of the traditional pop era. The basic rock & roll of the early '60s was often either conceptual (surf rock, hot rod rock, dance rock) or very sonically dense, like The Kingsmen. In other words, it wasn't stuck in a 1956 groove -- it had evolved. The Beatles' contribution, at least initially, was to create sophisticated music with sophisticated arrangements -- on par with, say, The Crickets' post-Holly Liberty recordings -- but using only basic "garage band" instruments.

There were many other rock artists who wrote some or even most of their material, including Joe Bennett & The Sparkletones, spotlighted recently in this forum. In the larger scope of popular music, there is a long history of singer/songwriters on the charts. The Beatles weren't revolutionary simply for writing their own songs, although the popularity they enjoyed with their original compositions definitely inspired more artists to pursue songwriting as a source of material instead of relying on outside songwriters. Besides, if Buddy Holly did it several years earlier, it was no longer revolutionary.

I disagree with this. Diversity was the rule with many popular artists. There was a time when practically every pop singer of note recorded a Hawaiian album, a folk album, a country album, etc. If you're talking about integrating outside influences into one's songwriting, I could think of a number of examples of that. If you're talking about integrating outside influences into one's songwriting within the context of a self-contained rock band, then I might concede your point, but the categories are getting awfully narrow.

 

On one of those McCartney documentaries (there seem to be many) they showed the software. I'm sure it did what it was supposed to, but it looked pretty 1980s. There is some really fine notation software these days.