How much music theory did The Beatles know?

over the last two years I've made various videos using music theory to analyze the works of the Beatles and every time I do this I inevitably get loads of comments saying the Beatles didn't know any music theory but at the same time many argued the opposite that the Beatles had a mastery of music theory for example composer Howard Goodall describes Paul McCartney as a composer who really knows what he's doing now whether or not it's actually relevant if the composer did or didn't know music theory when you're analyzing a piece of music is a completely different question the thing I want to look at today is how true is that statement did the Beatles know music theory over the last few weeks I've been looking at countless interviews biographies and even live footage of the band playing to try and get a better idea of how much theory the Beatles really knew let's start by addressing the fact that the Beatles didn't know how to read or write sheet music I don't read music alright music none of us stood in the Beatles we did some good stuff though but none of it was written down by us it's basically notation that's the bit I can't - because I don't see music like that so the Beatles didn't read alright sheet music so surely they didn't understand music theory well no reading sheet music is only part of what it means to understand - music theory even if you don't write your music down as traditional sheet music music theory can still be at the core of how you learn right arrange and perform music so what did and didn't the Beatles know about theory well let's start with some of the most basic concepts of music theory for example did the Beatles know how to count beats and bars well one piece of evidence that may help us answer this question is the way that pull counts in all my loving why did pull count one two three four one and not just one two three four well it's because the Beatles knew that all my loving begins on the third beat of the bar so to count it in Paul can't just say one two three four instead he has to count a whole bar and then the first beat of the next bar this makes sure that the whole band are on the same page rhythmically when the song begins and this isn't just the case for all my loving any time the Beatles count a song in they take into consideration what beat the song begins on also in interviews the Beatles often talk about their music in terms of beats and bars when the Beatles were recording a day in the life they were yet to come up with an idea for the 24 bar section in the middle they decided to temporarily fill the gap with a 24 bar count will counted we'll just do our song and we'll leave 24 bars so the Beatles were aware of bars and beats but what about something slightly more advanced what about time signatures did the Beatles know about time signatures well the Beatles may not have called them by their proper names like 4 4 or 3 4 but they had their own ways of describing how many beats were in the bar for example on we can work it out the middle eight section shifts from 4/4 to a 3/4 fill [Music] [Applause] [Music] and although Paul doesn't describe this as 3/4 or triplets he does describe it as waltz time then it was George Harrison's idea to put the middle eight into waltz time like a German waltz when it comes to more advanced time signatures though it seems that way as a trained musician might count out the beats in the bar closely to make sure they stayed in time Ringo at least had to rely instead on farewell intuition for example here comes the Sun features many different time signatures but as you can see from this interview Ringo preferred to fill with the timing rather than to count it out he comes in to me because he'd been to India regarding he said I've got this song it's like seven and a half time yes so you know he must father talk to me in Arabic you know what I mean and that's how I come off I had to find some way that I could physically do it and do it every time so it came off on the time I had no way of go near one two three four five six seven I'd say not my brain so as long as I'm okay that's seven good got it so we've looked at rhythm but how much did the beat us know about chords well it seems pretty evident that George Paul and John were nude the standard major minor and seven chords on guitar it appears that they gained their education in guitar chords from various sources in their childhood for example Paul tells this great story about how they traveled across Liverpool on a bus just to learn about the core to b7 in fact you know sometimes we travel the whole of Liverpool just to go to someone who knew a chord we didn't know remember once hearing about a bloke who knew b7 now we knew and we knew a it was quite easy but we didn't knew reset we didn't know b7 that was kinda missing part and the link the other chord The Lost chord so and we got on the bus trooped across liverpool changed a couple of buses found this fella and he showed just b7 we learned it off him got back on the bus went home to our mates and went Shing got it George Harrison perhaps had the best knowledge of guitar courts after all John claimed that they asked George to join the band because he knew more chords than we knew in this quote George describes when he discovered how inversions work I remember discovering inversions suddenly I realized how all the shapes transform up the neck on with the same chords inverted higher and higher but what about some slightly more advanced chords like 6 9 and 11 she loves you ends with a G 6 chord sang between the vocal harmonies Paul has described this g 6 as that tight little sixth Buster we had at the end this is quite a sophisticated description as Paul has not only correctly identified that this is a sixth chord but he's also aware that because the fifth and the sixth of the chord are voiced only a tone away from each other that they create what can be called a tone cluster one of the most iconic chords of the Beatles catalogue is this one the best way to name this cord has been debated for years but when George Harrison was asked in 2001 what he was playing for this cord he said F with a G on the top string but you'll have to ask Paul about the bass note to get the proper story this quote is quite revealing for two reasons firstly the court that George is playing is an F at nine chord but it seems that George didn't know that this chord is called F at nine instead describing it as an F with a G on top but secondly this quote from George shows that he's aware that regardless of what chord he's playing on his guitar that the bass note that Paul is playing is going to change the quality of that court in the case of this court from hard day's night when Paul plays this D below George's F at nine the chord that is sounding between them is now a D minor 11 even though neither instrument is actually playing a D minor this is quite an advanced concept for George to be aware of so even if he didn't know how to name the chord F AB 9 he is aware of the more important idea that the bass note can change to the nature and therefore the name of the chords he's playing Paul also seems to be aware of this concept for example in an interview with David Leaf in 1990 Paul describes how he noticed that on the Beach Boys Pet Sounds the bass would often play more than just the root note of the chord the thing that really made me sit up and take notice was the bass lines you just get a completely different effect if you play a G when the band is playing C there's a kind of tension created one of the musical elements that the Beatles music is best known for is key changes but did the Beatles actually know that their music was changing key well various sources seem to indicate that the Beatles at least had an awareness of key for example look at this quote from Paul describing how he wrote here there and everywhere I sat out by the pool with my guitar and started strumming in E and soon had a few chords we can see from this quote that Paul has an awareness that chords can belong in a key together and that if you write a song using these chords together your song will be in that key partly in particular seems to have a good grip on this concept when he described the writing process of Michelle he said it started as an instrumental in C and likewise when asked how the beat was constructed the Abbey Road medley Paul described the challenge of fitting their different segments together due to the fact that they were in different keys however although it does appear that Paul McCartney was aware that his songs were in a key he perhaps wasn't as aware of when they were changing key from me to you was one of the first Beatles songs to feature a key change during the middle eight the music briefly modulates away from C major to F major it's the G minor and the C here that are creating the two five perfect cadence that's modulating us to F [Music] although Paul doesn't describe this as changing key he knew that this G minor and this C were taking us to somewhere new harmonically that middle eight was a real big departure for us say you're in C and then you go to a minor fairly ordinary C change it to G and then F pretty ordinary but then it goes I've got arms and that's a G minor going to a G minor and a C takes you to a whole new world it was exciting in this quote Paul is literally just describing the way that he's changed key from C to F the only thing he doesn't do is actually use the term changing key and this seems to be a common thread across the Beatles understanding of music theory they often seem to have an awareness of these concepts but they just don't use the standardized terms to describe what's going on perhaps due to a lack of formal education and music it seems George Harrison was perhaps more aware of when songs were changing key for example in this quote George is describing the challenge of fitting Indian instrumentation onto a song like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds due to the fact that lucy in the sky modulates that wouldn't work on a western song like lucy which has chord changes and modulations what about something more advanced like modes i've actually made a video before about how the Beatles songs use modes but where the Beatles themselves actually aware that they were using these modes at the time I'll get you which was the b-side of she loves you features a brief bit of mixolydian mode a winter change in other words this a minor chord briefly shifts us to the mixolydian mode [Music] Paul may not have been aware that this chord change was mixolydian but he certainly knew that something was happening here beyond the standard major scale it's likethey that goes to a minor which is unusual you'd normally go from D to a major it's a change that had always fascinated me so I put it in I'm not saying that this is evidence that Paul McCartney understands modes but this does show that Paul knew that this chord change introduced something different and interesting to the tonality of the song and although he didn't have a name for it he could hear the modal interchange at play it appears out of the four Beatles it was perhaps Paul McCartney who had the best knowledge of music theory McCartney was seemingly aware of many basic music theory concepts and terms such as scales semitones and arpeggios when discussing how he wrote lady Madonna Paul describes his left hand as playing an arpeggio with the chord and when discussing the riff at the beginning of Please Please Me which climbs down the major scale [Music] Paul refers to it as the scaled riff at the beginning as many have noted before me somebody who had a big role in turning the Beatles ideas into musical reality was their producer George Martin George Martin was well-versed in music theory having studied at Guildhall School of Music and his knowledge and skills often served to plug the gaps in the Beatles own musical knowledge anytime that outside musicians were brought in to record on a Beatle song like string players or horn players it would be the job of George Martin to transcribe the Beatles ideas into sheet music which could then be given to the musicians yesterday was the first Beatles tune to include a string quartet to capture Paul McCartney's ideas for what the strings should do Paul sat at the piano with George Martin and worked out what he would like George Martin would often show Paul with a traditional war typical way to write for the strings and Paul would often push against these ideas I remember suggesting the 7th that appears on the cello George said you definitely wouldn't have that in there that would be very unstring quartet I said well whack it in George I've got to have it George Martin would often use his knowledge of music theory to refine the Beatles ideas for example can't buy me love originally just launched straight into the verse section however George Martin felt that it needed an intro he suggested using part of the chorus but adapting the chords so they lead into the verse after only six bars instead of eight bars I thought that we really needed a tag for the song's ending and a tank for the beginning a kind of intro so I took the first few lines of the chorus and changed the ending and said let's just have these lines and by altering the end of the second phrase we can get back into the verse pretty quickly and they said that's not a bad idea we'll do it that way The Beatles seemingly picked up various bits of musical knowledge from their time working with George Martin for example in this clip Paul describes how George Martin suggested increasing the tempo of pleaseplease me but the Beatles weren't actually sure what tempo meant George Martin said could we just change the tempo well sure what's that they should do it faster oh well we don't let me let me try it please nurse 9 is said he said it's good oh all right yes all right not bad but embarrassed that he'd found a better temper than weird in this interview of John he describes George Martin's role as a musical advisor he had a very great musical knowledge and background so he could translate for us and suggest a lot of things which Bowie B said what can we well it go and EE and he'd say well look chaps I thought of this this afternoon last night I was think I was talking to whoever used oh and I came up with this you know and we said oh great great I'll put it on here you know yeah I mean he told us a lot and I'm sure we told him a lot but our sort of primitive musical ability which is all I have still you know I still have to have something to translate what I'm trying to say all the time so looking at all of this evidence what can we conclude how much music theory did the Beatles know well John summed it up quite well in that last clip when he said and I still have to have something to translate what I'm trying to say all the time one of music Theory's best uses is as a language a set of terms and concepts that let musicians communicate with each other about what they're hearing and it was this aspect of music theory that the Beatles seemed to lack the band certainly had a basic understanding of the fundamental ideas of music theory key chords rhythm but they lacked confidence with the correct terms and descriptions for the different musical concepts they were hearing meaning that they couldn't use music theory as a language this is why George Martin was the perfect galvanized ER for the Beatles he could be the one to translate what the beat was wanted to hear from their music meaning that they were never held back by what they did or didn't know about music theory and going back to something that i touched on at the beginning many people claim that because the beatles didn't know theory in great depth that analyzing their music using theory is arbitrary and is looking for meaning which isn't they're looking for intent that wasn't there but that's missing the point of why we analyze songs one of the many things that music theory is useful for is as a set of tools to look under the hood in our favorite songs if you want to get an idea of what makes your favorite Beatles song sound the way it does and why your music doesn't sound like that the best way to do that is to look at the chords they used look at the tonality look at the rhythm look at the time signature they're the sort of things that will give you the ideas that will make your music sound closer to their music I've heard time and time again that music theory is just a set of rules or music theory limits creativity but this couldn't be further from the truth and if you think like that you probably haven't been taught theory in a very constructive way even if you don't realize it if you don't know music theory and don't know how to use it then your songwriting and your musicianship is probably stuck in a box you're probably playing the same old chords in the same old way all the time and every song you write is probably just a variation on the same four chords but if you can know how to break out of that how to know what chords you're using and how you could vary them if you can learn how to change the types of the jar you're using or change the mode then it opens up a whole world of possibilities and by no means do you have to do it the right way there is no right way that's not what music theory is about music theory is just a way of describing what is there to be used and a massive thank you as always goes to everybody who sports me on patreon you really do make all of the difference particularly during these difficult times and I hope you don't mind but I thought today instead of me reading out the shoutouts that we could listen to this bit of beetle banter that I found during my research was wrong I'm so sorry I feel so stupid look Terrence what you wanted resigned from the a mathematics do put a lot of money and thought into the hill thing yeah but let's face it you're crap aren't you when all right all right you're only doing Waterlogic got the hall in the first place I only dream walk-ons and you're farting those up now oh Christ with a kiss from the top and Ronnie's don't take it from the tie mean yes okay let's run it from there then [Music] [Music]

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 766,677

Rating: 4.9380779 out of 5

Keywords: music theory, analysis, research, chords, scales, time signatures, key, key change, modulation, rhythm, bars, metre, sheet music, read music, notation, interview

Id: HmjRM3AziTY

Length: 20min 5sec (1205 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 01 2020