McCartney doesn't read music

[DukeX]

Here's Harvey Reid's take on why guitar players aren't better at reading music. I neither endorse nor refute Harvey's POV, but it is an interesting read.

http://www.woodpecker.com/blogs/reading_music.html

[Wyllys]

1. Not all musical ideas are communicated by dots. Chords, progressions and such are often scribbled out either to aid side musicians or simply to have a written record as a memory aid.

2. Once you come to a certain career level you may be lucky enough to have folks like George Martin around to herd the dots for you. The Beatles were not just a quartet. They were an industry and there were plenty of "musically literate" folk on the production staff, to be sure.

[KDepew]

I love that analogy. Lots of greats did not read music.....

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Dog Shape Cloud

The real problem is being conditioned to believe we're not "good enough," or that we need to be "exceptional" in order to create something and take pride in it.

Exactly right! (I mean, you are, not those beliefs.)

[jimmybcool]

Originally Posted by Johnny K

I think I responded to a similar post recently. I bet if you ask him if he knows what every note on the fret board is he will say yes and if you ask him if he knows the circle of 5ths he will likely say yes to that too. I dont know how you could right a decent song with that knowledge. Probing further i bet he will cop to knowing the major, major & minor pentatonic blues scales and their CAGED shapes or at the very least knowing to solo over chord shapes. If you know things you can pretty much do a lot in popular music. I bet he even knows the Nashville numbering system.

Interviewers keep asking the wrong questions and it does a great disservice to anyone who looks up to folks like Sir Paul looking to learn a thing, hearing his answer and thinking they dont need to have any knowledge either.

I find it hard to believe that Sir Paul doesn't know jack about music theory. He right, It's not just about reading notes on a page. But the stuff in his head is still basic theory and he learned it and it's ingrained.

I was going to post this. I seriously doubt he lacks a working knowledge of music theory.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by jimmybcool

I was going to post this. I seriously doubt he lacks a working knowledge of music theory.

You're right - a very good "working knowledge" is obviously what he has.
The point - not a very important one - is that he would have trouble describing what he does using correct theoretical terminology, or in writing it out in notation.
As just one example, he and George Harrison liked the 7#9 chord - Paul used it in Michelle, and George in Taxman (both before Hendrix adopted it ) - but they called it "the Gretty chord", after the guitar teacher (Jim Gretty) who showed it to them.
Another example is the Hard Days Night chord, which George described as "F with a G top", while saying you'd have to ask Paul about the bass. He didn't call it "Fadd9", as we would. Or "Dm11", which is what Paul's bass turned it into. (The whole chord was bigger than that, in fact, thanks to George Martin.)

IOW, they knew all the basic terminology, the names for the common chords - even names for all the notes, probably - but they adapted those names in their own way for anything fancier they came across. They only needed to communicate with each other, after all.

[RRuskin]

Originally Posted by Wooly

I saw an interesting interview with Paul McCartney on 60 Minutes yesterday. He admits that he nor any of the others Beatles could read music. "I don't see music as dots on a page. It's something in my head that goes on" he stated. He doesn't know theory.

This does and doesn't surprise me in a way. There are probably a lot of greats out there that don't read either but the songs flow out from with in and have the gift to be able to express it. But who would have thought.

This isn't new information. I recall hearing this during the Beatles' heyday.

[colchar]

Originally Posted by FwL

I don't know about the rest of your list, but Eddie was training to be a concert pianist before he ever took up guitar. He certainly knew how to read and had a basic knowledge of how chords and scales work. I have no doubt that gave him a leg up when it came to figuring out how to operate a guitar.

.

Eddie was never training to be a concert pianist, he merely took piano lessons as a kid.

And from what I have read Eddie got by on natural talent. Apparently Alex was also taking lessons and Eddie would just listen and be able to play things despite not being able to read music.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by colchar

Eddie was never training to be a concert pianist, he merely took piano lessons as a kid.

And from what I have read Eddie got by on natural talent. Apparently Alex was also taking lessons and Eddie would just listen and be able to play things despite not being able to read music.

"Natural talent" is debatable. He could have got that from those piano lessons.
Music lessons as a kid - and he started at age 6 - give you a huge advantage in terms of ear, as does having a professional musician as a parent, and an older brother who also played. You grow up thinking that musical skill is normal and natural, nothing special. It's like a game to a kid, not difficult, or hard work. (I have two guitar students at the moment, brothers of 12 and 8. The younger one is learning way faster than his brother, seems more "natural". It feels mostly like work to the older one; like a fun game to the younger one.)
I'm not ruling out genetics - just saying it's not a necessary conclusion.

[FwL]

Originally Posted by colchar

Eddie was never training to be a concert pianist, he merely took piano lessons as a kid.

And from what I have read Eddie got by on natural talent. Apparently Alex was also taking lessons and Eddie would just listen and be able to play things despite not being able to read music.

From https://www.guitarplayer.com/players...interview-1978


"We both started playing piano at age six or seven," Eddie recalls, "and we played for a long time. That's where I learned most of my theory. We had an old Russian teacher who was a very fine concert pianist; in fact, our parents wanted us to be concert pianists."


Eddie even bragged about how good he was on piano in other interviews, boasting about how many competitions he had won. That's hardly what you'd call "he merely took piano lessons as a kid" or "got by on natural talent".

After the PR machine took over, you started seeing interviews where he claimed it was all natural talent.

.

[GHS]

I really dont see how he, (maybe John too), could not read or, have a good understanding of music theory and turn out the massive collection of songs that they did. Ever really look at some of their compositions?? Changing keys, going from major to relative minor, parallel minor??, really, they must have had some type of understanding. How could they write and have orchestral/electric/etc back up if they could not get their idea across. Baffles me.

[Mandobart]

Originally Posted by GHS

I really dont see how he, (maybe John too), could not read or, have a good understanding of music theory and turn out the massive collection of songs that they did. Ever really look at some of their compositions?? Changing keys, going from major to relative minor, parallel minor??, really, they must have had some type of understanding. How could they write and have orchestral/electric/etc back up if they could not get their idea across. Baffles me.

A one name answer to your question - George Martin. Same aswer to who did all the compositions; Changing keys, going from major to relative minor, parallel minor, orchestral/electric/etc backup. Lenon and McCartney wrote the basic tune and lyrics. George Martin did the rest.

[The Growler]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

Guitar seems to be one of the few instruments where this subject is up for debate. For most, reading standard notation is considered a part of the musician's toolbox, and theory the means to communicate between musicians.

On the other hand, there are those who seem to forget that music is a HEARING art, and not ruled by dots on a page. Either side, those who play strictly by ear and those who play strictly by standard notation would certainly increase their scope by learning at least something of the other way of doing things. Both are good skills to have and the more we know of our craft (as with any other craft or skill set), the better.

Tony

Well said.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by GHS

I really dont see how he, (maybe John too), could not read or, have a good understanding of music theory and turn out the massive collection of songs that they did.

Hold on. "Having a good understanding of music theory" doesn't require the ability to read music. Nor does it require studying music theory from books or in college.
It simply requires an intensive (and extensive) study of actual songs, by learning to play them. As Paul and John (and George) all did, 100s of songs, as teenagers.
They didn't have to know the jargon that we might call "music theory", because they only had to share ideas with each other. If they didn't know the name of something, they'd play it, or adapt a name from something they did know.

Originally Posted by GHS

Ever really look at some of their compositions?? Changing keys, going from major to relative minor, parallel minor??, really, they must have had some type of understanding.

Like, I say, they heard all that stuff in the songs they covered: jazz and musical show tunes, as well as pop and rock'n'roll. Listen and copy. Easy, if you have the ears and enthusiasm they did.

The more you hear of their influences, the more you hear the Beatles sources. Their sound was jigsaw of all their influences, plus a salting of scouse wit.
What you hear - in the early Beatles especially - is: Everly Bros, Little Richard, Lonnie Donegan, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Elvis, Ray Charles, Miracles, Shirelles, Sam Cooke, Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, Arthur Alexander. Fats Domino, Hank Williams, Frankie Laine, Johnny Ray, the Shadows.... It all went in there, even if you find it hard to spot individual elements. Stir it all around and what comes out is - the Beatles, inevitably. (Plus that element of Liverpool cheek, of course.)
Later on, add Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Ravi Shankar - they went into the pot too.

Originally Posted by GHS

How could they write and have orchestral/electric/etc back up if they could not get their idea across. Baffles me.

For orchestration, Paul would sing ideas to George Martin, who would then notate them for session musicians to play. Sometimes, of course, Martin would prepare whole arrangements, often on very minimal or vague suggestions from Paul or John. John was famously vague, talking about "out there" sounds in non-technical terms, leaving it for the engineers to experiment. This was where the term "flanging" came from, when Martin made up the word as a piece of technical gobbledegook to impress John, who liked it.

[FrankHudson]

Reading and Writing music is a great skill to have. However it is not a necessary skill to creating either sophisticated music or music that works as art or entertainment.

My suspicion is reading/writing/studying music may be most powerful/useful in the area of harmonies. It's the area where "rules" are most valid, even though you can break them.

Melody, not so much. I'm sure there have been attempts to create rules for interesting and attractive monophonic melody, but melody is more of a wild creature difficult to domesticate.

Rhythm, similar to melody. Here we do have systematic theory that is well developed, but in practice the theory is almost always fudged, and when it isn't you get an extreme effect, like "motoric" beats.

Timbre. Very little connection. Music notation has a hard time dealing with it (even loudness markings are without an objective scale, one person's pp may be ppp for another), and think of how fuzzy our discussions of "tone" get here, even with just dealing with one sort of instrument. Or course timbral variations can be taught, just not with musical notation.

Sophisticated harmony isn't the same as sophisticated music, but the Beatles (informally, not via organized schooling) absorbed a good deal form the zeitgeist. I sometimes note that the generation born before 1950 is the last generation of pop musicians brought up with "Standards" and the jazz tradition of revamping them. That may have increased their exposure to harmonic diversity. Currently we have musicians who have grown up in a timbral universe more vast than the most out-there avant-gardists of the past.




Beyond the Beatles, there timeless universes of folk and non-western music traditions. Some of them have extensive rules taught without musical notation. South Indian classical music is taught systematically without much resort to written notation from what I understand.