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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #15 on: 13:06:57, 20-08-2007 » |
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Smittims has got it right. He either didn't know it, or didn't realise it might teach him something about instruments.
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increpatio
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« Reply #16 on: 13:25:28, 20-08-2007 » |
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Smittims has got it right. He either didn't know it, or didn't realise it might teach him something about instruments.
Not wanting to listen to a pedagogical piece of music doesn't make one any less of a composer necessarily. He might, for what we know, have thought something like "OH no I don't want any of that; because then I'd have to take a good half-hour out of my schedule of exposure to composers such as GUSTAV MAHLER and RICHARD BARRETT". He knows he's able to write music; he assumes that he'll be able to do well-enough with an orchestrator. I'm not say I think he's good (I've not heard a note of his music), just saying that this line of attack doesn't lead anywhere in my mind, given the anecdote-ness of this piece of evidence. |
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Tony Watson
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« Reply #17 on: 14:04:21, 20-08-2007 » |
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As McCartney went to school in the 1950s, I assume he would have had some sort of introduction to classical music. But I sometimes wonder where he got his occasional adventurous use of harmonies from - so different from the simple rock and roll songs with their three basic chords for most of the time and which he seemed to have listened to whilst growing up.
Consider Michelle (F maj) ma belle (B flat minor 7th) these are words (E flat + C). Or the sudden shift in Penny Lane (you know the bit I mean!); the intro to Lady Madonna (F maj, G maj, A maj); the way the tune of All My Loving Starts (D minor before arriving at its home key of C maj). Strawberry Fields has some interesting chord changes but I think that was a Lennon song. Did he have any help with any of this? Compare all that with something as trite as Yellow Submarine. You wouldn't think it was the same person. Perhaps those examples I've given aren't very special but they seem to me to be a step away from the usual pop fare.
And surely he could read music. Doesn't he play the piano? Sometimes people like to exaggerate how little they know in order to make their achievements all the more remarkable.
But I can understand a reluctance to become better educated on the grounds that it might stiffle his creativity. Wasn't Gershwin told not to take lessons from Ravel as he would just become a second-rate copy of him? In a different sphere Ethel Merman was told never to have a singing lesson.
Finally, we should remember that orchestrations were done by others for some of Gershwin's and Bernstein's work.
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #18 on: 14:07:12, 20-08-2007 » |
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Smittims has got it right. He either didn't know it, or didn't realise it might teach him something about instruments.
Not wanting to listen to a pedagogical piece of music doesn't make one any less of a composer necessarily. He might, for what we know, have thought something like "OH no I don't want any of that; because then I'd have to take a good half-hour out of my schedule of exposure to composers such as GUSTAV MAHLER and RICHARD BARRETT". I take your point, but I doubt if that's what he was thinking! The point is, he didn't know what many instruments sounded like, and this was seen as an easy way of teaching him. Tony: He played the piano by ear, as many people with a good ear can do who don't read music. |
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David_Underdown
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« Reply #19 on: 16:13:32, 20-08-2007 » |
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I shall have to enquire of my friend who claims to have been the first to suggest to McCartney that he string his guitar the other way up as to the nature of the general musical education they received (it'll be sometime before I have chance though).
David
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David
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #20 on: 18:33:55, 20-08-2007 » |
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According to various bits on the internet, his school music education was very bad, and he made false starts at piano lessons more than once as a child and young man, but found it boring because teachers always insisted on making him learn the basics, which he didn't think he needed because he could write good songs without them - which is true, of course, but you do need the basics to write classical music!
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increpatio
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« Reply #21 on: 18:36:51, 20-08-2007 » |
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According to various bits on the internet, his school music education was very bad, and he made false starts at piano lessons more than once as a child and young man, but found it boring because teachers always insisted on making him learn the basics, which he didn't think he needed because he could write good songs without them - which is true, of course, but you do need the basics to write classical music!
But to instruct an orchestrator to do so, mightn't one just need an idea of what sounds one might want an orchestra to produce (and the ability to communicate them)? |
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John W
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« Reply #22 on: 20:00:12, 20-08-2007 » |
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And surely he could read music.
I'm trying to remember something, I think it's in the film Let It Be, where the Beatles are rehearsing a song and Paul instead of singing the words is 'singing' out all the key changes, A major... etc so does this suggests some significant knowledge or maybe just chords? |
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #23 on: 21:08:12, 20-08-2007 » |
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According to various bits on the internet, his school music education was very bad, and he made false starts at piano lessons more than once as a child and young man, but found it boring because teachers always insisted on making him learn the basics, which he didn't think he needed because he could write good songs without them - which is true, of course, but you do need the basics to write classical music!
But to instruct an orchestrator to do so, mightn't one just need an idea of what sounds one might want an orchestra to produce (and the ability to communicate them)? A real composer usually hears the music in his head and then writes it down. If you don't know in detail the sounds of the instruments, and their range, you might hear harmonies and tunes, but you can't really hear the music. If you don't understand notation, you can't write it down.
And surely he could read music.
I'm trying to remember something, I think it's in the film Let It Be, where the Beatles are rehearsing a song and Paul instead of singing the words is 'singing' out all the key changes, A major... etc so does this suggests some significant knowledge or maybe just chords? Most pop musicians seem to know the sound of basic chords - is this from the guitar? I've seen guitar accompaniment just written with the name of the chord, but I'm sure lots of people know more about this than I do. |
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Lord Byron
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« Reply #24 on: 21:11:39, 20-08-2007 » |
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on the one hand, knowing what your supposed to know can help,on the other, it can stop you thinking 'out of the box'
he has oodles of cash and time to kill, up to him how he does things i suppose
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roslynmuse
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« Reply #25 on: 11:39:43, 21-08-2007 » |
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I think Tony's point about interesting juxtapositions of chords is far more relevant than the idea of PM (or anyone) being a great melodist - melodies by themselves are not terribly interesting in themselves even if some are more aesthetically pleasing than others (depending on your preferences for symmetry or not, elegance or not, rhythmic interest or not, steps or leaps or a combination of the two); when we hum a melody its association with the harmony (however conscious or not we are of it when humming) is what gives us the pleasure.
Well - that's my experience anyway.
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smittims
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« Reply #26 on: 11:54:22, 21-08-2007 » |
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not a big fan of plainchant or folk song,then,roslynmuse?
not to mention all those worksthat begin with an unaccompanied melody:Le Sacre, Bax 3rd, Schmidt's 4th, Flos Campi, Sibelius' Quartet , Savitri, etc.etc. .
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #27 on: 12:03:28, 21-08-2007 » |
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A real composer usually hears the music in his head and then writes it down. If you don't know in detail the sounds of the instruments, and their range, you might hear harmonies and tunes, but you can't really hear the music. If you don't understand notation, you can't write it down.
Um. Urg. Oh dear. I have so many problems with this conception of a 'real composer' I don't really know where to begin. |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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smittims
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« Reply #28 on: 12:15:03, 21-08-2007 » |
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Oh dear,what a pity.
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #29 on: 12:17:03, 21-08-2007 » |
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A real composer usually hears the music in his head and then writes it down. If you don't know in detail the sounds of the instruments, and their range, you might hear harmonies and tunes, but you can't really hear the music. If you don't understand notation, you can't write it down.
Um. Urg. Oh dear. I have so many problems with this conception of a 'real composer' I don't really know where to begin. Agreed (with h-h). |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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