"The Beatles!"

[SteveK]

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1360883929' post='1978032']
You lot still here?? This is (hopefully) my last contribution to this epic saga on why the Beatles became a national treasure and the biggest pop group of all time,[b] but may be ever so slightly over-rated (of course, based purely on their musical output)![/b]
[/quote]
I guess you missed the Howard Goodall documentary posted earlier by Fat Rich - you should take a look. It goes a little way to explaining [b]why[/b] they were rated so highly "based purely on their musical output".

[Lord Sausage]

[quote name='Lowender' timestamp='1360883713' post='1978030']
Also, no need to be snotty bro. We're just talking.

Okay, I think what you're missing is that the minor 2 would have to be contain a b5 to be a sub for the 5. ( D with a b5 which contains the Ab) D mag contains an A natural which is dissonant (a #5) to the key of Db.
[/quote]
Ya know what the i wasn't being snotty. The patronising 'MMMMM not quite' like you were superior or my teacher, made me adopt the same tone.

'Okay, I think what you're missing is that the minor 2 would have to be contain a b5 to be a sub for the 5. ( D with a b5 which contains the Ab) D mag contains an A natural which is dissonant (a #5) to the key of Db.'- This bit is wrong. When you do a sub all that matters that the 3rd and 7th of both cors are the same but in reverse. It creates tension the irrelevant tones like the fifth being different.

The E min isn't clever. I feel slightly ashamed i didn't notice it first time. The next section starts on a Dmaj and is in Dmaj. So, the last two chords of the intro, E min and A, are the 2 and 5 of D. This is a common composition and songwriting tool. Know matter what key you are in if you want to modulate to another you use the 2 and 5 of the key you are going to to get there. Pretty basic really.

BTW i love the beatles, i just don't need to feel that they are magicians musically.

[Big_Stu]

[quote name='Lord Sausage' timestamp='1360914265' post='1978180']BTW i love the beatles, i just don't need to feel that they are magicians musically.[/quote]

As I understand it, none of them could read or write music [i](I've certainly seen it written a few times, whether it's true or not is another thing)[/i], so I'm guessing that actual theory didn't play a large part in their composition skills & they wouldn't have even been able to follow the recent posts.

Does that mean it would have been a whole lot of trial & error until something came up (at least in their early writings until they learnt what worked) or another case of why even though they couldn't [i]write[/i] music they were so good at it, and were therefore even more inspired?

[peteb]

[quote name='SteveK' timestamp='1360891029' post='1978126']

I guess you missed the Howard Goodall documentary posted earlier by Fat Rich - you should take a look. It goes a little way to explaining [b]why[/b] they were rated so highly "based purely on their musical output".
[/quote]
Perhaps I will, but do i really need to? Maybe it is worth a look but these has never been a shortage of academics, not to mention classical orchestras, ready to exploit the hype of the Beatles to bring attention to their own work or to illustrate musical theory to the masses. I'm sure that he may well have grown up with a love of the Beatles like you and so many others. However I haven't seen it so this is speculation.

No one is denying that the Fabs wrote songs with unusual song structures but were they the greatest songwriters ever or merely doing the equivalent of a Btec in music theory & composition with George Martin as the tutor?? MacCartney's later attempt at classical music was hardly stellar was it?

Edited February 15, 2013 by peteb

[Jazzneck]

I've been afeared to post on this subject as I'm not a musician, cannot read music, I know nothing of musical theory and do not want to be accused of trolling, stirring things up, being facetious or patronising.

However, I started to attempt to play guitar in 1962 and could make a pretty fair fist of all the old rock'n'roll 3 chord 12 bar numbers with my mates and could make a reasonable enough noise to play at school dances and youth club hops.

Then along came The Beatles......

In those days there were no easy ways of cribbing songs where I lived - no Guitar Institutes, no YouTube, no tab and the few bits of published sheet music we got hold of for the chords were wrong (I think they may have been transcribed for piano?).

So we used to buy the records and sit round a record player and work them out.
This led to a lot of head scratching, argument and frustration but we finally got there most of the time.
I remember that "All Your Lovin'" nearly ended up in a fist fight.
We found chords, shapes and what I think are called inversions which we could not find on any chord charts or in books at the time, but they sounded right and worked. Even our school music teacher admitted to us, just the once, that what we were playing was complex but it really wasn't music.
Now I'm old and even more ugly, I still use this technique for working out new numbers and I look back and compare some of the stuff pre and post Beatles and I can't help but be amazed (in my view) on what an influence they had.
I understand that a massive amount of jazz musicians in the 1920/30s and a lot of 1950/60s beat/pop bands (including The Beatles) had no musical training, couldn't read a dot and knew of no theory but they made some wonderful and long lived songs.
Anyone tried to work out joint chords and bass line for "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" and "Something" on an acoustic guitar just using a 45" disc on a record player with no other aids?

Try it, assuming you can't play it already - an interesting exercise......

Please do not take offence as none is intended from this dinosaur.

[51m0n]

OK, can I try a fresh angle on all this?

Having watched Howard getting gooey, where exactly do we put the combined output of early Motown compared to the Beatles then - granted there were alot more writers involved, but the core band were the same (mostly) on the early stuff - and largely improvised over chord changes - it borrowed from all sorts of areas (including a lot of jazz, given that the entire band were jazz heads) for harmony and certainly the bass playing was utterly sublime, and again far more rich than anything that had gone before in terms of pop, and I would argue that it was significantly more advanced than most of Maccas efforts....

[Fat Rich]

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1360920771' post='1978265']
Perhaps I will, but do i really need to? Maybe it is worth a look but these has never been a shortage of academics, not to mention classical orchestras, ready to exploit the hype of the Beatles to bring attention to their own work or to illustrate musical theory to the masses. I'm sure that he may well have grown up with a love of the Beatles like you and so many others. However I haven't seen it so this is speculation.

No one is denying that the Fabs wrote songs with unusual song structures but were they the greatest songwriters ever or merely doing the equivalent of a Btec in music theory & composition with George Martin as the tutor?? MacCartney's later attempt at classical music was hardly stellar was it?
[/quote]

I think it's pretty relevant to the discussions here but it's up to you.

You might want to watch it just to pull apart some flaws in his arguments, for example he states that the Beatles were the first to include Indian influences in pop music when I always thought it was The Kinks with "See My Friends".

He also states that the Beatles were at the forefront of experimenting with sound while showing clips of the BBC Radiophonic workshop that was established in the 50s, (partly to recreate the sounds in Spike Milligan's head for The Goon Show, the Beatles were big Goon fans). George Martin worked on some Radiophonic stuff before he produced the Beatles so it's not surprising they went that route with their own music.

Despite this I think the Beatles changed pop music for the better, along with some other great acts / songwriters of the time.

Edited February 15, 2013 by Fat Rich

[wombatboter]

[quote name='Jazzneck' timestamp='1360921344' post='1978272']
I've been afeared to post on this subject as I'm not a musician, cannot read music, I know nothing of musical theory and do not want to be accused of trolling, stirring things up, being facetious or patronising.

However, I started to attempt to play guitar in 1962 and could make a pretty fair fist of all the old rock'n'roll 3 chord 12 bar numbers with my mates and could make a reasonable enough noise to play at school dances and youth club hops.

Then along came The Beatles......

In those days there were no easy ways of cribbing songs where I lived - no Guitar Institutes, no YouTube, no tab and the few bits of published sheet music we got hold of for the chords were wrong (I think they may have been transcribed for piano?).

So we used to buy the records and sit round a record player and work them out.
This led to a lot of head scratching, argument and frustration but we finally got there most of the time.
I remember that "All Your Lovin'" nearly ended up in a fist fight.
We found chords, shapes and what I think are called inversions which we could not find on any chord charts or in books at the time, but they sounded right and worked. Even our school music teacher admitted to us, just the once, that what we were playing was complex but it really wasn't music.
Now I'm old and even more ugly, I still use this technique for working out new numbers and I look back and compare some of the stuff pre and post Beatles and I can't help but be amazed (in my view) on what an influence they had.
I understand that a massive amount of jazz musicians in the 1920/30s and a lot of 1950/60s beat/pop bands (including The Beatles) had no musical training, couldn't read a dot and knew of no theory but they made some wonderful and long lived songs.
Anyone tried to work out joint chords and bass line for "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" and "Something" on an acoustic guitar just using a 45" disc on a record player with no other aids?

Try it, assuming you can't play it already - an interesting exercise......

Please do not take offence as none is intended from this dinosaur.
[/quote]

Great post to read...not only because the love for music is so present.

[swanbrook]

[quote name='risingson' timestamp='1360886277' post='1978072']
My last contribution then: I suspect that the Beatles made up one of the most important songwriting team in musical history, and will be remembered and written for hundreds of years just like J.S Bach and Beethoven for musical works of great importance. Those who have gone out of their way to misconstrue - or maybe even genuinely misunderstand - their importance in this thread will constitute a minority of people whose dressed up opinion as fact will fortunately not prevail.

Quite an eye opener of a thread.
[/quote]
Wow this is how I have always seen the Beatles. It is of course how I feel I don't really wish or want anybody else to feel the same way if you don't like them thats ok by me. It is nice to know I am not alone 😃

[Big_Stu]

[quote name='swanbrook' timestamp='1360932969' post='1978504']I don't really wish or want anybody else to feel the same way if you don't like them thats ok by me.[/quote]

THIS is the thought that's been missing a LOT from this thread.

I don't get the decrying or insulting of people who don't share the same tastes as another poster; making out the ones who oppose the thought are tasteless or malicious in what they say. Dictating what a person should or shouldn't appreciate is dangerous - and should be against the ethic of any musician.
I'm relieved that there's been a few posts not exhalting them as much as many do - as well as crediting Chuck Berry as a writer/player. I'd add the Everly Brothers to that list who were obviously an influence too.

Edited February 15, 2013 by Big_Stu

[51m0n]

So no one willing to jump in and claim that the Beatles output compositionally surpassed all the Motown output then?

Interesting....

[Cosmo Valdemar]

I think the Beatles output compositionally surpasses all the Motown output.

[oggiesnr]

I've always thought that The Beatles biggest contribution was to the "business" side of the music business. I'm old enough to remember all The Beatles merchandise that appeared which (to my recollection) was a new revenue stream that hadn't happened before. They also became a sort of template for the boy band which still seems to be used to this day.

It's interesting (in a geekish sort of way) that their most successful song in publishing terms (so royalties from plays and covers rather than initial sales) is "Yesterday" which one wouldn't probably describe as ground breaking.

Steve

[51m0n]

[quote name='Cosmo Valdemar' timestamp='1360935245' post='1978581']
I think the Beatles output compositionally surpasses all the Motown output.
[/quote]

So for you Ob-La-Di trumps Tears of a Clown?

Wow.........

[Lowender]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1360934902' post='1978570']
So no one willing to jump in and claim that the Beatles output compositionally surpassed all the Motown output then?

Interesting....
[/quote]

I wasn't going to respond since the thread is now going in circles. It reminds me when a child keeps asking, why?why? why? to everything. Because that's the way it is! is the only answer left.

Again, I think in most of the cases here the critics either don't get it musically, or they want to appear provocative. It's like being the guy at the party who doesn't think Katy Perry is hot.

However, the comparison to Motown is frankly, unanalogous. Motown was a business machine. They hired the best writers, the best singers, the best performers, the best musicians etc. The Beatles were ALL of those things in a self contained unit. Also, the Beatles grew in terms of expanding musical territory and social commentary in the lyrics, whereas Motown was designed to be purely popular music. They both influenced a generation, but the Beatle compositions (certainly the later ones) have far more depth. As far as just "bass technique" yeah, Jamerson wins that one.

[SteveK]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1360934902' post='1978570']
So no one willing to jump in and claim that the Beatles output compositionally surpassed all the Motown output then?

Interesting....
[/quote]I wouldn't draw any conclusions from a lack of response. The thread is 25 pages now, possibly many have said all they have to say on the subject.
[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1360936933' post='1978635']
So for you Ob-La-Di trumps Tears of a Clown?

Wow.........
[/quote]With respect, probably not your most considered post.

[discreet]

But I really [i]don't [/i]think Katy Perry is hot...

[Myke]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1360937761' post='1978662']
But I really [i]don't [/i]think Katy Perry is hot...
[/quote]

Ignore the face, look at the body?

[discreet]

[quote name='Myke' timestamp='1360937895' post='1978668']
Ignore the face, look at the body?
[/quote]

You mean she's a BOBFOC?

[bremen]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1360937959' post='1978672']
You mean she's a BOBFOC?
[/quote]

I'd say more MILFO.

[discreet]

[quote name='bremen' timestamp='1360938113' post='1978678']
I'd say more MILFO.
[/quote]

[size=4] Well I had to go and look it up, didn't I?[/size]

[size=4]Aggh a mod! Run away! Run away! *runs away*[/size]

[51m0n]

[quote name='SteveK' timestamp='1360937705' post='1978661']
I wouldn't draw any conclusions from a lack of response. The thread is 25 pages now, possibly many have said all they have to say on the subject.
With respect, probably not your most considered post.
[/quote]

Doesn't necessarily mean that all areas of discussion have been thought through though does it? About 15 pages were people getting all shouty...

Very carefully considered couple of posts as it goes.

Everyone getting excited about the chords they used being really pretty impressive just got me thinking, and the first thing I thought was Motown, and the fact is that for me there is no way on earth that everything the Beatles produced is better than anything else, yet it certainly comes across on here that that is the opinion of many. I am trying to understand how fervently people believe this.

You aren't trying to suggest that no other output from any contemporary of the Beatles in that period is as good as anything they did are you? So what I am trying to get across is although this is subjective, someone decided to bring the whole harmony/composition complexity thing into it, now believe it or not I certainly think that the Beatles were definitely a 100% professional song writing team, and they were clearly a business too, just one that new it could release any product it liked and succeed like no other (they even boasted of this). So comparing them with Motown seems utterly reasonable to me.

So I stand by my post, and my shocked response to the response to that post....

[51m0n]

[quote name='Lowender' timestamp='1360937572' post='1978654']
I wasn't going to respond since the thread is now going in circles. It reminds me when a child keeps asking, why?why? why? to everything. Because that's the way it is! is the only answer left.

Again, I think in most of the cases here the critics either don't get it musically, or they want to appear provocative. It's like being the guy at the party who doesn't think Katy Perry is hot.

However, the comparison to Motown is frankly, unanalogous. Motown was a business machine. They hired the best writers, the best singers, the best performers, the best musicians etc. The Beatles were ALL of those things in a self contained unit. Also,[i][b] the Beatles grew in terms of expanding musical territory and social commentary in the lyrics,[/b][/i] whereas Motown was designed to be purely popular music. They both influenced a generation, but the Beatle compositions (certainly the later ones) have far more depth. As far as just "bass technique" yeah, Jamerson wins that one.
[/quote]

You have heard "Whats Going On" haven't you

[risingson]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1360934902' post='1978570']
So no one willing to jump in and claim that the Beatles output compositionally surpassed all the Motown output then?

Interesting....
[/quote]

That's a different topic altogether I think. The Beatles are not the only best to have ever existed, it's a sea of influence out there!

[flyfisher]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1360934902' post='1978570']
So no one willing to jump in and claim that the Beatles output compositionally surpassed all the Motown output then?

Interesting....
[/quote]

Isn't that a bit of a daft comparison? The Beatles were a single band with two main songwriters and Motown was a whole factory of people producing a whole genre of music.

It's like asking if The Morgan Car Company's output 'surpasses' that of Ford, or Toyota, or BMW etc.


I think it's becoming quite clear that 26 pages is more than enough for a subject where there will never be agreement and we're starting to dredge the barrel for ever more bizarre ways of saying the same things.

We will all have differing opinions about them, but The Beatles' body of work, sales records and place in popular musical history remains the same.