Members myshkin Posted November 9, 2007 Members Share Posted November 9, 2007 Just came across this documentary: looks a must see. Classical music started the century as the undisputed master of its field. It was recognised (in the West) as the main purveyor of music of emotion, subtlety and innovation. It reached a vast mainstream audience. Gradually this changed. Classical music began a journey into the avant-garde, and abandoned western tonality, the familiar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members John Sayers Posted November 9, 2007 Members Share Posted November 9, 2007 Interesting rave about music and it's structure but he's putting the Beatles up on a pedestal IMHO. What about Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story for innovative chordal changes, or Quincey Jones, Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck etc. who all preceded the Beatles. The Beatles chordal structure came from Paul's three note triads that he fiddled around with on the piano combined with George Martin's classical influence. Also the formal harmonic structure he refers to was already well established in the culture through British Choral Music and it's pure harmonic structure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kurdy Posted November 9, 2007 Members Share Posted November 9, 2007 Interesting rave about music and it's structure but he's putting the Beatles up on a pedestal IMHO. What about Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story for innovative chordal changes, or Quincey Jones, Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck etc. who all preceded the Beatles.The Beatles chordal structure came from Paul's three note triads that he fiddled around with on the piano combined with George Martin's classical influence. Also the formal harmonic structure he refers to was already well established in the culture through British Choral Music and it's pure harmonic structure. I don't think the point of the documentary was to suggest that the Beatles invented anything new. They just added their own twist to already existing popular and classical forms, and in the process brought the popular and classical music worlds back together after having been separated for so long. Very interesting documentary, BTW. Part 4 makes as stong an argument for the merits of being in a cover band as anything I've heard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kendrix Posted November 10, 2007 Members Share Posted November 10, 2007 Interesting rave about music and it's structure but he's putting the Beatles up on a pedestal IMHO. What about Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story for innovative chordal changes, or Quincey Jones, Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck etc. who all preceded the Beatles.The Beatles chordal structure came from Paul's three note triads that he fiddled around with on the piano combined with George Martin's classical influence. Also the formal harmonic structure he refers to was already well established in the culture through British Choral Music and it's pure harmonic structure. The section on Lennon&Mac starts out with " knowing only a handful of chords between them". So I think the writer is acknowledging the very point you are criticising them for missing. His point is that, despite this lack of chordal complexity, these two guys wrote amazing melodies/songs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members John Sayers Posted November 10, 2007 Members Share Posted November 10, 2007 and I said they did it by Paul, and John's triad chord piano playing. How much of Yesterday was Paul's trichords or George Martin's string arrangement? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kurdy Posted November 10, 2007 Members Share Posted November 10, 2007 and I said they did it by Paul, and John's triad chord piano playing. How much of Yesterday was Paul's trichords or George Martin's string arrangement? The melody and chords were Paul (and actually Paul played the acoustic guitar in Yesterday.) The string arrangment was...the string arrangement. You could take out the strings and it would still be a great song. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kendrix Posted November 10, 2007 Members Share Posted November 10, 2007 Re-reading this I do agree it puts the fab four on quite a pedestal.It's a bit bombastic. Yead Yeah Yeah Yeah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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