You tube is a treasure trove of information on about anything, particularly music. I am very interested in the "backstory" on songs, techniques, how things come into business. There are several videos of McCartney explaining his process and the development of the Beatles. One on that same page I linked, has him speaking at a college. He demonstrates the things they were learning when they were fourteen and fifteen, then the inversions and changes they made all the time as they went on. They were classic experimenters. He said that BLACKBIRD started as a take off on a finger excercise from a Bach piece. He and George used to do this excercise and then he started using it in other songs. About the third or fourth song he tried to write is where Blackbird came from.
This happens throughout music history. There will be something most people know, then someone takes that and moves it to the next element. LIFE IN THE FAST LANE, by the Eagles,was just a practice riff Joe Walsh was using for a speed drill. We've all done that dozens of times. Learning something practice by, then slowing it down or speeding it up leads to some interesting ways to write. Another aspect I enjoy in writing songs is after having one fairly well rehearsed, then playing it at totally different tempos or even different feels, will give it more character.
In the 60's the BEATLES were ahead of the curve, in music, fashion, in everything in the culture, because they absorbed everything around them.They studied the hits of the day intensely and actually copied those in building their own. And they were the Mother of invention. Because so many of the groups at that time, did the same cover songs, the Beatles started writing early to avoid doing what everyone else did.that That Redefined the nature of bands, because it drove everyone to write as well as perform. Then,since they were so megapopular, every band followed them in their writing experiences as well.
So now you find, 40 years after the break up of that band, they still have influences. Always interesting to find some 16 or 17 year old, playing those riffs or styles and finding out they have just "DISCOVERED" The Beatles. Was quite a earthquake of change that hit the world in the 1960's.
MAB
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