|
 |
|
 |
John Lennon and Paul McCartney - Creativity and Music
John Lennon (1940-80) and Paul McCartney (1942- ) Pop stars and songwriters from Liverpool (pictured right in 1964 with Lennon on the left) Revolutionized pop music with The Beatles (pictured right below). They wrote nearly all of their big hits including the top five selling singles in America during one week in 1963! Why were they so creative and popular?
1. Simplicity I Want To Hold Your Hand, their biggest selling single, had only five guitar chords, and before then their songs, like other people’s, only had three. Their magic came from unexpected chord changes, which they believed you shouldn’t notice. “I like a song to be seamless”, Paul said.
2. Emotion Their songs of peace and love touched people’s hearts with:
3. Relaxation Their inspiration often came from relaxation. Paul composed hits, walking his dogs and sitting in taxis. John wrote Nowhere Man relaxing after a frustrating night trying to write. 4. Inspiration with perspiration A lot of their songs came quickly from moments of inspiration. Paul:
But inspiration was followed by lots of perspiration - Paul took nearly two
years to finish Yesterday. John based Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds on a picture by his young son, Julian, who also inspired Paul's Hey Jude (initially called Hey Jules). Julian is pictured right with Paul.
5. Talent and intuition They couldn’t read or write music, but they were brilliant songwriters from an early age. Paul wrote When I’m 64 when he was only 16. They instinctively and intuitively knew how to write a great song. 6. Drive and determination John led the Beatles in the early days (when the Beatles played in the Cavern, the Liverpool night club, pictured right). But, as his interest waned, Paul took over and became the driving force behind projects like:
Following his father’s rule of “do it now”, Paul always did something, when he wanted to do it. 7. Teamwork They worked well together, each contributing ideas for a song, particularly in the early years, when they were:
The key chord of I Want To Hold Your Hand was struck by Paul on the piano of his girlfriend (Jane Asher). John (pictured right in 1964) then said, “That’s it!”, from where they completed the song. They complemented each other well with their different styles -
A Day in the Life on the Sergeant Pepper album is a great example of their teamwork – Paul added the tune in the middle to John’s song. 8. Revolutionary They revolutionized pop music with a completely new sound, always:
For example, Paul (pictured right in 2010) was the first Beatle to accept reggae and Indian music. They didn’t have any rules for song writing and, if they had some, they immediately tried to break them.
9. Customer satisfaction Their music has delighted nearly everyone on the planet with different types of music: rock, ballads, folk, blues and singalong songs.
10. Learning They learned from:
a) other pop music Elvis Presley had a big influence on them. “Nothing really affected me until Elvis”, John said. b) classical composers Paul’s Blackbird (on the White album) and Penny Lane were influenced by Bach (pictured right). John wrote Abbey Road’s Because based upon Beethoven’s (pictured right below) Moonlight Sonata, played backwards by his wife, Yoko Ono!
c) performing (from their concerts and playing the clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg).
d) the world around them Paul's lyrics for Blackbird were inspired by the African American civil rights movement.
11. Love of music They loved writing and had great fun, particularly in the early days writing songs together in hotel rooms. They were obsessed with their music and beloved guitars. As a teenager Paul even played his guitar in the bath and on the toilet!
12. Continuous improvement and competition They thrived on the pressure to produce better and better songs. “We’d listen to something that somebody else had done and try and beat it”, Paul said. Their music also benefited from creative tension that resulted from the competition and constructive criticism between them.
13. Support and encouragement Paul’s father and John’s mother (who bought him his first guitar) encouraged their music All the Beatles were supportive friends until the arguments that broke up the group in 1970. They were also helped by:
14. Spirituality They had big egos, but they believed that their music was more important than them and came from a higher spiritual power. “You don’t know, if it’s you who is writing it”, Paul said. Similarly, John thought they were only channels for their music, which wasn’t really theirs. All they had to do was to “be in tune with it”, he said.
15. Perseverance They dealt with the:
John was particularly badly affected, illustrated by his song, Help! He found the process of song writing excrutiating. “It’s torture”, John once said. But they battled through and worked hard for their success. They took over 500 hours in the studio to record their Sergeant Pepper album (its famous cover is pictured right).
16. Serendipity If they hadn’t met for the first time at the Woolton Village Fete, near Liverpool, on July 6,1957, the greatest pop songwriting duo would never have existed. The early deaths of both their mothers gave them something in common.
Key quotes on creativity and success (John Lennon) It’s no fun being an artist. It isn’t fun. It’s torture. Song writing is about getting the demon out of me. It’s like being possessed. You try to go to sleep but the song won’t let you. So you have to get up and make it into something Nothing really affected me until Elvis. I always felt I’d make it.
Key quotes on creativity and success (Paul McCartney) How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practise, practise, practise. I'm always trying to do better music I like a song to be seamless. About a third of our songs are pure slog. |
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
||
| Copyright © wisdomtowin.com All Rights Reserved | ||
|
