Beatles' lack of formal music education: Help or hindrance?

[Moogmodule]

They're all interesting points Loco. I go back to my original point. The vast majority of people are better off learning as much about their field of endeavour as possible. I think more knowledge can stimulate creativity. And as you say provide the technical facility to do more. I think knowing the rules of something thoroughly can also help you break them in a way that enhances your final product.

About the attitude to formal schooling, yes there's definitely a reverence for the amazing gifted person. Every movie about a musician,  artist or athlete emphasises their unusual talent often at the expense of showing all the work it took them to hone it. It makes for better story I suppose and underlines who they're talking about is special.  To me it undervalues the hard work every successful person puts in to achieve their goals. It's a bit like the A student who "never studies" according to the student themselves. In reality they're probably sweating themselves before each test. And does it discourage people who don't pick up something as quickly? There's lots of examples of late developers. People who couldn't get picked for their team or choir or whatever in school going on to be champions. They don't seem to get the same attention.

Nowadays if you want to be a musician you'll almost certainly do lots of courses at school and after. And have access to lessons and good instruments from an early age.  I think this improves the overall competence of musicians. I don't doubt that the average muso in a band now is more technically skilled than one from the early 60s. Whether it means increased creativity and those outlier geniuses is more debatable. Creativity is a harder thing to pin down then technical skill.

[Loco Mo]

Moogmodule:  The irony of people who claim not to have studied music is that they are lying.  You can't just place your fingers on the guitar and start playing songs.  You have to learn something about the guitar before you can do anything.  So, there are various ways to learn.  You will choose one of them.  By watching others play; by watching free YouTube videos; by going to school; by private lessons, etc.  Lots of self-taught people will refer to tablature to help them along.  They're not really learning anything magically and without instruction in some form.

That desire to be a "pure" self-taught learner is a delusion.  However, there may be an exception and that is the Savant.  I don't know how they do it.

[Moogmodule]

Moogmodule:  The irony of people who claim not to have studied music is that they are lying.  You can't just place your fingers on the guitar and start playing songs.  You have to learn something about the guitar before you can do anything.  So, there are various ways to learn.  You will choose one of them.  By watching others play; by watching free YouTube videos; by going to school; by private lessons, etc.  Lots of self-taught people will refer to tablature to help them along.  They're not really learning anything magically and without instruction in some form.

That desire to be a "pure" self-taught learner is a delusion.  However, there may be an exception and that is the Savant.  I don't know how they do it.

Yes. You asked about Jimi Hendrix. I don't think he had much in the way of formal lessons but he learnt by watching other guitarists and picking things out by ear.  And as soon as you start playing with other people you learn from them as well. Obviously a guy like Hendrix was unusually talented and could progress with less formal ways of learning better than most of us could. The opposite are people who have guitar lessons and play for years but never get much past strumming the basic chords. For whatever reason they can't progress.  Some people do seem to be wired to pick up musical things really easily and some who you couldn't bash it into them with a bat. Most of us fall in a big middle ground I suppose where the relationship between effort and outcome are a bit more linear.

[nimrod]

Moogmodule:  The irony of people who claim not to have studied music is that they are lying.  You can't just place your fingers on the guitar and start playing songs.  You have to learn something about the guitar before you can do anything.  So, there are various ways to learn.  You will choose one of them.  By watching others play; by watching free YouTube videos; by going to school; by private lessons, etc.  Lots of self-taught people will refer to tablature to help them along.  They're not really learning anything magically and without instruction in some form.

That desire to be a "pure" self-taught learner is a delusion.  However, there may be an exception and that is the Savant.  I don't know how they do it.

Ahh yes, we know they learnt different chords etc from others and from records, but the OP question was lack of "formal" lessons. Meaning college or private tuition.

[Loco Mo]

but the OP question was lack of "formal" lessons. Meaning college or private tuition.

Thanks for the reminder, nimrod.  I've only known a few people with degrees in music.  One of them was a music instructor I had for a while.  He was a very intelligent guy but he seemed to have an ego about his education.  Other people who knew him told me that "he didn't swing."  So I took that as a criticism that suggested his education played an inhibiting role in his performance as a musician in a band.

[Moogmodule]

Thanks for the reminder, nimrod.  I've only known a few people with degrees in music.  One of them was a music instructor I had for a while.  He was a very intelligent guy but he seemed to have an ego about his education.  Other people who knew him told me that "he didn't swing."  So I took that as a criticism that suggested his education played an inhibiting role in his performance as a musician in a band.

Could be also that he wasn't that naturally musical. You can train up to play the notes but doesn't necessarily mean you have the feel for music.

I remember a show a few decades ago that had in Australia called Operatunity. They took average people with good voices and, on a tv show of course, tried to turn them into opera singers under the tutelage of the best instructors. There was one guy who had a strong natural voice. Big, nice tone. Quite an instrument. But he couldn't sing in tune no matter how much they coached him. I remember Yvonne Kenny, one of Australia's top sopranos of the day getting upset at the end as they realised that, despite all their effort and that he had the power in his voice to be that rare really good dramatic tenor, he simply couldn't reliably stay in tune. He didn't have the musical ear to carry it off.  The amount of training didn't matter.

[nimrod]

We got a great singer in our band once. Really good voice but he never knew when to start singing at the beginning of songs. Sometimes had to play the intro 3 times. 

[Moogmodule]

That would be quite frustrating.  ha2ha

[Hello Goodbye]

We got a great singer in our band once. Really good voice but he never knew when to start singing at the beginning of songs. Sometimes had to play the intro 3 times. 

Even Paul had to play the intro 3 times...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke26Z4DZCsg#


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIZG4K3av0c#

[nimrod]

I think we once played the intro to My Generation about 4 times  ha2ha

[Moogmodule]

I think we once played the intro to My Generation about 4 times  ha2ha

Isn't that just coming in on the first beat of the bar?

[nimrod]

Isn't that just coming in on the first beat of the bar?

Yeah he just statred at me and smiled, it got to the stage where I had to lip sync when he should come in  ha2ha

The other "classic" was during Back In The USSR, whan Paul sings "Back in the US, Back in the US, Back in the USSR, just before the middle 8, Man he struggled with the timing on that  ha2ha in the end we had to ditch it.

[Moogmodule]

Yeah he just statred at me and smiled, it got to the stage where I had to lip sync when he should come in  ha2ha

The other "classic" was during Back In The USSR, whan Paul sings "Back in the US, Back in the US, Back in the USSR, just before the middle 8, Man he struggled with the timing on that  ha2ha in the end we had to ditch it.

No wonder singers are the lowest on the musician pecking order  ha2ha

[Normandie]

This is a little off topic. In an ocean liner book I'm reading the author mentions how a passenger on the Zeeland wrote down the music for the bugle notes that were played to alert first-class passengers to begin dressing for dinner. (In Cameron's film the Molly Brown character comments "Why do they always announce dinner like it's a damn calvary charge?" Other Titanic movies have some version of the same line.)

Anyway, more to the point: Apparently this was able to write down the score simply on hearing the notes. I could never in a million years do this, myself, but with so many musicians on here I'm sure one of you could. And it reminded me of the Beatles and the topic of formal music education.

Here it is:

[Tamara]

Beethoven could write sheet music while he was deaf.