elliot wrote:
I probably have to stand by Ed's statement here. If you claim to have all this extended knowledge of songwriting, then you would understand that The Beatles and The Stones did that remarkably well.
I'd be interested to know what, if any, bands or artists from the 50's and 60's you actually like.
No they didn't. Or to clarify- they "did" and they didn't. They did, in the sense that they purely STUMBLED across "good writing"; They didn't intentionally
write well. This is easily proven. When have you ever come across an interview or article, for say Keith Richards, where he discusses what he is actually playing and maybe even why he wrote what he did. He doesn't do those types of columns because he would make a fool of himself- and he knows it.
Keith Richards reflects on: Under My Thumb
"Well you see here, I came up with this little bluesy/rock/harmonic minor riff that's in G harmonic minor. When (bass players name) is playing a G I throw a simple lead over it just using the available tensions from the G harmonic minor scale because I like playing something that's different from the bass rhythm- and I know which tensions typically sound good for the i chord in harmonic minor and that's how I'm able to go after the type of sound I like..."
But sadly, you'll never read that because keith richards is a brain dead drug addict who can barely talk- let alone explain his music beyond "It sounded good to me" He just worked it out until it "sounded good" to him. That is guesswork....and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
What sounds good to keith is based off of what music he likes and listens to, and what influenced him. If he listened to Mozart...then chances are he could work out a progression that sounds good....and it could very well be 'nicely written'. But that's another story altogether...
Now- the only music I like from the '50s would be Stravinsky, maybe some Copland....Schonberg was dead by then...as was Berg. I dunno the post-tonal era didn't offer much that Schonberg hadn't already perfected.
I'm not even all that thrilled about Stravinsky's stuff from the '50s because that was his neo-classical period. The Rake's Progress was very MEH...
His serial period had some stuff I enjoyed- The Flood, Agon, ...the owl and the pussycat was alright too.
