Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Doesn't that apply to most of us, whether we have worked in music, or "succeeded", or whatever?

You're asking the wrong person here, Dave ...

[Dave2002]

You're asking the wrong person here, Dave ...

Referring to your post this morning - http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...408#post747408 - it looks as though at least one person might have had his best days ahead of him at age 70. That depends on whether the Inspector Montalbano series of books are considered Camilleri's best works - they're certainly his most well known I'd think.

A sad loss, but a good innings.

AC RIP

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And Janacek, and Mary Wesley, too. (Not to mention Stravinsky, Verdi, RVW ... all of whom regenerated their work in their final decades.)

But it needn't be "famous" or professionally creative figures; I think that, as long as we've had a good education (which means one that has encouraged our curiosity and interests, rather than supressed it - and need not have anything to do with "schooling") then retirement can be a period devoted to expanding such interests and enthusiasms in our own terms and in our own time. Intellectually, it can be amongst the most exciting and rewarding periods of our lives (giving some balance for the physical and emotional distress that can also go with the territory).

[Beresford]

. There are many different approaches, including the one that you appear to have adopted.

I would appreciate it if you could give some information or references for this.

[MrGongGong]

Macca dreamt the tune for Yesterday - a song that has been performed and played an estimated 7 million times . When you can do that whether you can notate music or not is irrelevant. His compositional style is improvisatory - usually at the piano or strumming a guitar. Learning to notate might just kill a very golden goose. To be honest he could hire the entire composition departments of all the London music colleges to transcribe for him and not even notice the dent in his bank balance .

[Stanfordian]

Re the ‘Oratorio ‘ I think Macca should leave that sort of thing to Janacek really...

How much was McCartney's work and how much that of his collaborators?

[Serial_Apologist]

How much was McCartney's work and how much that of his collaborators?

I have a cassette where McCartney and Richard Rodney Bennett chat with an interviewer about this somewhere. Must dig it out.

[Richard Barrett]

Surely it's clear that none of the Beatles (or George Martin) produced anything on the level of the group's body of work after they split up. Some partnerships are just like that. I'm not keen on counterfactuals but it seems to me that none of them would have got very far with their work individually if they hadn't er come together.

[Conchis]

I’ve heard a vicious rumour that Macca is perfectly capable of reading (and writing) musical notation, but prefers it not to get out so he can carry on making ‘I am just a conduit’’ -type pronouncements.

A friend of mine recently said that McCartney had ‘betrayed’ his talent, because he had a melodic gift ‘second only to Schubert’ but had insisted on following the low art/high money path rather than the high art/high achievement one.

I countered that this was a misreading of Macca’s background and the times in which he lived. The mid-twentieth century could not have produced another Schubert and McCartney grew up listening to pop music, anyway, so if he chose to work in a pop idiom, it was because it’s all he knew.

The story that Macca has ‘basic ideas’ and then gets Carl Davis (or someone) to turn them into scores has had wide currency for a long time. At the very least, he has help from some of his heavy friends.

Hst, I do think Macca was the most talented of the Beatles and I could listen to his bass-lines all day! :)

The musical idea sounds awful, but then I hate the source film - sudsy, cheesy, machine-tooled junk.

[Conchis]

Surely it's clear that none of the Beatles (or George Martin) produced anything on the level of the group's body of work after they split up. Some partnerships are just like that. I'm not keen on counterfactuals but it seems to me that none of them would have got very far with their work individually if they hadn't er come together.

You would probably have heard of McCartney, who might have made it as a sort of ‘hip Cliff Richard’ who wrote his own songs from about 1964 onwards and you may have heard of Ringo a bit later, given his huge potential as a reality TV star.
But John and George? Nah......

[Boilk]

Apparently Allan Holdsworth couldn't read music, but just check out how harmonically lush (in his mid-fifties) his music could be -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIX_SOKJYHQ

Just sayin'

IMHO the lushness and extreme 'otherness' of Holdsworth's harmonies (and other attributes of his syntax besides) were not in spite of his not reading notation, but in large measure because of. When you've never had a rule book to unshackle yourself from, you're better equipped - if you work hard at it - to create a highly distinctive musical DNA. And he got rather annoyed when other guitarists consciously started to display Holdsworth-isms in their playing.

I recall AH often saying that he didn't conceptualise what he wrote/played in terms of "keys" - with an orthodox musical education he probably would have, don't most guitarists?

[Joseph K]

IMHO the lushness and extreme 'otherness' of Holdsworth's harmonies (and other attributes of his syntax besides) were not in spite of his not reading notation, but in large measure because of. When you've never had a rule book to unshackle yourself from, you're better equipped - if you work hard at it - to create a highly distinctive musical DNA. And he got rather annoyed when other guitarists consciously started to display Holdsworth-isms in their playing.

I recall AH often saying that he didn't conceptualise what he wrote/played in terms of "keys" - with an orthodox musical education he probably would have, don't most guitarists?

Hmm.

I am sceptical about the idea that not learning music notation for some people leads to highly original and valuable music-making.

It's neither in spite of nor because of.

No, Holdsworth's music isn't too much about functional harmony, but rather complex and rich modal interchange (although, he has recorded one or two standards which feature functional harmony, and he of course can play over that) with modes like 'islands of sound' as I have heard it described. It's reminiscent of Debussy and Wayne Shorter to me, this sophisticated use of modes …

But anyway, I still think we ought to banish the idea that not being literate might in some mystical sense produce great art (I think I already said that though). But in Holdsworth's case, I think he simply just did not have much use for it. He'd have to write out sets of chords for his band to play, perhaps communicate to them some rhythm... But, unlike say, John McLaughlin's music, with quite intricate and involved heads, often played in unison with another instrument necessitating the kind of musical communication that might be laborious were it not for notation, Holdsworth generally (not 100%) eschews that.

[Richard Barrett]

When you've never had a rule book to unshackle yourself from, you're better equipped

Musical notation isn't a rule book, it's a medium of communication.

I recall AH often saying that he didn't conceptualise what he wrote/played in terms of "keys" - with an orthodox musical education he probably would have, don't most guitarists?

Derek Bailey of course was a very good reader.

[MrGongGong]

Hmm.

I am sceptical about the idea that not learning music notation for some people leads to highly original and valuable music-making.
.

It's what is known as bullsh*t IMV
The idea that somehow learning things stops one being creative is utter nonsense and a pose in order to try and be cool

[Boilk]

Musical notation isn't a rule book, it's a medium of communication.
Derek Bailey of course was a very good reader.

I don't think many people would label Holdsworth or Bailey as "most guitarists".