Could The Beatles Read Sheet Music?

While I am an expert on the Beatles and their music, I have to concede that I never knew the Beatles...not even close. I am an independent artist who was born years after the Beatles first played Ed Sullivan. I remember exactly where I was when I heard the Beatles broke up, though. I was about 14 years old, and I was sitting in the back of an older friend's car. The DJ on the radio came on after playing a song off of Abbey Road and said something about the Beatles breaking up. I was devastated, having discovered them a few years prior. I asked, "The Beatles broke up?" The driver said, "Oh yeah, they broke up a few years ago..." So yes, I remember where I was when the Beatles broke up, it was just a few years after the fact!

Unfortunately, I haven't met a Beatle, and I do not have first-hand information about exactly how they operated in the recording studio. My knowledge is instead based on the huge stack of Beatles books I've read, and on what I have learned from the Beatles songs themselves. I reckon you could label me a Beatles addict. I have read nearly every Beatles book there is--from their own autobiographies, to explanations of each and every track, to biographies of those who knew them, to the hour-by-hour logs of exactly what they worked on each day in the studio. Also, I’m an indie songwriter and musician so I have some understanding into how the Beatles wrote and recorded their music, having spent hours in the recording studio myself. In this article, I am going to answer a question I frequently get from musicians and Beatles devotees alike: did the Beatles know how to read sheet music?



Handwritten Beatles Lyrics



Everything I have encountered has demonstrated that the Beatles could not read sheet music. What’s more, they actually declined to learn how to read music. During the recording sessions for the first records (pre-Revolver, let's say), when John and Paul would bring in a brand new tune, they would perform it live to let George Martin get an idea of what it sounds like before they began arranging it. During these arranging in the early years, the Beatles producer (George Martin) and the Beatles themselves would arrange and re-arrange the music as they captured it on tape, but these changes were created on the fly...and they weren't notated. In the middle and later years (i.e. from the recording of Revolver onwards), the Beatles began to incorporate more and more outside musicians in their recordings. Even so, they generally did not have the parts transcribed. The Beatles instead tended to work by trying to get the best from their players. They tended to provide vague requirements to the performers and to help shape the part that the musicians came up with (when necessary). However, on several songs the Beatles did work with George Martin to score out a part for the musicians to play. Mainly, this is a job Paul would perform. (A good example of a score that was worked out in this way is the song Eleanor Rigby (string parts) or Good Day Sunshine (the horn part). George Martin would complete the transcription, but he did this as an extension of the part which was being composed by the Beatles. More often, however, the Beatles offered some general concept of whatever they wanted the part to sound like, pressing the musician to provide their creativity to construct the foundation of the musical part. The Beatles and George Martin would then help produce and develop the musical part into what they desired for the record. While George Martin did make up the keyboard parts that he played on several of the early albums and he did include non-traditional composition ideas into their tracks, he was always quick to explain that he worked under the Beatles direction, supplying them the majority of the artistic credit.

A quick Google images search will show you pictures of about 15 or 20 of the handwritten lyric sheets that the Beatles used in the studio. None of them even have the chord changes written above them. When you remember that the Beatles often sang and played at the same time, you'll realize that the Beatles did not use sheet music as part of their recording process. Period. They had no need to. As a recording artist myself, I can tell you with some confidence that music notation was not much use to them. It's pretty easy to work without music notation if you teach yourself how to play and compose. In all the recording session photos I’ve looked at, the Beatles rarely have anything in front of them on the music stand. When there is, there's only a single page of paper--presumably one of the handwritten lyric sheets like I mentioned earlier. As self-taught songwriters and performers, the Beatles didn't need to read or write sheet music. They saw it as a distraction...not as an integral part of their composing or recording process.


The rest of us, however, rather take pleasure in having The Beatles guitar tabs around. Sheet music and tablature provides an extremely quick method to take advantage of the enjoyment of playing along with the group! Visit www.thebeatlessheetmusic.com to get started playing along with the band right now.



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