Originally Posted By: David Snyder

Wow Dave. The forum can get harsh when people get all technical and stuff, huh?

Hey I have a question:

If you don't know your butt from your elbow, and you have absolutely no idea what you are doing or talking about, but you write a tune and people say:

"Dude, that song was frickin' amazing, where did you come up with that chord progression????"

Are you using the Circle of Fifths then?

Even if you have no idea what that means and can't read a note?

Did Paul McCartney know the Circle of Fifths or did he just jam his butt off????

These are questions that have plagued me for years and I was wondering if you had any insights, sir.




David, Trump doen't know his butt from his elbow and nobody
has any idea what he is doing or talking about but he writes a
tweet anyway and people say to him "Dude Donald, that was
frickin' amazingly ridiculous, where did you come up with that
progressive descent into insanity?" He did all this without
studying anything about political theory.

That is due to his drinking too many... fifths smile

But seriously, none of the Beatles knew anything about music theory
and they could not read music at all. I have read numerous interviews with
many songwriters and i can't recall a single one who actually had
studied music theory at all. That chord progression at the beginning
of Paul's Yesterday actually came to him in a dream, and no pop song
had ever used that chord progression before.

Even Frank Zappa, who wrote a number of albums of orchestral
works, only had 6 months of formal music training. He just had an incredibly
good ear and taught himself how to write music so that orchestras
could perform his music.

By the way, not only is it not necessary to know any music theory to write
songs, you do not even have to know how to play a musical
instrument! I once saw an ad in the paper from some guy who had
written around 80 songs, who did not play any musical instrument,
he had written all the lyrics down on paper and had kept all the melodies
in his head. He wanted someone who could play guitar to try to
figure out the chords he heard in his head so he could then put
them on a tape recorder.

So i met with him a few times and i would play chords for the melodies
he sung until i finally found the progressions he heard in his head,
and then he would sing while i played guitar and he taped the result.
I found that to be a very interesting experience and it was nice to
be able to physicalize what was in his head. Although, i do have to
admit that his melodies were not very interesting and alot of his
melodies sounded similar to other of his melodies.

By the way, David, if these questions have caused you to have the
plague, as you say, then you will have to be quarantined to posting
in this forum only by the CDC (Chord Digressions Control) smile

Matador is beautiful,a symphony of style
Excitement is ecstatic, passion places bets
Gracefully he bows to ovations that he gets
But the hands that are applauding are slippery with sweat
And saliva is falling from their smiles

Phil Ochs- Crucifixion