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Beabliography

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Heinonen, Yrjö (1994), "Ideastä äänitteeksi. "Tyypillisen" Lennon-McCartney — sävelmän "tyypillinen" kirjoitus-ja äänitysprosessi" [From idea to album. "Typical" writing and recording process of a "typical" Lennon-McCartney song].|In: E. Pekkilä (ed.), Etnomusikologian vuosikirja, 1994, 6, 147-187; and in: Yrjö Heinonen(1995), Elämyksestä ideaksi — ideasta musiikiksi. Sävellysprosessin yleinen malli ja sen soveltaminen Beatles-yhtyeen laulunteko-ja äänitysprosessiin. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskykä, 1995 (Jyväskylä Studies in the Arts, 48 — Ph.D. Dissertation). [Abstract and Summary]

The aim of the study (study II of Heinonen's thesis) was to describe and (partially) explain the typical writing and recording process of a typical Lennon-McCartney song. Here the term 'typical' is to be understood in the sense used in modern prototype theory. It was assumed that (1) writing and recording proceeds typically through certain stages whose order is relatively fixed, (2) each stage offers a restricted amount of alternative procedures, and (3) it is also possible to describe the typical deviations from the typical procedure. With respect to the third assumption I also examined to what degree the alterations and exceptions depended on different contextual factors (songwriter, division of labour, style period, compositional situation, stage of the compositional process etc.). The relationships of different strategies, based roughly on primary and secondary process, were also investigated. The study was based on the qualitative discourse analysis of a large body of biographical material.

Results

On the basis of the analysis it may be concluded that the typical writing and recording process of a typical Lennon-McCartney song proceeded through the following stages: (1) getting an idea and developing it further; (2) grasping the A section (verse); (3) writing the B section (chorus, middle eight) and working out the basic unit of the overall form (usually AABA); (4) grasping the overall form (the amount and order of the verses and choruses, writing the intro, solo and coda); (5) arranging and determing the timbre (vocal and instrumental parts, texture, sound effects etc.); (6) recording (takes, superimpositions) and mixing (rough and final mixes, both mono and stereo). Usually the order of the stages is as described above, but they always overlap to some degree. It is also typical that the process returns to a previous stage. Some stages may follow each other without a perceivable gap, and in such cases their differentiation may be difficult and even artificial. On the other hand, the writing process may be stopped at a certain stage for days, weeks, months or even years. Individual stages may be linked with each other in different ways — usually in such a way that the writing process may be differentiated from the recording process. In these cases the writing process comprises stages 1-3, and the recording process stages 4-6.

The typical division of labour was as follows. The basic unit (AABA etc.) and the main portion of the lyrics was usually written by either Lennon or McCartney, not both together. But it frequently happened that the other half of the songwriting team made suggestions which were sometimes minor, but sometimes major. The other members of the group, and the producer, George Martin, did not take part in this part of the process. Despite this, the idea for a song was in many cases based on something suggested by the other members (or friends). And in any case, the working-out of the whole and the arranging process was done collectively. In these stages the role of Martin was also significant.

The effect of personality traits may be summed up as follows. Lennon was originally more competent on lyrics, while McCartney was obviously more competent on music. Lennon's songs (in respect of both music and lyrics) are said to be more aggressive than McCartney's. Lennon also wrote overtly about his own experiences,while McCartney veiled them. Lennon wrote to himself, McCartney to an audience. Lennon's musical ideas were mostly short fragments put together, while McCartney developed his ideas as wholes from the start. Lennon's ideas were more often extra-musical and fuzzy, McCartney's "purely" musical and also musically accurate. Both Lennon and McCartney favoured strategies based on primary process and were suspicious of those based on secondary process. In any case, it may be said that McCartney used strategies based on secondary process more often than Lennon did.

Conclusions

It was shown that the general model of the compositional process — though based mainly on the tradition of Western "art" music — could also be invoked to outline and (partially) explain the typical songwriting and recording process of a typical Lennon-McCartney song. The main difference from the case of art music is that only the songwriting stage of the process (getting and developing an idea to the basic unit of the overall form) was carried out by a certain songwriter alone, the rest (outlining the overall form, arranging, recording, and mixing) being done collectively.