Today I’d like to share with you one of my favorite sites for developing songwriting ability. The Beatles Canon.
First off, I should say that I’m a big fan of the Beatles and love nearly everything they’ve ever written and recorded. I know there are some people out there who don’t feel this way and that’s fine…though I really can’t imagine why. 🙂
Anyway, whether you like them or not hopefully we can agree that they created a large collection of unique songs in varying styles throughout their long career. They were master songwriters who were always pushing the envelope.
Who better to learn from?
If you’ve ever wanted to explore the inner workings of The Beatles catalog to glean a bit of the magic behind their music then The Bealtes Canon is the site for you. There, musicologist Alan W. Pollack painstakingly breaks down every Beatles tune ever recorded from 1962 till 1970.
He starts each song’s analysis with a General Points of Interest section that includes: style & form, melody & harmony, and arrangement.
From there he goes into a Section by Section Breakdown. All verses, choruses, bridges and solos are broken down to their core components by someone who really knows his stuff.
At the end of each song’s analysis Alan gives some Final Thoughts on the hows and whys each song were written, where it stands in the entire catalog of Beatles tunes, and what was going on in pop music as well as The Beatles’ career at the time. His incites here are some of my favorite parts.
Pollack has put so much work into his study of the Beatles it’s absolutely impressive. There’s a lot on the site for you to delve into as little or as much as you like and I highly recommend checking it out.
Choose one tune and pick it apart, then go write one like it.
I know I end up learning something new every time I go there.
