I bought the hardcover version of this book a few years ago, and now I bought it for my Kindle, because (1) the hardcover is large, and I want to carry it with me, and (2) I'm getting older, and my eyesight is not so good, so I can enlarge the font size on the Kindle.
That said, I've been enjoying and learning from this book for years. I've started at the beginning and read my way into this book several times, and each time I understand more and get farther in. I don NOT have any previous education or training in music theory, but I have been trying to learn through the years, and this book helps make sense of the music and the theory.
I've been arranging and playing Beatles tunes on guitar (and now ukulele) for over 40 years now, and while I can put together chords and melodies, and play them, I still wonder how they came up with many of those chord changes and progressions, the key changes ... like, where did this come from? How does that make sense? This book helps piece it all together.
The book is well organized for people like me. It starts with the simple things (the V to I chord progression, the three-chord trick) and moves slowly forward and upward in complexity, taking one step (one chapter) at a time. There's a bunch of appendices, including the first one explaining some basics of music theory, maybe the best short explanation I've read anywhere.
And it puts all these ideas in the context of music that I already know, so I can hear the examples of the theoretical points being made. The power of this book come from the interplay of the theory and the music, where the author uses each to explain the other. So you can think of this as a book using music theory to explain the Beatles' music, or as a book using the Beatles' music to illustrate music theory.
Of course, Lennon and McCartney and Harrison didn't think about the music that they wrote and played in terms of the music theory presented in this book. Many of the "new" ideas that they brought to their songwriting were actually known tricks, bits and pieces that they took from their early repertoire of covers, and then mixed and matched into new combinations. An important part of their artistry was their ability to find which combinations "worked". This book brings that out, crediting the early pioneers pop and rock-n-roll, and also showing what the Beatles took from those early hits and how they fit those bits together.
Besides the well-thought-out sequential organization of this book (going from simpler to more complex), the writing is well paced and accessible. Mr Pedlar doesn't drag points out overly long, nor does he rush through material or make sudden jumps. Given that the ideas and language of music theory are not particularly intuitive, his writing pace is comfortable and understandable.
I have to read some parts several times to understand them, because I first have to understand the pieces, and then I have to understand the relationships between those pieces. That's what learning is about. I don't already know this stuff.
So if you want to learn and understand music theory, and you're interested in learning and understanding the music of the Beatles, this is The Book.
Read it. Study it. Enjoy it. Use it.
IMPORTANT ADDENDUM: the e-book has LOTS of typographical and formatting errors when representing chords. The author uses Roman Numerals to show chord relations across keys, with capital Roman Numerals representing major chords and lowercase Roman Numerals representing minor chords. In the translation from the paper copy to the digital format, a LOT of the cases were lost or changed. So instead of reading what the author wrote and meant, you often have to stop and figure out what was intended before you can move on to get to the point. This happens repeatedly. I would GREATLY appreciate an edit, correction, and reissue of the digital version of this book. More so as my ageing vision has difficulty with the (small) print version, and digital books allow for increasing text size to match the readers' needs.
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2013
- Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2024
Top reviews from other countries
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- N HAYNESReviewed in the United Kingdom on November 11, 2013
If you buy just one book on song writing then this is the one to get.
- Donald BeauchampReviewed in Canada on November 10, 2017
Waiting for the next Beatles record release? Now we can attempt to write one ourselves...Don't laugh...READ the book !
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netuno60Reviewed in Brazil on August 4, 2018
Ótimo livro de referência técnica de composição.
