Beatles FAQ

When I taught myself piano I liked to see how far I could go, and this started life almost as a piece you’d learn as a piano lesson. It’s quite hard for me to play, it’s a two-handed thing, like a little set piece .... I wrote it as that, something a bit more complex for me to play’    Paul McCartne y Many Years From Now, Barry Miles Paul dabbled with the piano since early childhood when he listened to his father play in the family living room. As with every other instrument, he did not use sheet music but learned by exploration  and experimentation. While he lodged with the Asher family,  (1964/66) he began devising his own exercises. One of these would end up on The Beatles - better known as the White Album Words The love object of Martha My Dear is in the photo Then while I was blocking out words – you just mouth out sounds and some things come – I found the words ‘Martha my dear’. Many assumed that 'Martha' was Jane Asher. Others suspected it was one of the other...

  This is kind of amazing for someone who doesn't read a note of music Paul McCartney on receiving an Honorary Fellowship to the Royal College of Music, 2017   None of the Beatles could read or write music. This was largely by choice. John, Paul and George all had opportunities to study music either at school or through private lesson. None got past the first few lessons.   Only Ringo certainly could genuinely claim to have been deprived of a musical education. Prolonged periods of ill health meant that his formal schooling was extremely sporadic. Even more than the others he relied on musical intuition.  In an interview Ringo once explained that time signatures 'were like ancient Egyptian to him when described in formal terms. He was baffled by the instruction to play 7/4 in the 'sun, sun, sun, here it comes' section Here Comes the Sun until it was practically demonstrated to him   All four had access to an instrument by adolescence - though in Ringo'...