Paul McCartney: Paradigm Shifter

Joel Arthur Barker wrote a great book in the 1980s about paradigms and how paradigms shift when new evidence is developed to solve outstanding problems with the current perspective. He had some great lines, like "when the paradigm shifts, everything goes back to zero."

One thing I remember about his research is that very often the paradigm shifter comes from outside the accepted mainstream. The reason for this is that those who apply themselves from the outside come to the problem with a different perspective. Today we don't talk too much about paradigms. In the business world, the current language is about disruption. Clayton Christensen has written extensively about innovation and how it creates disruption in marketplaces. The message is the same: when disruption occurs, everything goes back to zero. Think of the rules being rewritten by many technology companies that derived business models that fundamentally changed the game through innovation in creating new solutions to problems that weren't being addressed by existing business leaders.

Remember upstart Dell demolishing IBM's market share in computers? Remember upstart Walt Disney inventing the feature length cartoon and turning out the highest grossing movie ever with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, when nobody in Hollywood would dare try to make a full length feature cartoon? He did the same with the reinvention of the amusement part and was laughed at when he said he was going to build Disneyland and charge admission. It was unheard of at the time. There is no shortage of stories about paradigm shifters, and I find them fascinating.

I recently came across a story about ex-Beatle Paul McCartney. The man who signed The Beatles to a recording contract after they were turned down by every major recording company in England was their eventual record producer, George Martin.

Writing in his 1979 memoirs "All You Need Is Ears," George Martin talks about how in his opinion, both John Lennon and Paul McCartney's lack of formal musical training played a major part in their success as a song writers and composers. With regards to Paul, he writes:

"I think that if Paul, for instance, had learned music 'properly' -- not just the piano, but correct notation for writing and reading music, all the harmony and counterpoint that I had to go through, and techniques of orchestration -- it might well have inhibited him. He thought so too. (And after all, why should he bother, when he had someone around who could do it for him?) Once you start being taught things, your mind is channelled in a particular way. Paul didn't have that channelling, so he had freedom, and could think of things that I would have considered outrageous. I could admire them, but my musical training would have prevented me from thinking of them myself. I think, too, that the ability to write good tunes often comes when someone is not fettered by the rules and regulations of harmony and counterpoint. A tune is a one-fingered thing, something that you can whistle in the street; it doesn't depend on great harmonies. The ability to create them is simply a gift." (All You Need Is Ears, P.p. 139-140)

 George Martin was a classically trained musician with all of the fixings. The Fab Four were self-trained but determined lads who George Martin didn't think were anything too special when he first listened to them, but liked them personally and was looking for a new band for his Parlophone record label. Somehow Paul and John were able to craft catchy pop songs combined with a particular cheeky and likable persona that appealed to the masses. To a great degree, says George Martin, they were able to succeed to the extent that they did because they were outsiders uninhibited by the existing rules of the music business. Whatever seemingly crazy musical idea they had, they would set producer George Martin about the task of figuring out how to achieve it. For example, the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album was recorded by Mr. Martin on four-track tape, and was considered a monumental achievement of music recording at the time, and will always be admired as a breakthrough in recording innovation.

I used to think that producer George Martin was the secret to the Beatles success, but while he played a considerable role in bringing their audible visions to reality, he claims that almost all of the big ideas regarding the content of the music came from "the lads."

While reading about The Beatles recently online, I came across a reference to popular and successful classical composer of the 20th century (who's name I can't recall) who was once asked who the great arrangers of the 20th century were and his first choice was Paul McCartney for his compositional vision of the elements of those great and timeless Beatles songs. Both he and John Lennon, and I suppose all great composers, would compose in his head and play with arrangements until they sounded the way he wanted them to sound, then they would bring their ideas to Mr. Martin, who would help them achieve their vision in the recording studio.