Lessons in Creativity and Collaboration from The Beatles

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There are many talking points from Peter Jackson’s epic Beatles documentary Get Back which is one of the series’ joys. Not least is insight into the creative process which saw the Fab Four write, arrange, record and perform dozens of songs within a short deadline.

https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/lessons-in-creativity-and-collaboration-from-the-beatles/

Tom Whitwell at UK-based consultancy calls the docuseries “a masterclass in facilitation and management” and suggests that there it holds lessons for anyone in the creative industries wanting to harness the muse.

Here’s some of the thinking.

 

The ‘yes… and’ rule

The first rule of improvisation  and brainstorming is “yes…and” (explained here https://www.amindapart.org.uk/blog/the-real-meaning-of-the-improv-rule-yes-and/. When someone suggests an idea, plays a note, says a line, you accept it completely, then build on it. The moment someone says ‘no’, the flow is broken.

Yet as the Beatles slog through ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, George breaks the spell. Instead of building and accepting he leaps to judgement, saying “I think it’s awful.” Immediately, John and Paul lay down the rules: “Well, have you got anything?” “you’ve gotta come up with something better”.

“It’s part of deferring judgement, where you strictly separate idea generation from idea selection,” Whitwell says. “Don’t judge, build.”

Defer judgement

But at other times, Paul, John and producer Glyn Johns keep at it: pouring out idea after idea. Some of them awful but most are just technical ways to reframe the problem: play it faster, play it slower, change the order, change the instruments, add repetition, remove repetition.

“They don’t judge the idea, they judge execution,” Whitwell says, pointing out that this is the central idea of the Double Diamond design process as described here by the UK’s Design Council. 

Use rapid prototyping

The deadlines on the project are self-imposed. The band don’t have to get back together. Their lives and creative passions are increasingly divergent from being in The Beatles. But they all have enough camaraderie and desire reunite with the goal of a live performance (their first in years) seeming to galvanise even the most reluctant of them.

Perhaps that self-imposed deadline, less than a month, was necessary in order to jump start the jamming. As McCartney said “we’ve got to do it methodically this one… we’ve got to get some system to get through 20–30 songs.”

According to Whitwell, this ‘production line’ work ethic is akin to rapid prototyping but it was anathema to Harrison who at that stage preferred a more laid back  long form approach.

It’s not clear what the lesson is here. The best (most well known) new songs on Let it Be are majority written by McCartney yet Harrison took all of his ideas into the album All Things Must Pass released two years later. In addition, many of the tunes from Let It Be are picked up from ideas discarded by The Beatles previously (Dig a Pony, One after 909).

 

One conversation at a time

It’s striking how polite everyone is. Perhaps it’s editing, but nobody speaks over anyone else.

“Everyone has a chance to be heard, which means people spend most of the time listening, rather than talking (apart from Paul, perhaps). This is another lesson from musical and theatrical improvisation. The difference between a creative environment and a bunch of people shouting out ideas is the listening.”

Don’t be scared to be stupid

There are many terrible ideas captured in the sessions — stupid voices, awful lyrics. None of them make it to the final album (apart from Maxwell’s Silver Hammer), but they spark other ideas that do.

“It takes a lot of meandering to find something good, but finding the edges — the extremes that don’t work — gets there faster,” says Whitwell who adds that Fluxx uses an exercise called ‘Worst Possible Idea’ to unblock a tired team.

Pretend to be someone else

During the January 1969 sessions, The Beatles played 405 different songs, including their own, from Chuck Berry songs to the theme from The Third Man.

This is clearly a way for the group to warm up and to relax and also to take their mind away from solving a lyrical block or a musical impasse. It’s like going for a run or doing exercise – it liberates the mind and can energising.

“It lets you lower your defences and relax. In their context, it’s the exact opposite of trying to write a song.”

Don’t repeat the same idea

The original documentary director Michael Lindsay-Hogg wants the band to travel to Libya to play at the Sabratha amphitheatre in Tripoli. But the more he tries to get The Beatles to agree to it, the more they resist (it appears). The moral: don’t pitch the same idea again, expecting a different response.

Change it up

I’d add a couple more to Whitwell’s listing. One would be change the environment. The first half of the sessions took place in a giant echoey TV studio. Lennon was stoned, the vibe wasn’t quite happening. When they moved to the more intimate environment of the Apple building basement, albeit still with TV cameras, the whole group evidently felt more at home.

To which add change the group dynamics. Arguably the arrival of keyboard player Billy Preston did more than anything to bring the collection of half-written songs alive.

You could also add listen to your team mates. The clear source of tension is Lennon and McCartney’s shut out of Harrison’s compositions which has happened over a period of time. Harrison walks out and the other band members do go, talk to him and bring him back on board. It’s enough to finish the album but Let It Be would have been so much better if it had included more of Harrison’s work that he later went onto release on ‘All Things Must Pass’.