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Can Chris Martin Read Music?


rpindacity

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This is a question I have always wondered. I am curious to know because I also cannot read music and have successfully written songs, but am wondering if knowing how to read music and names of chords would be helpful to write and/;or translate a song from the piano to the guitar.

 

Here are videos of Chris descibing the songwriting process

 

 

 

- around the 5 minute mark

 

Both describe Chris as not knowing what he is doing when he is writing and just randmoly trying things, does anybody have an opinion on what he really knows? Any music theory, such as chords, or really nothing?

 

Any knowledge/opinion is really appreciated and will give me confidence in my own songwriting process! thanks

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in the beginning of the first video from South Bank Show, Chris does say that he can't read music. of course, that video is about 8 years old at this point, but i would guess he hasn't bothered to learn since then :P

Wow for someone who does great music but can't read music. Whoa so much respect for Chris. Haha how awkward it must have been for Chris being asked this question while his mum teaches music for a living. [emoji12]

 

Sent from my D5503 using Coldplaying mobile app

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Wow for someone who does great music but can't read music. Whoa so much respect for Chris. Haha how awkward it must have been for Chris being asked this question while his mum teaches music for a living. [emoji12]

 

Sent from my D5503 using Coldplaying mobile app

 

honestly, that probably helps him. so he most likely has a good foundation of how to play music, just not how to read it :P

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  • 5 weeks later...

Read that he took piano lessons for a couple years as a kid. They require you to read music but some people stop reading after they finish lessons. It's easy to forget how to read sheet music if you never feel the need to do so. You won't forgot completely but will have a lot of remembering to do lol.

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No. Chris can neither read or write music. He has stated in the past this also helps him break thorough the limitations of constructing music in an old fashioned way. It's also why him and Jonny come up with chords and rhythms not tried or heard before, GPASUYF being an example.

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  • 1 year later...

It is so easy to forget to read music. I played clarinet for 7 years and had forgotten by the first year after I quit. I still have muscle memory for some songs we played all the time 20 years later though. Weird!

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  • 6 months later...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id=UpLXEIJ_6V0;t=28

 

In this interview from 2005, he talks about this "weird chord thing that's too geeky to go on about" in What If..anyone know what he's alluding to?

 

I believe he's alluding to the very end, where the strings do this chromatic (note-by-note) ascending thing, which is pretty unusual. In fact, it's the exact kind of thing someone would come up with if they can't read music because if you don't know what you're doing sometimes all you can do is go to the next note on the piano. GPASUYF is the same sort of chromatic thing, except instead it's descending instead of ascending.

 

Or Guy came up with it. :p

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