Models
 
We cannot trace with certainty all of the stylistic influences on the Beatles to American models. Music hall repertoire, bawdy ballads, and drinking songs clearly played a role in their musical upbringing and shaping. Moreover, they evolved their own characteristic responses to these influences. The mix of America at a distance and post-war British popular and folk music culture combined in Lennon and McCartney's minds and resulted in something distinctly different than the originals.
They began by copying. The Beatles were students of the music they loved. They began simply with genres like skiffle and gradually moved to material that was either more complicated structurally (for example, having chromatic or altered chords) or difficult to perform convincingly.
The Beatles spent years studying music. Their conservatory consisted of the bars, dancehalls, and cinema stages with hours spent studying recordings during which they did the two things that every conservatory student does: learn repertoire and hone technique. Like anything else human, the Beatles built on what came before them. In the realm of culture, humanity builds on what our forebears have provided, endlessly modifying and adapting; sometimes repeating exactly; sometimes developing ideas that seem startlingly new.
Although genres are nortoriously difficult to define, we can identify four general styles that the Beatles imitated in their performances and upon which Lennon and McCartney drew when they composed songs.
 
Rhythm and Blues Rockabilly Rock and Roll Tin Pan Alley (Pop)
       

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Lennon and McCartney Outline Songwriting
  31-aug-09