Halfway through “In My Life”, on the Beatles’ 1965 album Rubber Soul, the voices fall silent and a keyboard takes over. It sounds like a harpsichord: bright, crisp, two lines chasing each other. It is not a harpsichord. It is a piano, played by producer George Martin at half speed and then sped up on tape.

John Lennon had asked for something Baroque. Martin gave him something Bach-like. In about fifteen seconds, two centuries collapse into a pop song.

People often say there would be no classical music without Bach, and no pop music as we know it without the Beatles. Is that true? And if these two really did shape everything that came after them, what did freedom mean to each of them: the Lutheran church musician in Leipzig and the four young men from Liverpool?

Origins and reference points

Bach did not invent classical music, and in his own lifetime he was not even fashionable. In 1737 the critic Johann Adolph Scheibe attacked his style as overloaded and unnatural. Younger composers wanted lightness and clear melody, and Bach’s dense counterpoint sounded old-fashioned.

After his death in 1750, the public largely set him aside. Musicians did not. Mozart discovered Bach’s fugues around 1782 through Baron Gottfried van Swieten’s Sunday gatherings in Vienna, and it changed how he wrote. The young Beethoven learned The Well-Tempered Clavier as a boy in Bonn. Bach became a private school for composers before he became a public monument.

That monument arrived in 1829, when the twenty-year-old Felix Mendelssohn conducted the St Matthew Passion in Berlin. Only then did Bach begin to stand at the head of the tradition, where we now place him.

The Beatles did not invent pop music either. They grew out of Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers, Motown, skiffle and the British music hall. They worked alongside Bob Dylan and the Beach Boys, who pushed them as much as they pushed back.

Neither Bach nor the Beatles started their music. Both became its reference point, the place later musicians return to when they want to know what the language can do. I find that more interesting than invention. They understood what they inherited so well that they changed what it meant.

Three roads from Leipzig to Liverpool

Bach reaches the Beatles by three roads: through a producer, through a guitarist’s fingers, and through a single sound.

1. The producer’s pastiche: “In My Life” (1965)

The solo in “In My Life” is George Martin’s, not the band’s. Martin was classically trained, and he wrote the passage in the style of Bach’s keyboard writing: two independent lines that answer each other rather than a melody over chords.

To hear the family resemblance, play the song and then one of Bach’s Two-Part Inventions. The A major invention, BWV 783, makes a good partner. Listen for the way the two hands answer each other. The tunes are different and the method is the same, translated for a pop record by a classically trained musician.

2. The musician’s own hands: “Blackbird” (1968)

The most direct Bach connection comes from a Beatle himself. Paul McCartney has explained that the guitar part of “Blackbird” grew out of Bach’s Bourrée in E minor, from the Lute Suite BWV 996. As teenagers, he and George Harrison used to play the bourrée as a party piece to show off.

McCartney kept the idea that caught his ear, a melody and a bass line moving against each other on one guitar, and built a new song on it. His fingers had learned it years before he used it.

3. The borrowed sound: “Penny Lane” (1967)

In early 1967 McCartney watched the trumpeter David Mason play Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 on BBC television. He wanted that bright, high piccolo trumpet on “Penny Lane”. Mason was booked, and the solo he played became one of the most recognisable sounds of the decade.

Nothing of Bach’s structure is in the song. What came across is the colour of his trumpet writing, set in a song about a Liverpool street.

An aside: “Because” (1969)

Not every classical echo in the Beatles is Bach. “Because”, on Abbey Road, began when Lennon heard Yoko Ono play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and asked her to play the chords backwards. Martin added an electric harpsichord; Lennon, McCartney and Harrison sang three-part harmony three times over, nine voices in all. Their classical listening went well beyond Bach.

Two meanings of freedom

The musical links are clear enough. What freedom meant to each of them is a harder question, and here they part ways.

Bach: freedom for something

Bach was a Lutheran, and Lutheran thought gave him a very particular idea of freedom. In On the Freedom of a Christian (1520), Martin Luther set out a paradox. A Christian is completely free and answers to no one. At the same time, a Christian is the willing servant of everyone. For Luther, freedom was an inner liberty that made service possible, and obligation was part of it.

Bach lived inside that idea. He wrote “S.D.G.” at the end of his scores: Soli Deo Gloria, to God alone the glory. He meant his music as an offering more than as self-expression in the modern sense, and the strict rules of counterpoint belonged to that offering. Within those rules he found more room than almost anyone before or since.

He could also be very stubborn. In 1717 he wanted to leave Weimar for a better post in Köthen. The Duke refused to release him, Bach insisted, and the Duke had him locked up for about four weeks before dismissing him in disgrace. In Leipzig, where he worked from 1723 until his death, he quarrelled with the town council for years over money, singers and his duties.

So Bach’s freedom had two layers: inwardly, serving something greater than himself; outwardly, defending his independence as an artist.

The Beatles: freedom from something

For the Beatles, freedom mostly meant getting out from under the music industry and from what people expected of them.

In 1966 they stopped touring. Screaming crowds drowned out the music, and the studio offered more. From then on the recording studio was their instrument, and an album could be a single work of art instead of a set of singles.

In 1968 they founded Apple Corps to run their own business and support other artists on their own terms. Within two years it had descended into chaos, which suggests that independence needs some structure of its own.

They also took stands. In 1964 they refused to play the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida, unless the audience was desegregated, and the organisers gave in.

Their politics were less settled. Lennon’s “Revolution” (1968) is openly unsure whether to join the radical movements of the day or stay out of them. The Beatles were symbols of change, but never a unified movement. They disagreed with each other, and Lennon disagreed with himself.

Bach’s freedom pointed upward, towards God, and outward, towards the community he served. The Beatles’ freedom started as escape, from touring and from the idea of what a pop group should be.

Harrison’s way back

George Harrison, the quietest Beatle, took the idea somewhere else. After meeting Ravi Shankar and studying Indian music and philosophy, he came to see freedom as liberation from the ego itself. “Within You Without You” (1967) is built on that idea: the self is small, and real freedom lies in seeing beyond it.

That is surprisingly close to Bach, despite the different religion and the two centuries between them. Both believed you find freedom by losing yourself in something larger, and that discipline helps you get there.

So perhaps Bach and the Beatles are closer than their worlds suggest. Bach found new worlds inside the musical order of his age. The Beatles found them by stretching the boundaries of theirs, and one of them ended up where Bach began.

If you make music, teach or lead a team, there is a practical point here. A Bach fugue and a Beatles harmony work the same way: independent voices, each with its own line, making something none of them could make alone. The freedom comes from knowing the form well enough to play with it.

Listening list

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16 short stories, each paired with a classical music piece and a philosopher’s perspective. Discover Jorgy’s Shorts — fiction that makes you think.

Twenty-Four Centuries at One Table: The Range Behind Jorgy’s Shorts

One thing that only becomes visible once all sixteen stories in Jorgy’s Shorts sit side by side is just how much time the book actually spans — not in its own pages, which cover a handful of ordinary weeks in one person’s life, but in the company it keeps.

Three centuries of music

The musical recommendations in Jorgy’s Shorts run from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, composed around 1741, through to Philip Glass’s score for The Hours, written in 2002 — a span of roughly 260 years. In between sits almost the entire story of Western classical music: the poise of Haydn and Mozart in the late 18th century, the Romantic ache of Schubert and Mendelssohn in the 19th, and then the 20th century’s turn toward irony, fracture, and reinvention in Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartók, Shostakovich, Janáček, and Prokofiev, before the book closes with the minimalist stillness of Satie and Glass.

This wasn’t an attempt to write a music history syllabus. Each piece was chosen because it fit a particular story — because Stravinsky’s Petrushka really does sound like a fairground puppet’s dignity collapsing in public, and Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony really does behave like a polite chord landing exactly where a locked garden gate would. But the byproduct of choosing music this way, story by story, is a collection that ends up sampling nearly three centuries of composition almost by accident — proof, maybe, that the feelings these stories are built around (embarrassment, tenderness, quiet defiance, the ache of a farewell) haven’t changed all that much since Bach’s time, even if the music used to describe them has.

Twenty-four centuries of philosophy

The philosophical range is even wider, and considerably stranger to hold in your head all at once. The book opens with Aristotle, writing in Athens in the 4th century BC, and closes with Ludwig Wittgenstein, writing in Cambridge in the 20th century AD — a gap of roughly 2,300 years between the first thinker in the book and the last.

In between, the sixteen stories move through almost every major current in Western philosophy: the classical ethics of Aristotle and Socrates; the Hellenistic schools of Epicurus, Seneca, and Epictetus, all of them more interested in how to actually live than in abstract system-building; the Enlightenment rigor of Hume, Kant, and Spinoza; the 19th century’s great unsettlers, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, each in his own way arguing that reason doesn’t run the show as much as we’d like to think; and finally a cluster of 20th-century voices — Bergson, Arendt, Camus, Beauvoir, Wittgenstein — writing in the shadow of two world wars, each trying to work out what freedom, judgment, or meaning could still look like afterward.

What’s striking, story by story, is how differently each of these thinkers reads the exact same kind of small, ordinary moment. A garden dispute gets read by Aristotle as a question of timing and self-restraint. A dance floor becomes, for Beauvoir, a question of who is willing to risk being seen. A stolen pile of tiles becomes, under Socrates’s questioning, a small but genuine test of what someone actually believes about justice, once you take away their excuses one at a time. None of these readings cancel each other out. They’re simply what happens when twenty-four centuries of serious thinking are all pointed, one at a time, at the same unassuming man going about his week.

Why this matters for the book

Jorgy’s Shorts was never trying to be a philosophy textbook, or a music appreciation course dressed up as fiction. But the range does something worth naming directly: it quietly suggests that the questions these stories ask — how to handle an insult, when to intervene, what’s owed to a stranger, how to live with disappointment — are not new. People have been turning them over for as long as people have been writing anything down at all, in every century represented on this list, set to whatever music happened to be new at the time.

Reading the book alongside its music, one story and one thinker at a time, is a way of noticing that continuity — and maybe of feeling a little less alone in whatever ordinary, unresolved moment sent you looking for the book in the first place.

Buy the book!

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For many of us, certain songs are the soundtrack of growing up. They hold memories of teenage hopes, fears, rules, rebellion, confusion, and longing. Davies helped create that kind of music, especially with Roger Hodgson in Supertramp. Two songs, “School” (1974) and “The Logical Song” (1979), always come to mind when I think of high school, not just the classes and exams, but the search to understand who I was, beyond what I was supposed to become.

“School”  Rules, Rebellion, and Seeking Something Beyond

The song “School,” the opening track of Crime of the Century, captures that moment in adolescence when you see both the structure and the cracks within it. (Wikipedia)

In school, I remember rushing to class in the mornings, carrying heavy backpacks, hearing the school bell, and feeling like I was being shaped, told what to believe, what to do, and how to act. But what about all the other lessons, the ones they never teach? What about creativity, intuition, and identity? “They don’t really prepare us for life in terms of teaching us who we are on the inside.” (Wikipedia)

There was a hallway in our school that always felt like a doorway between childhood and something bigger. Friends joked around, and we whispered questions to ourselves, like ‘What do I want?’ The fear of looking foolish was a lesson that mattered more than anything in a textbook. School taught me that asking questions is part of growing up.

“The Logical Song”  Identity, Labels, and the Search for Self

Five years after School, Supertramp released The Logical Song on Breakfast in America. This became one of their biggest hits. (Wikipedia)

Roger Hodgson wrote it from a deeply personal place, about being sent away to boarding school, about being taught to be “logical, responsible, clinical…” but not always shown how to be sensitive, emotional, or truly yourself. (Louder)

When I hear “The Logical Song,” I’m taken back to those moments after class, sitting under a tree or walking home, and asking myself: Who am I, outside of those labels? The smart kid, the quiet one, the one who obeys, the one who laughs too loud, which of those is really me, and which are just expectations?

That line in the song, “Please tell me who I am,” feels universal. We all carry it, especially when we’re young, trying to balance what people tell us to be with what we feel inside.

Rick Davies’ Legacy & What It Means Now

With Rick Davies gone, we haven’t just lost a musician, we’ve lost someone who gave voice to the struggle between fitting in and being yourself. He played, wrote, and sang music that made room for both structure and questions. School and The Logical Song aren’t just nostalgic; they still matter because the issues they explore, never really go away.

Reflecting on Davies, I feel grateful for the music he created with Hodgson and the rest of Supertramp, particularly the piano, harmonies, and sharp lyrics. He reminded us that what matters isn’t just what school teaches or what society expects, but what we truly believe inside.

My School Self, Now

I never expected to become a music blogger or someone who looks back at those years with both fondness and a critical eye. But here I am, listening to School again or humming The Logical Song, and realizing something important: those songs were my first teachers. They showed me that rules matter, but they can’t define who we are. Labels can help, but they can also hold us back.

Thank you, Rick Davies, for the music, the questions, and your voice. Your songs will echo far beyond classrooms and hallways, in everyone who ever wondered who they were beyond what they were taught.

Supertramp’s School and the Spirit of Prokofiev

When I think about Supertramp’s School from Crime of the Century (1974), it takes me back to my own high school days, the long hallways, the rules, the quiet questions about who I was supposed to become. It also reminds me of someone unexpected from the classical music world: Sergei Prokofiev.

At first, it might seem like a stretch. What could a Russian composer from the 20th century have in common with a British rock band from the 1970s? But if you listen closely, you start to hear the connection.

Sergei Prokofiev

• Known for sarcastic, playful, yet serious music.
• Works like Peter and the Wolf or Classical Symphony mix innocence and satire, much like Supertramp’s ironic view of school and society.
• The sharp, percussive piano style in Supertramp recalls Prokofiev’s biting piano writing.

Irony in Sound

Prokofiev’s music often has a sharp, satirical feel. His Classical Symphony sounds playful at first, but there’s something biting underneath. In the same way, School starts with a child’s harmonica and playground sounds, but soon shifts to a strong, percussive piano that hints at tension and rebellion. Both Prokofiev and Supertramp use irony, sounding playful while asking serious questions about authority and fitting in.

Structure and Rebellion

Supertramp’s School is built almost like a mini-symphony, with a slow, moody start, tight rhythms, a big climax, and a thoughtful ending. Prokofiev did something similar in his piano concertos, mixing beautiful melodies with sudden bursts of rhythm and dissonance. Both show us that while structure matters, breaking free from it can be just as powerful.

The Lesson Beneath the Lesson

School isn’t just about school. It’s about what society teaches us to be, and what it leaves out, the unspoken lessons of obedience, labels, and expectations. Prokofiev, who wrote music under Soviet rules, also understood what it was like to balance what you’re supposed to say with what you really want to express. His music often has two voices: the official and the personal.

Why This Matters

Linking School to Prokofiev isn’t just about making a comparison. It shows a timeless struggle: how do we balance the rules we’re given with our own inner voice? Whether it’s the sarcasm in Prokofiev’s symphonies or the strong piano in Supertramp, music helps us push back against being seen as just another logical, responsible, clinical person.

When I listen to School now, I don’t just hear memories from my teenage years. I also hear hints of Prokofiev, reminding me that questioning authority, using irony, and music have always been their own kind of art.

Sound. Sense. Soul.

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Vivaldi’s musical style shares key qualities with hard rock bands like AC/DC. Both create music that is driven, repetitive, virtuosic, and intense, using these traits to deliver powerful emotional impact.

Winter as Hard Rock

Of all the Four Seasons, Winter best shows these traits. Its fast sections are jagged and relentless, evoking icy winds. The strings shiver and tremble like cracking branches. In the middle, the music retreats into quiet stillness, as if sitting by a fire before the storm returns.

And that’s why it resonates so easily with AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” The opening guitar riff in “Thunderstruck” has the same restless energy as Vivaldi’s Winter violin. Both build tension and unleash it in powerful bursts. They evoke thunder, lightning, ice, and storms, turning raw power into music.

When Sound Becomes Force

The Vivaldi-AC/DC link goes beyond surface similarities. Both use:

• Repetition as intensity: the riff, the rhythm, the pulse.
• Contrast as drama: quiet moments that make the storms more overwhelming.
• This music is not just intellectual, it hits you physically and viscerally.

Played on gut strings or electric guitar, both show music is more than sound, it’s something you feel. It’s not “pretty” music, it’s elemental

Why is Classical music boring?

Classical music is often dismissed as “boring” because it seems tied to the conservative establishment, concert halls, polite applause, and traditions that feel frozen in time. However, this view confuses the wrapper with the gift. In their own day, works by Beethoven, Stravinsky, or Bartók were anything but safe: they shocked audiences, provoked scandals, and pushed instruments and performers to their limits. (Knocke, n.d.) Mozart’s operas, although celebrated and highly appreciated, did not receive such a welcome reception at their premieres. Perhaps you can recall this quote?

Too many notes, dear Mozart, too many notes’ is what Emperor Joseph II supposedly said after the first performance of the Entführung aus dem Serail in Vienna’s old Burgtheater. Mozart’s reply was: ‘Just as many as necessary, Your Majesty.

(McGath, 2014)

Closing Reflection

Comparing Vivaldi and AC/DC isn’t just about mixing up genres. Both strive to capture the raw forces of nature: wind, ice, thunder, and fire, proving that music can channel these elements with equal power, no matter the era.

Winter and Thunderstruck are two expressions of the same elemental force. Despite the centuries that separate them, both ignite an overwhelming sense of power; music as fierce as lightning, thunder, or ice.

In that force, we find meaning; music, unchanged in its power, becomes something we feel.

The resonance linking Vivaldi’s “Winter” and AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” lies in their thematic repetition and electrifying energy. Across centuries and genres, their music transforms raw power into an exhilarating, unified force, reminding us that music, above all, is a vital and universal experience.

The post What Makes Vivaldi and AC/DC So Alike? appeared first on MusikRoel.

Why Mödling?

Both composers came to Mödling for the same reasons: peace, quiet, and being close to nature. Beethoven, dealing with hearing loss and the stress of city life, found space here to focus and create. A hundred years later, Schoenberg also used Mödling as a retreat, where he could work on new ideas, paint, teach, and spend time with his family.

What Beethoven Composed in Mödling

Beethoven spent several summers in Mödling between 1817 and 1819, staying in what is now the Beethovenhaus Mödling. This modest dwelling witnessed the birth of some of his most profound and complex works:

The Hammerklavier Sonata (Op. 106)

Beethoven wrote this piano sonata during his first stay in Mödling. Many consider it one of the hardest pieces to play. It belongs to his late period, when his music became more thoughtful and daring. The calm of Mödling gave him the space to work through its challenges.

Missa Solemnis (Op. 123)

Beethoven started this spiritual piece while walking the trails in Mödling. He finished it later, but many of his first ideas came from his time here, showing how he searched for meaning through music.

Diabelli Variations (Op. 120)

This piece started as a small part of a publishing project but grew into a major work exploring musical variation. Beethoven wrote the first drafts in Mödling.

Ludwig van Beethoven’s Residence in Mödling

• Address: Hauptstraße 79, 2340 Mödling, Austria
• Name of House: Beethovenhaus Mödling
• Period: Summers of 1818 and 1819
• Today: A museum dedicated to Beethoven’s time in Mödling. It contains manuscripts, period instruments, and exhibits on the Missa Solemnis and the Hammerklavier Sonata, which he worked on here.
• Website

What Schoenberg Created in Mödling

A hundred years later, in 1918, Arnold Schoenberg moved to Mödling and lived at Bernhardgasse 6, close to where Beethoven once stayed. Schoenberg was starting a new chapter in his life. He was recovering from the war, teaching, and spending a lot of time painting.

Die Jakobsleiter (Jacob’s Ladder)

Schoenberg worked on this unfinished oratorio for years, and he wrote key parts of it in Mödling. The piece is full of spiritual meaning, inspired by the Biblical story of the ladder to heaven and Schoenberg’s own search for understanding.

Move Toward Twelve-Tone Technique

Schoenberg didn’t fully create the twelve-tone method until the 1920s, but his time in Mödling was important for his growth. He wrote several pieces using free atonality and tried out new musical ideas. The beginnings of his new method were already there.

Arnold Schoenberg’s Residence in Mödling

• Address: Bernhardgasse 6, 2340 Mödling, Austria
• Name of House: Arnold Schoenberg-Haus Mödling
• Period: 1918–1925
• Today: A museum and cultural site featuring Schoenberg’s music, paintings, and personal items. This is where he composed parts of Die Jakobsleiter and developed key ideas leading to his twelve-tone method.
• Website

What Can We Learn from Mödling?

Both Beethoven and Schoenberg came to Mödling when they needed a change and time to think. Their time here shows that creativity often starts in quiet places, away from the city, where artists can walk, reflect, and work in peace.

If you visit Vienna, consider stopping by Mödling. You can walk the same trails where Beethoven worked on his music and see the windows where Schoenberg dreamed up new ideas. Who knows, you might find your own inspiration there too.

At this moment, I live in Mödling and wish that the creativity that emerges from these composers will find its way to me.

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Bach mastered fugues and counterpoint. The Beatles, four young musicians, changed popular music forever. What connects them? Maybe the answer lies in the numbers. More than we might think.

The Architecture of Sound

Bach’s music is built on structure, mathematical, elegant, and deeply moving. His fugues grow piece by piece, each voice adding to a complete whole. The Beatles, especially in their later albums, also explored layered structures and musical logic. For example, “Because” from Abbey Road features three-part harmonies inspired by a Beethoven sonata played in reverse. In “Paperback Writer,” Paul’s bassline weaves its own melody alongside the vocals.

These are no mere coincidences. The Beatles, though self-taught in many ways, were surrounded by producers and musicians steeped in the tradition of Western art music. George Martin, their producer, often called the “Fifth Beatle”, was trained in classical music and regularly translated their experimental instincts into structured, orchestrated arrangements.

Bach built fugues. The Beatles built soundscapes. Both were architects of musical space.

Finding the connections

1. Influence on Composition:
   • Bach’s intricate counterpoint and harmonic structures have influenced many musicians, including The Beatles. For instance, the piano solo in “In My Life” is said to be inspired by Bach’s Inventions, demonstrating how classical techniques can be blended with popular music.
2. Musical Techniques:
   • The Beatles often incorporated classical elements into their songs, which can be traced back to the influence of Bach. Their use of melodic lines and harmonic progressions reflects a profound understanding of musical theory, as exemplified by Bach.
3. George Martin’s Role:
   • George Martin, the producer for The Beatles, had a classical background and appreciated Bach’s work. His arrangements often incorporated classical techniques, which helped bridge the gap between classical and popular music.
4. Cultural Impact:
   • Both Bach and The Beatles have left an indelible mark on music history. Bach is often regarded as the pinnacle of Baroque music, while The Beatles revolutionized pop and rock music. Their legacies continue to inspire musicians across genres.
5. Personal Connections:
   • Paul McCartney has mentioned that Bach was a significant influence on him, particularly in his songwriting. This personal connection adds another layer to their relationship, as McCartney sought to incorporate Bach’s genius into his own work.

Bach’s numbers

Johann Sebastian Bach’s music is not only celebrated for its emotional depth and technical mastery but also for its intricate relationship with numbers and numerology. Here are some fascinating insights into the importance of numbers in Bach’s compositions:

1. Numerical Symbolism:
   • Bach often embedded symbolic numbers in his works, drawing from biblical and personal meanings. For instance, the number 14 (derived from the letters in his name: B+A+C+H) appears frequently in his compositions, symbolizing his identity and faith.
2. Mathematical Structure:
   • Bach’s approach to composition was highly mathematical. He could efficiently create entire works from a single line of music, showcasing his ability to manipulate musical ideas through numerical relationships.
3. Significance of Specific Numbers:
   • The number 3 often represents Divinity, while 4 symbolizes Humanity. The number 7 is particularly significant as it symbolizes perfection and is often associated with Christ, who embodies both human and divine qualities.
4. Fibonacci Sequence:
   • Bach’s music also incorporates elements of the Fibonacci sequence, with numbers like 144 and 233 appearing in his vocal works. These numbers are known for their mathematical properties and aesthetic appeal, contributing to the overall beauty of his compositions.
5. Mathematical Patterns:
   • Recent studies have revealed that Bach’s music contains mathematical patterns that help convey information and emotions, demonstrating his genius in blending art with mathematics.

I visited the house in Leipzig where Bach lived and composed, opposite the church and its choir, where he conducted. Numbers also played a role in his life, like, he had two wives and nineteen children.

The numbers of The Beatles

Numbers and numerology do play intriguing roles in The Beatles’ music, particularly through the perspectives of the band members, especially John Lennon. Here are some fascinating points to consider:

1. John Lennon’s Fascination with Number Nine:
   • John Lennon had a significant connection with the number 9. He was born on October 9, 1940, and often referred to the number as meaningful in his life. He even mentioned that he felt he was a number six or three, but it all tied back to nine. This number appears in various contexts in his work and life.
2. Song Lyrics and Numbers:
   • The Beatles frequently incorporated numbers into their lyrics. For example, in the song “Eight Days a Week,” the title itself emphasizes the number 8, suggesting an endless love. Similarly, in “One After 909,” the number 9 is prominent, reflecting Lennon’s personal significance to that number.
3. Numerical Patterns:
   • Some fans and analysts have observed that certain songs feature numerical patterns or structures that convey a deeper meaning. For instance, the counting in “One, Two, Three, Four” from “All My Loving” sets a rhythmic and thematic foundation that resonates with listeners.
4. Cultural References:
   • The Beatles’ music often reflects broader cultural themes, and numbers can symbolize various concepts. For example, the number 7 is often associated with perfection, which can be seen in the way they crafted their songs.
5. Lennon’s Spirituality:
   • Lennon’s interest in numerology and spirituality, which developed later in life, also influenced his music. He explored various philosophies that often incorporated numerological elements, which are also evident in his solo work.

The interplay of numbers in The Beatles’ music adds an extra layer of depth and intrigue, much like in Bach’s compositions!

The Beatles song that famously uses a 7/4 time signature is “All You Need Is Love.” This iconic track features a unique structure where the verse pattern is split into two 7/4 measures followed by a bar of 8/4, creating a distinctive rhythmic feel. The chorus then shifts to a steady 4/4 beat, with a final bar of 6/4 at the end. This innovative use of time signatures showcases The Beatles’ creativity and willingness to experiment with musical forms

Sense: Order in Chaos

Bach wrote music to show the order he saw in the world. His work aims for balance, clarity, and completeness. The Beatles, living in a much different time, used music to respond to the chaos of the 1960s. Albums like Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band reflect their search for meaning during a time of change.

There’s a shared logic here: not just the intelligence behind the music, but the sensing of something larger. Something that holds when the rest of the world shakes..

Take the song ‘In My Life.’ Its middle section has a Baroque-style piano solo, sped up to sound like a harpsichord. This is clearly a nod to Bach. More than that, it shows how the past, like our memories, can be brought to life in new ways.

Soul: The Inner Voice

What connects Bach and The Beatles is the spirit in their music

Bach wrote Soli Deo Gloria, “To God alone the glory,” on most of his manuscripts. Every note was an offering. The Beatles, though not religious in the same way, offered their own form of soulfulness. Let It Be, Across the Universe, Blackbird, these are hymns of a different age, but they, too, reach for something sacred.

Bach’s use of numbers adds a profound layer of meaning to his music, inviting listeners to explore not just the sound, but also the underlying structures that make his compositions timeless. Isn’t it fascinating how numbers can intertwine with art in such a meaningful way? If you have more questions about Bach or any other topic, feel free to ask

The connection between Johann Sebastian Bach and The Beatles is quite fascinating, as both have had a profound impact on music in their respective eras. Both remind us that music isn’t just sound. It’s a form of listening to the world, to each other, to the self. Moreover, it’s intriguing to see how Bach’s music has transcended time and influenced modern artists like The Beatles.

Both artists show us that music is more than just sound. It’s a way to listen to the world, to others, and to ourselves.

Where Do We Go from Here?

The real magic may not be in how Bach and The Beatles are similar, but in how their music can connect across time and style. This is the kind of music we celebrate at MusikRoel, where sound leads to meaning, and meaning touches the soul.

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In 1977, amidst emotional wreckage and personal implosion, Fleetwood Mac released ‘Rumours,’ an album that does more than document heartbreak; it lays bare raw humanity and reaches for universal truth.

Some people might call ‘Rumours’ a break-up album, but that doesn’t quite capture it. Break-up albums usually focus on endings. ‘Rumours’ goes further. It shows us what it means to be vulnerable, puts those feelings into music, and gives them back to us—not for sympathy, but so we can see ourselves in them.

A Soundtrack of Emotional Contradiction

Philosophy teaches us that truth is often paradoxical. In ‘Rumours,” the paradoxes abound:

• Stevie Nicks pleads ‘You can go your own way’ yet longs to be understood.
• Christine McVie sings ‘You make loving fun,’ to someone who isn’t her husband.
• Lindsey Buckingham delivers ‘Never Going Back Again,’ right before going back again in another track.

The album is both fragmented and unified, much like life itself. In fact, it’s a sonic example of the Heraclitean flux: everything flows, nothing stays the same, yet there is a beauty in change.

Love as Both Anchor and Abyss

Love has always been complicated, from ancient philosophers to modern thinkers. ‘Rumours’ captures that old struggle between seeing love as something perfect and feeling how it can fall apart.

Each track is a philosophical vignette of lovers trying to make sense of the mess they’ve made together. And not just as romantic partners, but as co-creators. The miracle of the album is not that it was made despite their breakups, but that it was made through them.

Imagine singing to someone who’s hurt you, while they play the music behind you, all while knowing everyone will hear it. That’s what makes this album so powerful.

Production as Emotional Geometry

If Aristotle were alive today, he might have said this album achieves a kind of ‘cathartic symmetry.’ It’s not only the lyrics that hurt, it’s how they’re arranged. Mick Fleetwood’s drumming is precise, like fate. John McVie’s bass lines are as steady as the truths we try to ignore. The harmonies? They hurt because they are so good; they remind us of the beauty we’ve already lost. In ‘The Nicomachean Ethics,’ Aristotle speaks of ‘phronesis,’ practical wisdom. ‘Rumours’ is full of it. Not intellectual wisdom. Not abstract theory. But emotional intelligence takes shape.

Why It Still Haunts

We keep coming back to ‘Rumours’ not just for nostalgia, but because it takes us to emotional places we rarely visit. The album lasts because it’s honest. Even the happiest songs carry a sense of real, human struggle.

The Album Reminds Us:

• That love is sometimes impossible, and still worth trying.
• That honesty doesn’t always heal, but it liberates.
• That music can do what words alone cannot: harmonize our contradictions.

Final Thought: Harmony Through the Wreckage

‘Rumours’ is more than just an album. Fleetwood Mac showed us what it looks like to find dignity in the middle of chaos. They put their pain and hope into the music. As Nietzsche said, ‘We have art so that we shall not die of the truth.’ ‘Rumours’ is that kind of art. It isn’t perfect, and neither are we, but its flaws make it feel complete.

What’s your favorite track on Rumours, and why does it still haunt you? Please share your thoughts below. #PhilosophyOfMusic.

My favorite Rumours song

The post Getting to The Philosophical Depth of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’ appeared first on MusikRoel.

Haapsalu is a town on the seashore about an hour away from Tallinn. Both the setting and the idea appeal to me, particularly for an outdoor performance on a long summer evening in an old castle. These ingredients aroused my curiosity, and in addition, Estonian composers as well as Mozart’s works were on the program.

Highlight of the evening: Songs by Eduard Tubin

The evening started with Tormis. Suite from the Estonian film “The Spring.” The relatively modern composition was a good start to the concert. The audience could get settled with an Estonian narrative that was familiar to them. Later that evening, they performed songs by Tubin arranged by R. Puur. “Õnne ootel” and Kõrvits. “Puudutus.” For me, this was the highlight of the evening: new music to my ears, sung in the beautiful Estonian language, by a performer who felt the meaning of each word, and an audience who opened up. The interpretation and reception of Rubin’s songs was great, or as my former Estonian language teacher would say: “Tubli, tubli.”

Another experience with Mozart

As you undoubtedly know, Mozart is my classical music superhero; his compositions and life story are a huge source of inspiration to me. As a teenager, I loved to play his music, now listening to it, feeling it, experiencing it, and wanting to know more about it every time. In that regard, this evening went differently than expected. I liked the music performance less, which made the evening primarily educational.

The first introduction: La Clemenza di Tito

Sandra Laagus climbed the stage to perform Sesto’s aria “Parto, ma tu ben mio.” A nice choice was to set up the clarinet as a second vocal alongside the singer on the stage; it created an interesting interpretation of this passionate song. Once again, Mozart proves to me how beautifully he brings out the singers’ sound. Go to this YouTube link to see for yourself.

This aria, sung initially by Sesto, expresses Sesto’s dichotomy between his loyalty to Tito and his desire to succumb to his love for Vitellia, who pushes him to attempt the assassination of his best friend. What will he choose? So, a song with a huge emotional charge and also an essential message to all of us. Although I desperately wanted to feel it, I didn’t.

The central theme of La clemenza di Tito is forgiveness. No matter how severe the betrayal, in this case by his wife, Vitellia, and his best friend, Sesto, Tito chooses to demonstrate moral leadership and grants both forgiveness and mercy.

The second chance: Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 1

The last composition before the break was Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-flat major, K. 207. And once more, the same feeling occurred, namely, none at all. So, I started wondering, was it due to the outside air that caused details to be lost? Although we were in a secure walled place, some things did blow over. It certainly could. However, I found that explanation insufficient, so I sought a more satisfactory answer.

Why was this performance thin, as if the musicians didn’t feel the music? And simultaneously, why didn’t it resonate with the audience? There should be an interaction between the two, the interpretation of the music and its reception.

Final proof: Mozart’s Symphony No. 40

Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, composed in 1788, is one of his most well-known works. Also called the “Great G minor Symphony,” this piece stands out due to its emotional depth. Written in a minor key, it expresses deep feelings of tragedy and unrest. Unlike much of Mozart’s music, which is elegant and balanced, Symphony No. 40 feels urgent, stormy, and psychologically restless. Once again, it didn’t do enough for me. It was as if they misinterpreted the “syncope” where to stress, to articulate more, to accentuate, to feel.

Philosophical Meaning of the Symfony

Many interpret this symphony as Mozart’s expression of personal despair and a confrontation with mortality. He composed it during a challenging period characterized by financial stress and loneliness. Unlike other Classical era symphonies that focus on form and balance, this one reveals emotional honesty, psychological depth, and human vulnerability.

Did they understand Mozart?

With they, I mean musicians and audience. Mozart is on one hand mischievous and rebellious, and on the other he wants to bind people and deepen relations in harmony with counterpoint. As a member of the free masons, he had aspirations for a better world and also had a tendency to go against the establishment. Like, for example, his operas where he showed that the nobility are just like us ordinary people and are also capable of bad things. In Prague, they celebrated his Don Giovanni as a testament against the ruling power. An idea of freedom that is just as relevant in Estonia, after centuries of oppression by foreign powers, they can finally enjoy their own language, culture and country in complete freedom! So my advice: acquire a broader understanding. Not only of Mozart’s works, but in general. With the people and cultures we meet. Don’t judge, open up and respect the differences and similarities.

Da Capo: Pärt

Due to the audience’s enthusiasm, the orchestra played another encore, namely a work by Pärt. Music composed of quiet tones that fly unnoticed in the Estonian landscape. This one arrived noticeably with everyone; it was the familiar mix of recognition and comfort. What I want to give everyone, not just with music: go on a journey of discovery and dare to feel. Try to break away from your own framework to understand new music or other cultures better, as it may be misleading you.

Learning to discover and feel?

I strongly encourage everyone to read this book and listen to the accompanying music. Engaging with these stories will not only challenge your limits but also deepen your understanding of music. Don’t miss out on this enriching experience!

Buy the book

It was a beautiful and interesting summer evening.

I found the line-up of the works appropriate to environment and background. I noticed how much Estonians are, rightly so, proud of their heritage, and thus also got to know better the country I love to live in. Afterward, I allowed myself another pleasant drink at Wow Bao while enjoying the white midsummer night.

The post What Makes Haapsalu’s White Night So Special? appeared first on MusikRoel.

In this fragile manuscript, we find not only new notes from a master but echoes of an idea: that music, like thought, like love, is an act of resistance.

George Sand owned this manuscript

The piece once belonged to George Sand, the brilliant writer and social thinker who shared years of life and spirit with Chopin. Sand was no passive muse — she was a storm of independence in a conservative world. She wore men’s clothing, smoked cigars, wrote bestselling novels, and championed women’s rights. She criticized marriage not because she scorned love, but because she believed in its freedom. For Sand, as for Chopin, art was not just expression but emancipation.

Eugène Delacroix made the tiger drawing

And what do we make of the drawings of a tiger on the manuscript, made by Eugène Delacroix, the Romantic painter and mutual friend of Chopin and Sand? Delacroix, too, was a philosopher with a brush — a painter who believed in the primacy of the inner world over the outer form. His tiger sketches, fierce and sinuous, seem to prowl along the margins of Chopin’s music, suggesting an instinctive, untamed energy that classical forms often seek to contain.

Three artists combine their efforts

These three—Chopin, Sand, and Delacroix—were not merely artists. They were thinkers of feeling, engaged in the philosophical question of how to live truthfully in a society built on appearances. Chopin’s music, with its introspective beauty and quiet defiance, counteracted the noise of the era. Sand’s novels and essays explored the soul’s capacity for moral rebellion. Delacroix’s paintings broke through the surface to reach the essence beneath.

What does this mean for us?

Now, as this forgotten score comes to light, we are invited to listen and reflect. What does it mean that such beauty was hidden, almost lost? What does it say that it survived — not through institutions but through friendship, love, and personal conviction?

The tiger, the manuscript, the music—all whisper a truth that lies at the heart of MusikRoel: that music is not an ornament to life but a way of thinking about it. And perhaps, as Chopin’s quiet notes meet Delacroix’s prowling lines under the watchful care of George Sand, we are reminded that the most profound philosophies are sometimes played, not spoken

The post The Sound of Freedom: Chopin and Sand’s Musical Journey appeared first on MusikRoel.

“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

— The Eagles, Hotel California

My favorite pop song is, without a doubt, Hotel California. It is a song that spurred me to action, and I always carry it along. Loved by millions, there are also multiple interpretations of the meaning of the lyrics. Which, by the way, have already been refuted by the band. It’s time for me to look at it differently. Partly to understand why it inspires me. So that’s why I put on philosophical glasses. Are you curious about what this “where music and philosophy meet” brings?

The Illusion of Freedom

From the first lines—“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair”—the song evokes a feeling of escape. The protagonist is journeying freely, yet he soon finds himself seduced by a place that promises luxury, beauty, and rest. But this is no ordinary hotel. It quickly becomes clear that it is not a sanctuary but a prison masquerading as paradise.

This is where existentialism steps in. Philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre argued that hell is not a place of fire and brimstone but rather a self-made reality built on bad faith—denying one’s freedom by accepting comforting illusions. The guests of the Hotel California live in an illusion of pleasure and belonging. But as the lyrics warn: “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.”

Baudrillard and the Simulacrum

The Hotel itself is a kind of simulacrum—a copy of a paradise that never truly existed. In Simulacra and Simulation, philosopher Jean Baudrillard explains how modern society replaces the real with symbols and images until the distinction vanishes. Hotel California is this mirage: “such a lovely place” filled with “pretty, pretty boys” and “mirrors on the ceiling,” but beneath the surface, it’s empty. The song becomes a metaphor for consumerism, Los Angeles culture, or the American Dream itself—a shining illusion that traps those who chase it.

Plato’s Cave

Another powerful philosophical reading is Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Just as the prisoners in Plato’s cave are fooled by shadows on the wall, the Hotel’s guests mistake appearances for reality. The protagonist’s awakening is gradual—he starts to see that the food doesn’t nourish, the people don’t leave, and even the “master” is powerless: “They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast.” Like Plato’s escaped prisoner, the singer glimpses a truth beyond the illusion—but cannot bring the others with him.

The Cycle of Desire

Hotel California also speaks to a Buddhist understanding of samsara—the endless craving, illusion, and suffering cycle. The guests arrive seeking satisfaction, pleasure, and rest, only to find themselves trapped in a wheel of longing. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” This line mirrors the Buddhist teaching that desire creates suffering, and freedom comes not from indulgence but from awareness.

Final Notes

Hotel California isn’t just a rock ballad. It’s a philosophical parable wrapped in California cool. It confronts us with questions:

• What illusions do we live inside?
• Have we mistaken comfort for freedom?
• Are we prisoners of our own devices?

The Eagles may have sung about a fictional hotel, but they described a very real part of the human condition—our vulnerability to seduction, illusion, and self-deception. And so, the song endures. Not because it gives us answers, but because it invites us to look deeper.

Listen again. Not with your ears, but with your mind. What is your Hotel California? Mine is that when walking around in Tallinn, I got the Hotel California feeling, the feeling of freedom, and at the same time, the sense that I would never be able to say goodbye to Tallinn

Want to use songs like this to spark reflection in class or with your team? See MusikRoel for schools and teams or browse the publications.

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