If you’ve ever heard the below early demo of ‘Beat It’, you’ll know Michael Jackson’s extraordinary process of writing songs – by building each element of a track with his voice. Every note of every chord, harmony, melody, bass and even the rhythm through beat-boxing. The full harmonies will...
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Contrary to received wisdom, he could play instruments a bit – he’s credited as playing keyboard, synthesizer, guitar, drums and percussion on ‘HIStory’ – but none proficiently.
But just as Mozart could hear whole symphonies in his head, Jackson fully realised his songs before they were put down on paper. “The lyrics, the strings, the chords, everything comes at the moment like a gift that is put right into your head and that’s how I hear it,” said Jackson during the ‘Dangerous’ court case of 1994.
A top team of engineers and producers would work on the tracks that he brought into the studio but even they were wowed by his genius. Rob Hoffman, sound engineer, describes the process (h/t Rhythm Of The Tide):
“One morning MJ came in with a new song he had written overnight. We called in a guitar player, and Michael sang every note of every chord to him. “’Here’s the first chord, first note, second note, third note. Here’s the second chord first note, second note, third note’, etc etc. We then witnessed him giving the most heartfelt and profound vocal performance, live in the control room through an SM57,” says Hoffman.
“He would sing us an entire string arrangement, every part. Steve Porcaro once told me he witnessed MJ doing that with the string section in the room. Had it all in his head, harmony and everything. Not just little eight bar loop ideas. He would actually sing the entire arrangement into a micro-cassette recorder complete with stops and fills.”
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Michael Jackson = musical genius