Due to scheduling issues on the distal end of twc’s “lightning Xmas trip” to visit family, I’m at loose ends for a few hours today. Maybe some mechanicking and housework, since the rest of my schedule’s clear. 🙂
[WARNING: rambling semi-rant follows. For “Christmas spirit” see another post at twc today, like the sticky post at the top of the page. 🙂 ]
Meanwhile (via Powerline), this, from the world of pop music:
Beyond the Pale – singer seethes as organist wins fight over 60s classic
Oh, “yawn* The Hammond B1 player, Matthew Fisher, for the 1967 song, “A Whiter Shade of Pale” won a ruling giving him 40% of the composing hgalf of the royalties since 2005 for his contribution of the opening measures of the piece… which he (semi-) admits he stole “borrowed” from Bach.
Rabbit trail: until relatively recently, the habit of taking the best bits of previous ages’ composers and making them one’s own by adapting them to other works has been relatively common–even widely and openly practiced and embraced. Heck, around this time of year lotsa folks are hearing Gounod’s classic “Ave Maria” completely and blissfully unaware that the accompaniment is a wholesale “lift and plant” *heh* of J.S. Bach’s Prelude #1 from the Well-Tempered Clavier. Gounod wrote his “Ave” as a tribute not only to the song’s subject (Mary, using the Magnificat as his lyric text) but as a tribute to Bach.
The history of music is replete with such examples.
Matthew Fisher’s contribution of a Bach motif* to “A Whiter Shade of Pale” is in no way as musically significant as Gounod’s use of Bach’s lil prelude (especially since Gounod wrote the beautiful tune that serves almost as an obligato to the Bach piece, while Fisher added… what? Not a heckuvalot. :-))
But here’s the unconscious kicker the previously credited “composer” of “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” Gary Brooker, handed out:
Brooker said all songwriters would now view musicians with suspicion. He and Reid suggested that the ruling “creates a ticking timebomb ready to explode when the musician chooses”. Brooker added: “No longer will songwriters, bands and musicians be able to go into a studio without the spectre of one of them, at any future point, claiming a share of the publishing copyright.”
Oh, indeed. Contemporary “songwriters, bands” indeed have little claim to be among the “musicians” involved in the music industry. He correctly (and unconsciously, I’m sure) admits so in his designation of “musicians” as a separate class.
Reminds me of the old saw:
“What’re the differences between a drummer, a percussionist and a musician?”
“A drummer always walks around with a pair of drumsticks in his hip pocket. A percussionist carries a bag of sticks and tools. A musician knows how to use them.”
So, too, might go a new joke (well, semi-serious commentary) about contemporary recording “artists”–the difference between songwriters and their bands and musicians is that only the musicians are, well, musicians. The others are, for the most part, hacks who need musicians to make their crappy concepts have any musical content at all.
But as to the brouhaha over who “composed” the music to “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” well, when’s the last time you listened to the song? Right. *yawn* So it was a hit in the 60s. Big deal. While it’s not bad, Procol Harum’s original has been covered over 250 times, mostly by folks who do it better, from Joe Cocker to Herbie Mann and on and on… One of my favs is the Canadian Brass performance that eliminates the lyrics entirely (as do most covers of this, of course) and lets the Bach* intro shine. *heh*
But of course CB’s version would shine. It’s performed by musicians.
Here, you be the judge. Isn’t this:
…better than Matthew Fisher’s B1 rendition at the opening of the song as recorded by Procol Harum? Yeh, it is. And that’s just one of hundreds of cases where musicianship has improved on what was an essentially mediocre offering from the original semi-composers.
So all the sturm und drang over what the court ruling might mean for manufactured pop music in the future is a big fat *yawn* to me. Somewhere, someday, some of the crap churned out by contemporary “artists” may be used as fertilizer for better works. And that’s about the best that can be said. Procul Haram’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” has indeed resulted in some listening material that is better-than-intended (or imagined) by its semi-creators. Who cares if one of them gets a share in future royalties for material he (uncreatively) hijacked from Bach* and rendered in a mediocre Hammond B1 performance?
* Yes, I know, I know: Fisher’s intro is NOT Air on a G String, just a lift that, were Bach’s works in copyright, would have resulted in Bach getting the royalties on the piece, not Fisher. And it’s an obvious, transparent and not very creative lifting of material at that. Not even worth denoting as “derivative”. *heh*
Trackposted to The Right Nation, Pirate’s Cove, and Perri Nelson’s Website, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.