Myths

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Farview said:
I think the line goes something like: It has a copyright as soon as it is written, but you can't prove it until you register it.


Not exactly. You can't prove it in a court of law, People certianly have proved it before it ever gets that far, probably most. I know of a sucessful songwriter who was accused of stealing or "lifting" a big chunk of someones lyric and she produced a video of her performing the song live at the Bluebird six years before the other person claimed to have written the song. Fact is the chances that someone is going to steal a song from an unknown writer, then pitch that song until some big name artist records it and go on to make a few million are about the same as some unkown band stealing it then getting signed, then having that particular song be a hit and make millions ... the chances of those things happening are 1 in a gazzilion. Most copyright lawsuits aren't about that at all, most are about grey areas between big time publishers, whereby so and so pro songwriter was still under contract with us when he wrote a hit song for some other publisher, songwriters attorneys claims this is not the case, that publisher #1 owes him x amount of dollars from royalties he never received thus voiding his contract .. that kind of grey area. Now, every once in a blue moon an unknown songwriter might have been ripped off, but this is the last thing most people should be worrying about.
 
:confused: those last few posts there reminded me of highschool when punk was the coolest BECAUSE it sucked, and the more you sucked, the more punk you were.

There is just NO WAY you can punk if you know theory......if you even WANT to know theory you just lost major punk points, dood. :D

It's kinda like...the mentality that causes "hard core rappers" to loose "street cred" if it's discovered that they have ever been anything but a badass gansta. How can you be a badass gangsta if you fininshed school and got a JOB, Yo!? Some people have a similar mind set when it comes to theory. Theory represents the system, and everyone whats to beat the system, right? So how can you beat the system if you play along with the system? It's just.....sometimes people can get carried away with that train of thought and loose sight of valuable tools.

But still, the musicians with the WORST feel and the EMPTIEST playing have always been the guys that are really into theory and formal music education. It really is interesting that it happens to work out that way.

How much of it is personality and how much of it is the simple posession of knowledge? Just because you CAN does that mean you WILL? Not always....but the moment a guitar player starts with the music theory comments, I take a step back and get ready to bail.
 
BentRabbit said:
That's as far as I got before the 'If a clock chimes 13 then doubt will also be cast on the preceding 12' rule kicked in...

We made a CD... We filled out the various forms to register with the gubment (various because there were songs co-authored on the CD so one registration for the Sound Recording wouldn't work) and sent the forms along with two copies of the CD to the reg gurus.

I was curious about your comment: but if any song within that work gets released you will have to file that song seperate from the rest :confused: Not too sure what you were saying there, but thought if I kept reading it would get clarified... Then came: The copyright office does not listen or even look at your songs, they simply get filed away and the only time they will come out is if there is a lawsuit

Ummm... :confused:

We had to resubmit a registration form because we got in a hurry on the 3 songs our guitar player wrote putting 'Words and Music by:____' for all three...
The letter I got back from the copyright folks pointed out what we had entered and then reminded us that one of those songs was an instrumental and therefore had no words so we needed to just register it as 'Music by____'

Not too shabby for an outfit that didn't even listen to or look at the song...

:rolleyes:

I now return you to your dead horse...


Um, if you registered three songs but only sent in two lyric sheets that may have clued them in to the fact one was in instrumental. Perhaps I could have worded it better. The copyright office does not play your songs, nor read your lyrics, of course they read your name and the name of the works you're registering in order to file it/them.

The copyright office gets more than a million works for registration a year. They don't and can't listen or read any of them, that's not their job. Common sense tells you there is no possible way they could, if common sense alludes you, you can hear it straight from the horses mouth, as I know for a fact somwhere on the site they state this. http://www.copyright.gov
 
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Zed10R said:
But still, the musicians with the WORST feel and the EMPTIEST playing have always been the guys that are really into theory and formal music education. It really is interesting that it happens to work out that way.

EXACTLY! Same thing in the songwriting community! The best popular music, musicains and songwriters throughout history IMO are ALWAYS the non-thoery ones. Most of these guys learn theory so they can sound like the Hendrixs or E Van Halens or Bonhams or Muddys or McCarneys etc., etc., etc., but like you said ;)
 
Well, if we are going to have a dick waving contest, I just uploaded a couple mixes that I am working on, I'll put 'em up against what you got.

I'm just engineering and producing on the top two. The Munsters theme is just for fun (and very, very old)

www.soundclick.com/sillyhat
 
Sillyhat said:
Well, if we are going to have a dick waving contest, I just uploaded a couple mixes that I am working on, I'll put 'em up against what you got.

I'm just engineering and producing on the top two. The Munsters theme is just for fun (and very, very old)

www.soundclick.com/sillyhat

Just call me Mr. Holmes ;)

I'd never put down anyone who posts their work online, only put them in their place if they think they are a know it all, that is unless they are in fact a know it all, then I'll keep my mouth shut. Now, comparing these productions to mine are like apples and oranges in that most of the stuff I write record and or record for others usually has much more of a dynamic range and often is acoustic based with more going on, more instruments and angles. Your work is fine, sounds pretty good for what it is although there is way too much compression (even for this kind of music imo) on the drums and the kick drum is just blowing my speakers out. Like I said it's pretty good, but in terms of as close as we can get to professional quality it really is not on par with what I posted.
 
Blanket Statement..not true . If someone was born with "it" no amount of theory is going to hurt. If someone doesnt have it, it isnt because they are too hung up on theory(noone can suffer from too much knowledge)..its because they didnt have it to begin with...
Jay Bennett==Wilcos ex guitarist..genius, musical theory head...but brilliant player.


EDAN said:
EXACTLY! Same thing in the songwriting community! The best popular music, musicains and songwriters throughout history IMO are ALWAYS the non-thoery ones. Most of these guys learn theory so they can sound like the Hendrixs or E Van Halens or Bonhams or Muddys or McCarneys etc., etc., etc., but like you said ;)
 
How much of it is personality and how much of it is the simple posession of knowledge? Just because you CAN does that mean you WILL? Not always....but the moment a guitar player starts with the music theory comments, I take a step back and get ready to bail.

Well the guitarists who say things like "I used the 3rd mode of harmonic minor to add an augmented feel over the relative minor changes" may very well have lost sight of something really important: a good melody.

But I don't think we were talking about that level of theory; at least I wasn't. Glen I know was not too. We were saying it's useful to know what key the song you're playing is in, what the chord progression is, how to transpose, etc.

More advanced concepts are also useful when taken in appropriate context. Let's take the example of what I call the "cheesy" modulation: I-II, ubiqitous in pop to give a song a lift between the final two choruses. Problem is, it is used so often and almost always without transition. Can we say cliche?

Instead, as a case study, review the bridge from this classic tune, "Cherish", by the Association, written by Terry Kirkman:

http://www.azchords.com/a/association-tabs-306/cherish-tabs-168962.html

(I don't think those chords are 100% right, but they're close enough for our purposes)

This is a great song with a beautiful melody, killer harmonies, and one of the greatest bridges ever written. An absolutely brilliant pop song and #1 for three months. Let's have a look! I ain't no genius of theory, like I said I studied it in high school, not college, so please correct errors:

The verses are in F, it's got a mixolydian thang goin' on with the Eb (VII), but that's pretty common in pop music, so nothing too unusual there. The last chord, C, on "cherish you" in each verse obscures the key a bit since its has an E instead of Eb. That adds some interest after verse 1, but it quickly resolves back to F and Eb for the second verse--modulation implied, but not accomplished.

It's a more useful trick after verse 2--going into the bridge, the C is repeated, then suddenly E! Hello! This ain't your average pop tune! The C is reinforced again after the E, that's a groovy augmented feel there. This is actually a good setup for a modulation.

But no! Kirkman keeps us hanging but is now deliberately confusing tonality, throwing out C, but then Cm to go back to the F Mixo feel, then on the last line of the bridge setting up the dominant motion from D7-G with lots of dissonant chords, then the first verse is repeated in the new key, one step higher than before.

Why did Kirkman do that? Because he was a theory geek? Because he was a music major and played two dozen instruments? Because he was too elitist to simply plop from F to G like every other loser songwriter?

Or because the tension-resolution followed by the dissonance in the bridge takes the listeners on an emotional journey that make them feel the turmoil of the lyric?

Gives me chills everytime I hear it.
 
mshilarious said:
Ah, but Phoebe only wrote new lyrics to an existing tune, "Sleepy Girl" :p
Oh, ms, you slay me sometimes :D . I'm not sure whter you should be complimented or shamed for knowing such an esoteric piece of trivia :).

More perls of wisdom from the Edan/Phoebe "school" of musicianship (some quotes may not be exact):

"Ok, see, that's the beauty of 'Smelly Cat', there is no 'top'."
"I have never been in a band where I needed to know the chords."
"If you want to learn how to play guitar, you should never touch one."
"I'm a songwriter who has no idea what keys my songs are in or what their chord progressions are."
"I name the chords after what the hand looks like. Like 'The Old Lady' and 'The Bear Claw'."
"Eddie Van Halen and Paul McCartney know nothing about chords or song structure."
"Knowing the names of the chords and the basic chord changes requires actually going to school."
Phoebe: "How many chords do you know?"
Chrissey Hynde: "All of them."
"Knowing how to communicate with other musicians will sap the life out of my compositions and turn me into a music geek."

and finally

"Cover bands only play simple Top 40 stuff where you don't need to know anything to play them." Yeah, like just about any Van Halen tune.

G.
 
EDAN said:
Um, if you registered three songs but only sent in two lyric sheets that may have clued them in to the fact one was in instrumental. Perhaps I could have worded it better. The copyright office does not play your songs, nor read your lyrics, of course they read your name and the name of the works you're registering in order to file it/them.

The copyright office gets more than a million works for registration a year. They don't and can't listen or read any of them, that's not their job. Common sense tells you there is no possible way they could, if common sense alludes you, you can hear it straight from the horses mouth, as I know for a fact somwhere on the site they state this. http://www.copyright.gov

Nope... Sorry sport...
We sent in the registration forms and 2 copies of the CD... No lyric sheets.
But you're starting to remind me a lot of The Black Knight on Monty Python's 'The Holy Grail' and it's obvious that it really doesn't matter what anyone tells you at this point...

Good luck with your music!
:)
 
EDAN said:
Now, comparing these productions to mine are like apples and oranges in that most of the stuff I write record and or record for others usually has much more of a dynamic range and often is acoustic based with more going on, more instruments and angles.
True. I wish I could do more of that. It is so much easier to record instruments that sound like they are supposed to and make them...um...sound like they are supposed to. It's always neat not to have to fight too hard to find space for and instrument in a mix because there isn't much going on.

It separates the men from the boys when you are expected to make everything sound larger than life, with dozens layers of guitars and vocals, knowing that the finished product will have, for all intents and purposes, 9db of dynamic range.

I would really like to take a vacation and record something that I couldn't easily screw up.

EDAN said:
the kick drum is just blowing my speakers out.
What kind of cheezy speakers are you listening on?
EDAN said:
but in terms of as close as we can get to professional quality it really is not on par with what I posted.
The nice people a Warner Brothers were very happy with it and paid me very well. They called me up asking me to do another of their projects because this one worked out so well. Your definition of professional quality seems to be genre specific as well.
 
EDAN said:
Like I said it's pretty good, but in terms of as close as we can get to professional quality it really is not on par with what I posted.

Can you repost the link to some of your work????
 
mshilarious said:
Well the guitarists who say things like "I used the 3rd mode of harmonic minor to add an augmented feel over the relative minor changes" may very well have lost sight of something really important: a good melody.

But I don't think we were talking about that level of theory; at least I wasn't. Glen I know was not too. We were saying it's useful to know what key the song you're playing is in, what the chord progression is, how to transpose, etc.
Yes, exactly. Thank you!

W're not talking rocket science or Mozart here. We're talking being able to play with the other children on the playground.

If "transposing" sounds like a PhD term, that's just sad. Where I grew up (in much the same neighborhoods that Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy grew up in and live(d) in, BTW), being able to play a song in a different key from which is was recorded and being able to take chord changes instructions on the fly from the band leader are such *fundamental* skills that you'd be laughed out of any auditions for any of the cover bands that I've worked or hung with.

And it's not that those bands are snooty high-falootin' music theorisis. They are just your average musicians working the clubs either full-time or part time, just like anybody else. But they cover anybody and everybody from Del Amitri and Graham Parker to Led Zepplin and The Plimsoles, Burt Bacharach and Roger Miller to The Animals and David Bowie. And that's just one of the bands.

It is just simply beyond me how anyone can claim to have been in bands "all his life", plays several instruments, and to even have grown up in Nashville, and not have the basic stuff rub off on him just by pure osmosis alone. It just does not add up to anything that makes sense on my planet. Unless you were still a kid when you were in Nashville and the bands you played were all 2nd tier tribute bands who only had to memorize thirty songs in one key by rote and your job was done.

G.
 
EDAN said:
EXACTLY! Same thing in the songwriting community! The best popular music, musicains and songwriters throughout history IMO are ALWAYS the non-thoery ones. Most of these guys learn theory so they can sound like the Hendrixs or E Van Halens or Bonhams or Muddys or McCarneys etc., etc., etc., but like you said ;)

Ah yes, the good ol' sloppy = feel, technically precise = no feel argument.

That's about as idiotic as you can be.

IT'S ALL SUBJECTIVE!!!


Did Miles Davis not have "feel?"

Does Robben Ford not have "feel?"

Did Bill Evans not have "feel?"

Does Prince not have "feel?"


What about the people in the middle, like Eric Johnson or The Edge, who know some theory but aren't experts? Do they have "feel?"


There are endless examples of both ends of the spectrum in every genre.


I personally think that some of EVH's playing is nice, but some of it is pretty darn lame, wanking, and pointless. But because he's "self-taught," he's brilliant. (Which is another huge myth ... NO ONE, unless they live their life on an island, is really "self-taught." Everyone learns from other sources, whether it's people, books, or whatever.)


I think Steve Vai's solo on "For the Love of God" is truly amazing and filled with emotion. I think EVH's "Eruption" is impressive, but it doesn't do anything for me emotionally.

In my opinion, EVH is pretty much a one-trick pony.

That's my opinion, which is all the whole "feel" argument boils down to anyway.
 
mshilarious said:
Well the guitarists who say things like "I used the 3rd mode of harmonic minor to add an augmented feel over the relative minor changes" may very well have lost sight of something really important: a good melody..

uh huh. You got.

[/QUOTE]But I don't think we were talking about that level of theory; at least I wasn't. Glen I know was not too. We were saying it's useful to know what key the song you're playing is in, what the chord progression is, how to transpose, etc..[/QUOTE]

I agree 100%. However, knowing a song's key and chords, and being able to transpose isn't music theory....at least to me. It is basic functional knowledge that any musician should have. SHOULD have...it is perfectly possible to be great musician and song writer without having any clue what key your song is in.

[/QUOTE]
More advanced concepts are also useful when taken in appropriate context. Let's take the example of what I call the "cheesy" modulation: I-II, ubiqitous in pop to give a song a lift between the final two choruses. Problem is, it is used so often and almost always without transition. Can we say cliche?[/QUOTE]

Hell yeah.....that's one of those "rules" I refer too....a cheeseball preset that makes everyone sound the same. Good to know so you can learn from, but fer crissakes don't USE it..... :p

[/QUOTE]
Instead, as a case study, review the bridge from this classic tune, "Cherish", by the Association, written by Terry Kirkman:

http://www.azchords.com/a/association-tabs-306/cherish-tabs-168962.html

(I don't think those chords are 100% right, but they're close enough for our purposes)

This is a great song with a beautiful melody, killer harmonies, and one of the greatest bridges ever written. An absolutely brilliant pop song and #1 for three months. Let's have a look! I ain't no genius of theory, like I said I studied it in high school, not college, so please correct errors:

The verses are in F, it's got a mixolydian thang goin' on with the Eb (VII), but that's pretty common in pop music, so nothing too unusual there. The last chord, C, on "cherish you" in each verse obscures the key a bit since its has an E instead of Eb. That adds some interest after verse 1, but it quickly resolves back to F and Eb for the second verse--modulation implied, but not accomplished.

It's a more useful trick after verse 2--going into the bridge, the C is repeated, then suddenly E! Hello! This ain't your average pop tune! The C is reinforced again after the E, that's a groovy augmented feel there. This is actually a good setup for a modulation.

But no! Kirkman keeps us hanging but is now deliberately confusing tonality, throwing out C, but then Cm to go back to the F Mixo feel, then on the last line of the bridge setting up the dominant motion from D7-G with lots of dissonant chords, then the first verse is repeated in the new key, one step higher than before..[/QUOTE]

mshilarious...I like you but you put WAAAAYYY too much thought into that.... :D Do you think Kirkman put even 1/4 of that effort into PURPOSEFULLY creating that song *just so* and extensive knowledge of theory was required to create that song? Or do you think maybe those ideas and structures just came in the creative process and sounded cool? I tend to believe that latter......however this is not my thing. But I can appreciate it.[/QUOTE]


[/QUOTE]
Why did Kirkman do that? Because he was a theory geek? Because he was a music major and played two dozen instruments? Because he was too elitist to simply plop from F to G like every other loser songwriter?

Or because the tension-resolution followed by the dissonance in the bridge takes the listeners on an emotional journey that make them feel the turmoil of the lyric?

Gives me chills everytime I hear it.[/QUOTE]

Tension resolution followed by dissonance in the bridge.....come on...couldn't you just say "verry nice note choices going on there...." and be done with it?? Nice post though..... :D
 
NL5 said:
Can you repost the link to some of your work????

Yes PLEASE do. I've asked about it a few times now. You've been bragging so much about it, and it's not even available to hear.
 
famous beagle said:
Yes PLEASE do. I've asked about it a few times now. You've been bragging so much about it, and it's not even available to hear.

That's nonsence, no ones bragging. This whole thing started with some know-it- all being an ass and insulting me for saying it's a myth that Behringer sucks, I brought up the fact David Bowies producer uses some Behringer gear to prove my point, after all isn't he a pro? we've all heard Behringer on Bowie songs and they sure sound pro to me, but that wasn't enough, he had to be a jerk so all I did was post a song using among other things some Behringer gear to prove you can get excellent results, better than what he was producing using "better" gear than me. That's all I did, this is a recording form after all and the other thing the song I posted should do is show people cheap gear when used right can produce better sounds than higher end gear when you know how to use it. Then the thoery people started going on and on, I'm not a real producer, I'm not a real musician etc etc etc. Well, I haven't heard anything recorded better out here yet, there may well in fact be some, but so far not anything I've heard from the thoery guys or the know-it-alls. You call it bragging, I call it shutting them up. You can say what you want about theory, about gear, about whatever, but don't tell me I can't do as good or better than you. If you look back in the thread you'll see why the song is no longer posted, it wasn't my doing and I haven't gotten around to posting it again, I only posted it on request, the person who heard it said it sounded great, matter settled.
 
it's impossible to.....

it's impossible to play an instrument for any amount of time and not, by complete accident learn a little theory
every completely unlearned musician i know gravitates towards either the major, minor, or pentatonic scales......... even if they don’t know why.
and all of them play in 2/4, 4/4 or 3/4, they never accidentally play in 13/9.

the people who go out of their way to learn theory will know more theory, but everyone knows a little theory...... they just don't realize it.

in my opinion though, the only difference between a musician who is learned in school, and one who just learned a lot of songs in many different styles is the schooled musician will know why he went from one cord to another, the non schooled one will not, but they will probably make a lot of similar choices.
 
EDAN said:
the person who heard it said it sounded great, matter settled.
That was me. However, the only thing it proved was that you were bright enough to stay out of the way of the production. It wasn't anything special, just a bunch of nice sounding instruments playing an arrangement that had enough room for all of it. You would really have to try to screw that up.

[edit]It really did sound good though.[/edit]
 
Zed10R said:
Tension resolution followed by dissonance in the bridge.....come on...couldn't you just say "verry nice note choices going on there...." and be done with it?? Nice post though..... :D

Yeah, I agree with your post entirely. The Association was more than just pretty notes though. One thing I didn't know was that Kirkman intended that song for the Righteous Brothers. They had the necessary soul, but I can't imagine that song without the tight harmonies the Association could pull off. That is way beyond my ability right there.
 
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