Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Re: altering other composers's work

> [John deLaubenfels, TD 428.6]
>
> I have heard that Paul McCartney, who has written at most a
> few dozen short songs, is buying up large chunks of Scotland
> on his earnings.

Correction: more like several hundred songs than a few dozen.
And note the unusually high percentage of high-quality stuff,
at least during his tenure with the Beatles.

> [JdL]
>
> (As an aside, it would seem that MANY artists have recorded
> McCartney's works with a huge amount of individual artistic
> license, and, unless I've missed it, he does not find this a
> terrible travesty).

> [Kraig Grady, TD 428.10]
>
> notice he makes them pay. and notice that none of them sound
> as good as the original. it's true of practically all covers.

Come on, Kraig. You know you can't just make a blanket
statement like that. While McCartney's original version of
_Eleanor Rigby_ is considered by many (myself included) to be
a masterpiece of pop music, it doesn't have anywhere near the
emotion or charisma of Ray Charles's blistering version. And
Ray's version is *very* different: much funkier, and where
the original was for voice and string quartet only, Ray used
piano, bass, drums, guitars, and the Rayettes (his female
background singers), in addition to his own voice. Just
one example among hundreds, and that's just of McCartney's work...

> The best cover is Hendrix doing dylans "All along the watchtower"

Oh yes... that's *really* a good one!

> a friend saw dylan play recently and his version sounded like
> it was changed by Hendrixs version. Dylan is for the most part
> a Dramatist, not a composer.

I think I remember reading somewhere that Dylan himself said
that Jimi's version of the song was what it should have sounded
like in the first place.

-monz

Joseph L. Monzo Philadelphia monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
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> [John deLaubenfels, TD 428.6]
>
> Now, here's a question for the music historians of the list:
> did the greats of the past (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert,
> Brahms, Stravinsky, ...) say anything at all about their
> attitude toward later tinkering with their work? As far as
> I know, they all, with the possible exception of Stravinsky,
> freely ripped off other works in pursuit of their own vision,
> not to mention profit. I think it very likely that they weren't
> hypocritical enough to demand that their own compositions be
> left untouched. Am I wrong about this? If I am, it might
> make a difference in what I retune.

Mahler certainly had the same attitude you do. He continually
revised all of his symphonies (up to the 8th) as long as he
was able to rehearse them, and after making a change during
one rehearsal, he said 'All hail to the conductor of the
future who is not afraid to alter my score to suit the conditions
of his performance', or something to that effect.

(I believe this was first recorded by Natalie Bauer-Lechner
in her book; it certainly appears somewhere in Henry-Louis
de La Grange's _Mahler_, volume 1 (1973) ).

Besides the fact that he's my favorite composer, that's another
reason why I have no compunction about my plans to retune
my MIDI-file of his _7th Symphony_.

As a conductor, Mahler himself made many re-orchestrations
and other revisions of the symphonies and operas he performed,
usually for dramatic reasons in the operas and acoustical
reasons in the concert programs.

He was famously vilified for his version of Beethoven's _9th_,
as well as for his version of Beethoven's _F-minor Quartet,
op. 95_ for string orchestra. But his versions of the Schumann
symphonies are gorgeous.

BTW, it's high time we changed the subject line of this thread.

-monz

🔗John A. deLaubenfels <jadl@xxxxxx.xxxx>

Goodness! If I thought this was winding down, I was WAY off the mark!!

[Jonathan M. Szanto, TD 429.1:]
>There are so many threads that I find odd in the recent discourses, but
>mainly from one particular angle: a willful disrespect for a composer's
>own desires. How many times must we hear "if he/she had only known/had
>the resources we have at our disposal today"? Well, we do, but he/she
>didn't! How presumptuous of the 'arranger', then, to willy-nilly
>change much of the intrinsic fabric of a piece.

Is your finger pointed at me, Jon? I HAVE made the point that we have
tools now available that were not available before, but I think I've
also been careful to make the point that it's impossible to know what
the original composer would think, either of the idea in general or of
any given specific offering. Of course, that knife cuts two ways, yes?

Presumptuous? I will accept 'audacious', but your choice of words
illustrates the stark difference in our feelings about messing with
existing works, a difference you go on to make more explicit in your
post.

>To reiterate: there are large areas of the musical landscape that are
>ripe for plucking (and retuning, and rearranging, etc.), but I have yet
>to see even one of the proponents actively acknowledge the existence of
>musics/performance works that stand *on their own*, without
>'improvement'.

Does it have to be one or the other? I don't think it does.

>Really now, it is a hell of a lot easier to draw muso-strokes by saying
>"J. S. Bach, arranged by Josephine Blow" than it is to come up with a
>composition on your own.

Is it? I'm not sure that's true. And if it is, so what? Does that
make one valid, one invalid?

>To say that all music is fair game for your aural playground is not
>correct.

I have to disagree, with the caveats presented elsewhere in this post.

>To state that all composers would welcome your contributions to their
>compositional experiments is disingenuous and rude.

Has anyone actually made that claim?

>So: tweak your tuning tables, change your temperments, alter your
>instrumentations (and vocalizations), substitute lyrics, change
>languages, do whatever you want. Just be honest about it: if the
>composer came up to you and asked you to please not do that to their
>work, would you tell them to piss off or respect their wishes?

I'm willing to withdraw any posting I've made if it can be shown that
the original composer hated anyone touching his/her work. However, I
would at the same time support some other arranger's "right" to tinker
with even the works of someone who asked that it not be done, even if I
personally believed the attempt completely wrong-headed (copyrights and
original composer's lifetime exempted, as I've stated).

[Daniel Wolf, TD 429.2:]
>Experiment, by all means, every musician does it! Most do it in
>private, as a means of digging out details in the music, but when it is
>more than details and done in public, please present it as an
>experiment or a new composition and not as a reproduction of the
>original composer's intent.

Truly I think I have made it clear that everything I have done is an
experiment. I DON'T know whether the original composer would like it.
If I haven't been careful to make that clear, or have written something
that could be taken as straying from that stance, I apologize. (which
post(s) was that, again?).

>If you wish to do that, then the level of evidence required to support
>the claim is extremely high.

I agree! Much higher than I would claim!

>Your Bach retunings are interesting, but to my ears only demonstrate
>how much his voice leading technique was determined by the resources
>and limitations of temperaments.

I accept your criticisms and thank you for basing them upon actual
listening, which would seem to be considered an unnecessary requirement
for judgement among some members of this list.

[Kraig Grady, TD 428.10:]
>>>I believe Stravinsky complained bitterly about the changing of his
>>>music in Fantasia and i remember he included the "blackmail" letter
>>>from Walt himself telling him his copywrights meant nothing in the
>>>U.S.

[JdL:]
>>Dang! I suppose this means I shouldn't post the killer "Rite of
>>Spring" piano reduction I got from a list member!

[David Beardsley:]
>Think you could send a copy over this way? It's a life long favorite.

If no list member thinks doing so would offend Stravinsky or otherwise
be unacceptable...??? :-)

[Johnny Reinhard, TD 429.21:]
>Perhaps "defacing" is what you had in mind after all, yes JdL? :)

That was the idea of the quip...

>The difference is conceptual between our 2 positions. I find myself
>aligned with Jon, Daniel, Kraig, and others that raise alarm at too
>much, or ill-advised tinkering. Believe me, this is as unlikely a
>bunch of bed-fellows as I can imagine on this list.

>You seem to see the composition as existing only in its set of
>directions through music notation. Not true and my metaphor still
>stands about sculpted work. I don't feel you have the right to call it
>my sculpture if you alter it before an exhibition...even if you own it.
>Sorry if this burdensome for you. You can still legally do any kind of
>changing and rearranging you want.

Well... if what we're disagreeing about is what the name of the work
should be after I've tinkered with it, that's a trivial matter to
correct. But that isn't your real bone of contention, is it?

>Since it's my line of work, the presentation of previously
>unperformable scores, I thought my opinion might be of some interest to
>you on this subject.

It is.

>The integrity of my compositions are threatened by those that don't see
>the true designs which are often buried within a piece. I say the
>above foremost as an interpreter, but with the approval of the composer
>inside. The producer in me wouldn't have it any other way.

Gosh! It's hard for me to believe that anything I've done or can do has
the power to "threaten" anything! If it's trash, just leave it behind.

The approval of the original composer, or knowledge of certain
disapproval, elusive after that person's death (with the possible
exception of someone like Partch, and a few others who were very
explicit), would be nice to obtain. But how?

[Neil Haverstick, TD 430.4:]
>On some deep, fundamental Universal level, I really don't feel like my
>music is "my" music.

That's the way I feel about my music also. Yes, I do have some, which
I've shared only with individuals, not the list as a whole, mostly
because it's tied to my non-GM synth in an intimate way. I think I
would be glad to have someone tackle rearranging my own works, though I
might certainly dislike a particular attempt! Of course, I realize that
just because *I* feel this way does not mean that others do, or should!

I apologize, again, to everyone who believes my work misguided, ugly,
inappropriate, ill-considered, offensive, or any other negative word
I've left out. I will say, again, that I realize I've not considered
everything that could or should go into the ideal tunings of a work.
It is my hope, as I continue to try to refine my methods, to have a
group of people with whom to share. Perhaps I've picked the wrong
group?

JdL