As a general rule, litigation is not good for creativity.
A true story: the first time I heard George Harrison’s 1970 song “My Sweet Lord,” I was listening to the radio over at the apartment of a friend of mine. I said to my friend, “That sure sounds a lot like the Chiffons’ ‘He’s so Fine.’” Shortly thereafter, I read that the owners of the copyright to “He’s So Fine” had decided to sue Harrison. After a protracted legal battle, they won their case.
I mention this to establish my credentials as a potential high-priced expert “forensic” musicologist (a term coined by the legal profession), now available for testimony in music plagiarism suits.
I want to get that out there because – based on the Robin Thicke case announced a few days ago – I think forensic musicologists are going to be in demand.
For those who may not have been following Robin’s career that closely of late, he and the singer/rapper Pharrell Williams put out a wildly successful song a couple of years ago called “Blurred Lines.” Last week, a federal jury in Los Angeles ruled that the song bore an unacceptably close resemblance to a 1977 song called “Got to Give it Up,” written and sung by the late Marvin Gaye.
Thicke and Williams were ordered to pay $7.4 million to Gaye’s children.
I have listened to the two songs closely over the past few days, and I have to say I don’t see it. Or rather, hear it.
Sure, there is some family resemblance between the two. But in my considered opinion – speaking as a noted forensic musicologist -- I would say that kind of resemblance exists between, oh, roughly five million pop songs.
There will evidently be an appeal. But if in the end the new standard for music plagiarism is such that “Blurred Lines” is found to have ripped off “Got to Give it Up,” I am going to go out on a limb and say that there is about to be a whole lot of litigation goin’ on. (Mindful of the new strictures, let me hasten to credit Dave “Curlee” Williams and Roy Hall, aka “Sunny David,” for that last song-title reference.)
As a general rule, litigation is not good for creativity.
The whole idea of music plagiarism is fraught with dangers and contradictions.
Western music only has twelve notes. These twelve notes have been employed to create Bach’s B Minor Mass, Wagner’s “Ring” Cycle, “Tea for Two,” the White Album, and “Oops, I Did it Again,” just to take a few random examples.
In a way, it’s wonder that there haven’t been more plagiarism suits over the years. Some of the more celebrated ones demonstrate the hazards of trying to differentiate homage from theft. In 1921, the publisher of Giacomo Puccini’s operas accused the composers of the hit song “Avalon” (among whom was Al Jolson) of stealing the tune from Puccini’s aria E lucevan le stelle from “Tosca.” The suit seemed far-fetched. But Puccini’s publisher won. Jolie and his colleagues had to pay up.
People have been saying for a long time that at some point the number of workable combinations of our twelve notes will run out. In fact, they started saying it in earnest about a hundred years ago, when many classical composers began to fool around with so-called 12-tone or serial music, as a way of extending the combinatorial possibilities.
Paradoxically, one of the chief inventors of 12-tone music, Arnold Schoenberg, also famously said, “there is still a lot of good music to be written in C-Major.”
Of course, a funny thing happened a few decades after the 12-tone practice had appeared: it began to disappear. Beginning roughly in the 1960s, younger composers, frustrated by the indifference or outright hostility of audiences to most contemporary music, began taking a second look at tonality. Today, tonally-based music is more the norm than the exception.
But what has this got to do with the Mssrs. Thicke, Williams and Gaye?
Just this: All composers and musicians – whether classical or pop – are aware of how difficult it is to create something that’s original and fresh on the one hand but still within the comprehension of ordinary listeners on the other. We might call this the Sondheim syndrome. To most musicians, Sondheim’s melodies are witty, imaginative, captivating. To many regular listeners, however, it seems they are still seen as unforgivably unmelodic. (Sondheim himself bitterly referenced this in “Merrily We Roll Along” --There’s not a tune you can hum/You need a tune you can bum, bum, bum di dum…)
Bottom line: The Robin Thicke decision feels wrong. Unless the offending song is an outright, note for note lift, as the George Harrison song was, modern judges and juries need to give creators wide berth. Any competent forensic musicologist could tell you that.
Why You Should Give Your Kids Music Lessons
I got a note from the remarkable violinist Katie Lansdale the other day. Katie had played a recital last week at The Hartt School, where she teaches, in which she performed the six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin of J.S. Bach.
A couple of days later, she got a fan letter from a violin student who had been in the audience for the entire two hour and 45 minute program. The writer of the letter, six-year-old Philip Tummescheit of West Hartford, is a student of Jessie Snoke, who in turn is a Hartt grad student currently studying with Katie. Philip has been playing the violin for about a year and half.
The letter was so beautifully written that Katie sent me a copy, and I am pleased – with the permission of his parents, Heidi and Hubertus – to reproduce it here in its entirety:
The Ninth in New Haven
Any performance of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony is an event.
The New Haven Symphony Orchestra will underscore the point on April 2, when it shoehorns itself plus 170 choral singers and four soloists onto the stage of Woolsey Hall in New Haven.
Music director William Boughton leads the performance, which will open with Schoenberg’s brief meditation on the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, “Survivor from Warsaw.”
The vocal soloists are soprano Amanda Pabyan, alto Leah Hawkins, tenor Halim Shon, and bass Kevin Harris.
For ore information go here: NewHavenSymphony.org.
Behind the Curtain at the Met
Anyone who cares about the future of opera, or the Metropolitan Opera specifically, or maybe about the arts in general should read the brilliant piece by James B. Stewart in this week’s edition of The New Yorker.
It’s sobering to witness the complex interplay of money, social status, ego and power. And I’m not talking about the libretto to “Il Trovatore.”
The piece takes an unsentimental look at the reign of Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager since 2006.While seemingly not a man of overwhelming personal charm, Gelb has actually done some interesting things at the company, including, of course, inaugurating the HD live transmissions that are now seen in movie houses all over the world.
After some well-publicized declarations that the Met might be facing bankruptcy in the near future, Gelb narrowly escaped a strike and/or lockout scenario last year with his various unions. Stewart’s piece shows just how narrow that escape was.
In the end, the piece makes us ask: what is the longterm outlook for a performing arts institution that earns only about a third of its income from ticket sales, and which owes much of its fiscal stability to a handful of millionaires and billionaires?
Steve Metcalf was The Hartford Courant’s fulltime classical music critic and reporter for over 20 years, beginning in 1982. He is currently the curator of the Richard P. Garmany Chamber Music Series at The Hartt School. He can be reached at spmetcalf55@gmail.com.
