Credit Where It's Due: The Performer/Composer Split - Music

RockyRaccoon
Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me?

Gender: Male
Age: 33
Location: Maryland

Moderator

Interesting that Dylan was brought up.

What do you all think about Dylan's admissions that he mostly jacked his melodies from other songs?

Here's a quote:

Quote:

Well, you have to understand that I'm not a melodist... My songs are either based on old Protestant hymns or Carter Family songs or variations of the blues form. What happens is, I'll take a song I know and simply start playing it in my head. That's the way I meditate. A lot of people will look at a crack on the wall and meditate, or count sheep or angels or money or something, and it's a proven fact that it'll help them relax. I don't meditate on any of that stuff. I meditate on a song. I'll be playing Bob Nolan's "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," for instance, in my head constantly—while I'm driving a car or talking to a person or sitting around or whatever. People will think they are talking to me and I'm talking back, but I'm not. I'm listening to a song in my head. At a certain point, some words will change and I'll start writing a song.

Dylan is heralded as this incredible songwriter, but even by his own admission, he's not much of a melodist and just kind of reworks old folk songs. Does that somehow diminish Dylan's work, or is that excusable? Some argue that it is specifically excusable because that's the tradition of folk music, implying that that wouldn't be acceptable in another genre.

Also, this sounds like a great point of discussion topic, nice thread!
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meccalecca
Voice of Reason

Gender: Male
Location: The Land of Enchantment

RockyRaccoon wrote:

What do you all think about Dylan's admissions that he mostly jacked his melodies from other songs?

Yeah, like you said it was folk tradition at the time, so no one within the folk world minded. Dylan even re-used his own melodies. But of course his talent went beyond melodies and more heavily focused on his lyrical output.

But it is a good basis for another topic in regards to what constitutes as theft
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Satie

RockyRaccoon wrote:

Dylan is heralded as this incredible songwriter, but even by his own admission, he's not much of a melodist and just kind of reworks old folk songs. Does that somehow diminish Dylan's work, or is that excusable? Some argue that it is specifically excusable because that's the tradition of folk music, implying that that wouldn't be acceptable in another genre.

I personally think that the expansion of the view of songwriters and composers as master collage artists - whether Dylan reworking melodies of the past and spinning new words overhead, Beethoven using folk songs as motifs in his orchestral works, or hip hop producers reworking "other people's work" - is nothing but positive, and I'm glad I now have this little morsel of info about one of rock's demigods explicitly acknowledging his indebtedness to the past. No one lacks that, and I think that the self-awareness and critical acknowledgement of your context in history and where your music is derivative and isn't could be evaluated better than the two poles we seem to have in rock music analysis right now - either you're Scaruffi, and you make some arbitrary line in the sand where the artist you likes is a master innovator from out of nowhere, or you're an indie rock journalist trying really hard to parse why the latest Pavement ripoff deserves your audience's overworked ears.

EDIT: BUT I'LL SAVE THAT FOR THE THEFT TOPIC Silenced

RockyRaccoon wrote:

Also, this sounds like a great point of discussion topic, nice thread!

Yeah, I saw the submissions thread right after I posted this! D'oh!

RockyRaccoon
Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me?

Gender: Male
Age: 33
Location: Maryland

Moderator

Satie wrote:

I'm glad I now have this little morsel of info about one of rock's demigods explicitly acknowledging his indebtedness to the past. No one lacks that, and I think that the self-awareness and critical acknowledgement of your context in history and where your music is derivative and isn't could be evaluated better than the two poles we seem to have in rock music analysis right now - either you're Scaruffi, and you make some arbitrary line in the sand where the artist you likes is a master innovator from out of nowhere, or you're an indie rock journalist trying really hard to parse why the latest Pavement ripoff deserves your audience's overworked ears.

Agreed. I've always liked that Dylan freely and openly acknowledges that, and I mention it whenever someone wants to tell me that some musician sucks because they play "other people's music" or whatever.
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RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

meccalecca wrote:

I think it's about understanding strengths and knowing what's going to work. Springsteen handed Patti Smith "Because the Night" rather than releasing it as his own, and she killed it.

On that note, Hendrix was immensely talented but was not a great songwriter, so he needed that Dylan song more than Dylan needed Hendrix to take it to that level.

A song can be good on its own, but you're right in that sometimes it really takes the right performer to really take it special places.

Totally agree.

I work at a place that has a life coach kind of training environment (sounds way lamer than it really is). He talks about how leveraging our strengths gets us further/faster than trying to do everything.

When he said that, I immediately remembered something the Edge said (I think in "It Might Get Loud") that he knew he'd never be Jimmy Page. Trying to emulate him was a total waste of time. Jimmy Page emulating the Edge would be equally a waste of time and probably as disappointing as it is to hear Elvis do Tutti Frutti.

Lachapelle

Gender: Male

This is a really common thing with hip hop too..

The producers rarely get any recognition. It surprises me because so many hip hop tracks rely so heavily on the instrumental. I can't even begin to explain how many times I've heard a new song and liked it instantly because of the beat. This had nothing to do with the MC.. but everything to do with the producer, yet so many hip hop producers sit under the radar gaining no recognition.

I always appreciate it when an artist gives props to their producer. Joint hip hop albums always turn out dope, and if you ask me its because they actually get the recognition.. Their name is actually on the cover.

Madlib & Freddie Gibb's Pinata for example. Or groups like Atmosphere or Gang Starr where its an MC/Producer team.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Well, there's a thing call New Historicism in literary theory (probably history/other areas of academia as well), that the just of it is, is that there is no singular cause or influence. There is no linear cause of events. Reality is much more like a web of causes to an event. So to say an artist is original or something to this effect really is ignoring New Historicism.

In other words this idea that other artists "rip off" other artists or that an artist is 100% original is never the full picture. Truth is, something like Martin Luther being the reason why the Bible was popular and that "his" language became the language of the people is oversimplifying all the other things that really lead into that, and the 6th graders version is that simplified statement.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Lachapelle wrote:

This is a really common thing with hip hop too..

The producers rarely get any recognition. It surprises me because so many hip hop tracks rely so heavily on the instrumental. I can't even begin to explain how many times I've heard a new song and liked it instantly because of the beat. This had nothing to do with the MC.. but everything to do with the producer, yet so many hip hop producers sit under the radar gaining no recognition.

I always appreciate it when an artist gives props to their producer. Joint hip hop albums always turn out dope, and if you ask me its because they actually get the recognition.. Their name is actually on the cover.

Madlib & Freddie Gibb's Pinata for example. Or groups like Atmosphere or Gang Starr where its an MC/Producer team.

Agreed.