h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Joanna suggested we have a rotating topic of discussion. What a super idea! So, per her suggestion, our first topic will be merits and otherwise of performing music on instruments other than what the composer originally intended.

I've got a good example. Mozart hated flutes, because the version used in his era was nearly impossible to keep in tune. He only wrote for the instrument grudgingly, and when he badly needed the money. As a result, most of the Mozart pieces you hear played on the flute were actually written for the violin. Are we subverting Mozart's music?

Another good example is electronica based on classical music. Pachelbel's Canon, for instance, has hundreds of variations. Some of them are quite far indeed from the original piece. Is there a point where the arrangement has strayed too far, or are all these different versions worthwhile in their own right?

Interesting to consider that until music was fully scored and widely published (up to about 250 years ago) nobody had a problem with substituting instruments, re-arranging, doing your own version of someone else's pieces - it was considered that you were complimenting the original composer if you recycled his ideas, and substituting instruments was OK - there often wasn't a full score anyway, so whatever instrumentalists were available on the day "jammed" from the partial score, with the continuo player trying to referee it.

Nowadays, you can get into a lot of trouble for copyright infringement if you recycle musical phrases without permission. Interestingly, it is the music publishers rather than the composers who seem to get so upset. They view any potential loss of profit very seriously.

That's the whole thing that stinks out the 'music' industry today, the search for goo dmusic has aparrently ended for the love of money. (then again, Wolfey himself wrote for money, erm... some would say).

Just think of all the succesful songs begginning, Fantasia on...
or Variations on a theme of...

(Thomas tallis and Paganini respectively are two good ones).

Since the beancounters invented copyright, some composers did start re-scoring or re-arranging their own pieces for different combinations, rather than just letting it happen. Elgar, for example, did three versions of "Chanson du matin" - one for string orch., one for violin with piano accomp., and one for piano only.

But you could argue that a composer's time might be better spent coming up with the next masterpiece, rather than in creating arrangements of existing works.

On the other hand, you do see examples where music has been given a new arrangement with permission of the copyright holder/music publisher. An example might be the many older rock songs that have been given techno or hip-hop arrangements in the past decade. It is, however, a much more formal process to get permission granted for it.

There are also cases where music is stolen with the purpose of poking fun at it... this would usually be prevented by large copywrite suits, but it has happened in a few cases, for example in Bartok's Concerto for orchestra.. the 5th (I think) movement is the theme from Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony, messed around with: He plays the tune on the tuba in a part, which is rather humerous, amongst other things. I think he also subverts it by playing the tune as if it were another genre..

Well, copyright law doesn't stop anyone re-arranging a song - in fact an arrangement of a song can count as a copyrightable derivative work.
in principle I have no problem with it, but what I do have a problem with is when this isn't noted.For example Stokowski used radically to rescore pieces by say Bach, then conduct them without noting anywhere that this reworking had been done. To my mind this is both defrauding the audience (who want to hear Bach, not Stokowski) and desecrating the memory of a great composer...

Another issue that this subject brings up is the lost art of Folk Music, the definition of which is any song that exists in version and variation over time and space. Woodie Guthrie wouldn't have cared if someone else were playing "This Land is Your Land" in a different key, with different lyrics in the verses. That was the nature of his music. But now I meet people who play Bob Dylan covers who point out to me that when I play "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright", that I'm using the wrong finger picking pattern, and that what I should actually do is capo up so many fretts... I just want to play my version of a folk tune! Some musicians need to stop taking themselves so seriously...

I think Woody would actually have minded people singing diferent lyrics to This Land Is Your Land - some of the last few coherent sentences he said were to teach Arlo the verse about the sign on the wall saying 'private property' because people were singing it without that verse and missing the whole point...
But I agree in general with what you said...

I'm used to playing 'bone parts and such, since I'm a bari player and for some reason composers believe that we are an endangered species... Rearrangement can be useful, especially when you're trying to do a cover and all you have to work with is a piano part or lead sheet, but I agree, you have to credit the original composer for using his work. The one topic you guys never mentioned is the common practice of "quotes" in jazz, where you might grab a few bars from a famous solo or tune, like the so-called "Coltrane cycles", which are usually taken from "Giant Steps".

Yes, you're right ... but I think there's a difference in culture between an improvisational medium like jazz (where "borrowing" is a compliment) and the more defined patch of classical music, where a credit is the norm.

... and none of that helps if (like I am at the moment) you're trying to put together an arrangement of something well-known for an unholy combination of totally unsuitable, but available, instruments.


BTW ... how do you do a 'bone slide on a bari?

I'm still trying to figure out how the Canadian pop band Barenaked Ladies gets away with snipping a few bars from several popular tunes into one particular song of theirs, 'If I Had A Million Dollars.' The selection rotates constantly, and will typically be completely different if you wait a year. Are they paying royalties to do this, or is it fair game?

I think you've hinted at one of the better-known classical examples of a piece that was played with very different instruments from the original when you said "Fantasia." I'm referring, of course, to the orchestral arrangement of Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in D minor. I really enjoy both the original (in most cases) and the orchestral arrangement. In fact, I prefer the orchestral version to many of the organists' versions I've heard, as they tend speed up the parts I think should be played slower and vice versa, as merely to demonstrate technical prowess over emotional interpretation. I'm not an authority on Bach, not by any means, but my tastes run a little different from some organists' apparently.

I think that's the real heart of the matter, actually. In some cases (eg. Mozart's as was mentioned), the composer never intended the instruments as they existed in his time to be used in a given piece - but with advanced and improved instruments, I think new life can be breathed into many different works. I'm not a huge fan of the addition of "a beat" (as in from a drum machine or the like - percussion still has a very important role, IMO) to turn some classical pieces into dance hits; but I do rather enjoy and think there's a huge wealth of opportunity for the interpretation of many compositions that are 50-450 years old to be interpreted through arrangements for modern instruments, electronic or otherwise. Who knows? Maybe it will inspire a musical movement where songs that last longer than the typical 3 minute hit single become the norm. Heh.

One my side projects was producing and contributing to a Pink Floyd tribute CD of very limited distribution - only a couple hundred - and my contribution was to perform Rick Wright's "Summer '68" using just guitars and percussion. The original had piano and an organ as well as a trumpet. I think with all the electronic abilities afforded by the digital effects processing medium, there's a lot more that the guitar can do for an arrangement - this is sort of my mission statement, if you will. Whether it worked or not (I got some positive feedback from it), it was fun and definitely took my thinking in different directions. I find that imitating piano styles and chord changes on a guitar is lots of fun, quite enlightening, and sometimes downright impossible - but still, fun.

If you happen to be completely inept at runs, as I am, you just panic when a 'bone part includes a slide. As for arranging, my thought, which I hope is right, as it's what I do, is arrange it as you will, just give credit to the original composer, and don't try to sell the arrangement. I do a lot of arranging for bizarre instrumentation, and most people wouldn't want them, so I assume it's alright, especially with headcharts and stuff. You might also want to check to see if it's in the public domain. A lot of old music appears to be copyrighted when it is just a new arrangement, like the "copyrightable derivatives" mentioned above.

When it comes down to it we hardly perform any earlier music in the form it was intended. All instruments have evolved so much since the classical versions that the music is totally altered. Also that music was intended for a space, an audience, not a CD player and a sofa. The experience is totally altered whether we like it or not. We've changed.

It's fine to go on re-interpreting music from the past in our own terms, although it can be done well or badly. We go on re-interpreting everything else from the past. Nothing from the past has the same effect on us as it did on its original audience. There is no way we can recreate that original delight and astonishment.