BS: Music = recycling?

Subject: Music = recycling?
From:
Date: 26 Jul 01 - 04:23 AM

On my drive into work this morning I heard Radio 4 doing an interview with Pete Waterman (SAW fame, Kylie and all that). It was a good fun interview in which Mr Waterman made the remark that the music industry is the greatest recycling industry of all. His argument was that the classical musicians wrote all the good tunes and people like him have been nicking them, giving them to Kylie to sing, and then making a million for years!

I guess it got me thinking. One of the things that first excited me about folk music was the way that some one might take an old tune and put their own new words to it as part of an "evolving tradition". So, are we simply totting away at the great bin of used tunes, looking to recycle and sustain the original materials in new ways? And if so, does that make us all environmentally friendly?

Paul

Subject: RE: BS: Music = recycling?
From: pavane
Date: 26 Jul 01 - 05:33 AM

Thats where Bob Dylan got a lot of his stuff... I remember hearing some years ago that there was a prize on offer for someone who could write a set number (about 4?) bars of original music.

Subject: RE: BS: Music = recycling?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jul 01 - 10:03 AM

Recycling music = :| or ::

Subject: RE: BS: Music = recycling?
From: Cappuccino
Date: 26 Jul 01 - 10:08 AM

I've always wondered whether Sydney Carter's Lord of the Dance was recycled from .... oh hell, what's the name of that American composer? Ah, Aaron Copeland. Or whether he in turn recucled it from the Shakers.

- ian b

Subject: RE: BS: Music = recycling?
From: Cappuccino
Date: 26 Jul 01 - 10:09 AM

Or indeed 'recycled'. Keyboard-fade has set in. - Ian

Subject: RE: BS: Music = recycling?
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 26 Jul 01 - 10:27 AM

That recucled thing - is that when the wife cheats for the second time?
One of the joys of folk music is the little snatches of tune & lyric that cross-reference networks of songs together. Flavoursome.
Without some sort of familiarity it would be much harder to learn new tunes/songs.
I like Waterman's honesty - obviously has a healthy attitude to life.

Kris

Subject: RE: BS: Music = recycling?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jul 01 - 12:47 PM

Waterman/ SAW/ Kylie? I'm obviously out of touch.

All good tunes belong to families,and some take after their parents more closely than others. Striving to be original for its own sake is if anything even more bizarre than trying to be too true to what you decide to treat as "the original".

The Shakers had the tune before Aaron Copland or Sydney Carter obviously. It's got other relatives. Whether Sydney Carter heard the Copland arrangement first, I don't know if anyone knows that. Maybe he did and it directed his attention to the Shaker song, which he specifically identified as the basis of his tune.

The Shakers...flourished in the United States in the nineteenth century, but the first Shakers came from Manchester in England, where they were sometimes called the Shaking Quakers...Their hymns were odd, but sometimes of great beauty: from one of them (Simple Gifts) I adapted this melody. I could have written another for the words of Lord of the Dance (some people have) but this was so appropriate it seemed a waste of time to do so. Also I wanted to salute the Shakers. (Sydney Carter, Greenprint for Song.)

Subject: RE: BS: Music = recycling?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 26 Jul 01 - 01:03 PM

Ain't nothing new under the sun, really. Of course music is recycled -- so is everything else. I sometimes think it would be a good thing if we all developed amnesia and forgot about all the great works of the past, so we could experience the joy of creating them all over again.

Subject: RE: BS: Music = recycling?
From: Cappuccino
Date: 26 Jul 01 - 04:54 PM

Thanks, McG. As for the Shaking Quakers, the thing I've always enjoyed about the Quakers is that they have a songbook... but Quaker meetings are always held almost absolute silence. I've always wondered where they get to sing the songs...!

-Ian B