Re: Eurovision 2012 - Engelbert Humperdinck for UK : Mon Mar 05, 2012 5:46 pm  

Mintball wrote:

To borrow from Wikipedia:

"Lloyd Webber has been accused of plagiarism in his works. His biographer, John Snelson, has acknowledged the strong similarity between the opening melody of the slow movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto and the Jesus Christ Superstar song "I Don't Know How to Love Him", but opines that Webber: "...brings a new dramatic tension to Mendelssohn's original melody through the confused emotions of Mary Magdalene. The opening theme may be Mendelssohn, but the rhythmic and harmonic treatment along with new lines of highly effective melodic development are Lloyd Webber's. The song works in its own right as its many performers and audiences can witness."[20]

In interviews promoting Amused to Death, Roger Waters, formerly of Pink Floyd, claimed that Lloyd Webber had plagiarised short chromatic riffs from the 1971 song "Echoes" for sections of The Phantom of the Opera, released in 1986; nevertheless, he decided not to file a lawsuit regarding the matter.

The songwriter Ray Repp made a similar claim about the same song, but insisted that Lloyd Webber stole the idea from him. Unlike Roger Waters, Ray Repp did decide to file a lawsuit, but the court eventually ruled in Lloyd Webber's favour.

Rick Wakeman, on his Grumpy Old Rockstar tour of 2008, accused Lloyd Webber of borrowing the main riff for the Phantom of the Opera tune from a section of his 1977 work "Judas Iscariot" from the album Criminal Record.

Lloyd Webber has also been accused of plagiarising Puccini, most notably in Requiem and The Phantom of the Opera. In the Program Guide for the San Francisco Opera's performance (2009–2010 season) of Puccini's Girl of the Golden West, on page 42, it states: "The climactic phrase in Dick Johnson'a aria, "Quello che taceta," bears a strong resemblance to a similar phrase in the Phantom's song, "Music of the Night," in Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical The Phantom of the Opera.

Following the musical's success, the Puccini estate filed suit against Lloyd Webber accusing him of plagiarism and the suit was settled out of court.

Lloyd Webber has also been accused of plagiarism by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, who described him as "yet to think up a single note; in fact, the poor guy's never invented one note by himself."

Yes, I realised that he was accused of plagiarism and I wouldn't know if he deliberately copied extracts of previous works or not.

I would say that most musical style is derivative.
Musicians are a product in the main of the accumulated wealth of their experience with others people's music.
Just as you are the product of your accumulated experiences, granted not in music especially, but to some degree.
So just who is original?

It is also possible to reproduce music based on something you have heard before quite accidentally with no intention to plagiarise.
Obviously, if this is happening often, you have to wonder about the integrity of the composer.

Sometimes it is quite deliberate that one might chose a piece of music as the basis to compose another of your own. I don't think that is uncommon or for that matter necessarily plagiarism. You might use the structure as a base.

Is it the question of his originality then that makes you doubt his worth?

Re: Eurovision 2012 - Engelbert Humperdinck for UK : Mon Mar 05, 2012 6:08 pm  

The only comment I have about Webber is that when I was 11 'ish we did a production of Jesus Christ Superstar at my school (not long after it was written I guess). Our school couldn't afford to pay the large chunk of cash required to be allowed to perform all the music so we had to read out 70% of the musical and act it without music. We were only allowed to perform the clearly defined "songs" with the music. It was excrutiating.
Money raised went to the school fund, Webber's production company made no exceptions. The Lord was getting his cut.

Re: Eurovision 2012 - Engelbert Humperdinck for UK : Mon Mar 05, 2012 7:00 pm  

DHM wrote:

The only comment I have about Webber is that when I was 11 'ish we did a production of Jesus Christ Superstar at my school (not long after it was written I guess). Our school couldn't afford to pay the large chunk of cash required to be allowed to perform all the music so we had to read out 70% of the musical and act it without music. We were only allowed to perform the clearly defined "songs" with the music. It was excrutiating.
Money raised went to the school fund, Webber's production company made no exceptions. The Lord was getting his cut.

If only there had been millions of other musicals your school could have chosen to put on.

Re: Eurovision 2012 - Engelbert Humperdinck for UK : Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:05 pm  

Stand-Offish wrote:

Yes, I realised that he was accused of plagiarism and I wouldn't know if he deliberately copied extracts of previous works or not.

I would say that most musical style is derivative.
Musicians are a product in the main of the accumulated wealth of their experience with others people's music.
Just as you are the product of your accumulated experiences, granted not in music especially, but to some degree.
So just who is original?

It is also possible to reproduce music based on something you have heard before quite accidentally with no intention to plagiarise.
Obviously, if this is happening often, you have to wonder about the integrity of the composer.

Sometimes it is quite deliberate that one might chose a piece of music as the basis to compose another of your own. I don't think that is uncommon or for that matter necessarily plagiarism. You might use the structure as a base.

Is it the question of his originality then that makes you doubt his worth?

Reminds me of Robert Palmers legal defence to charges that he had plagiarised "Some Guys Have All The Luck", not just the tune but the title too, he surmised that he must have heard the original tune when walking past an open window somewhere

Paul McCartney too is said to have played the tune "Yesterday" to several people before recording it as he had woken up one morning with the tune in his head and was convinced that it wasn't his tune but one that he must have overheard.

And I'll throw my professional guitarist cousin into the mix as he was actually sued for plagiarism after he wrote and recorded one of those novelty football songs for Leeds Utd (when they had a football team), had a deal with the club, had some of the team in the chorus, was all set to sell at least 40 thousand copies to the supporters when someone in Manchester claimed that it was his chorus, it went to a pre-trial hearing and he had to pay for a professor of music from Manchester to testify that the sequence of notes in the chorus were not similar enough to be plagiarised - by the time the legal case was conceeded (to him) he'd lost the window of opportunity to release the record and it was dropped.

I helped him produce 70 demo tapes of his single one night, it was cr@p, the world was saved from earache.

Re: Eurovision 2012 - Engelbert Humperdinck for UK : Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:29 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

Reminds me of Robert Palmers legal defence to charges that he had plagiarised "Some Guys Have All The Luck", not just the tune but the title too, he surmised that he must have heard the original tune when walking past an open window somewhere

Paul McCartney too is said to have played the tune "Yesterday" to several people before recording it as he had woken up one morning with the tune in his head and was convinced that it wasn't his tune but one that he must have overheard.

It can happen though, even though a defence like that might look dodgy.
He should have perhaps have said that it came from his subconscious based on something he may have heard.
And who's to say it didn't?
Mind you the title? That's harder to explain.

Re: Eurovision 2012 - Engelbert Humperdinck for UK : Tue Mar 06, 2012 7:01 am  

McLaren_Field wrote:

pick Sinatra/Nelson Riddle's version.

Now if you want to hear Nelson Riddle fronted by a truly great voice, look no further than the three albums by Linda Ronstadt

And now that you mentioned Robert Palmer, have a listen to his Riding High album, especially his duet with Carnie Wilson, the very best version of Baby It's Cold Outside ever recorded

Re: Eurovision 2012 - Engelbert Humperdinck for UK : Tue Mar 06, 2012 2:30 pm  

Quite ironic that a true muso like Palmer would be accused of plagiarism. In fact, there's only 7 notes and every tune there is or ever will be is made up of them. All you can change is the combinations. Bearing this in mind it never ceases to amaze me how we keep on and on hearing new music but it keeps on coming.

I am not happy with the way music copyright is defended, usually by people who are not the composer or artists but just "own the rights". One good example was The Verve having to give up every penny from the superb Bittersweet Symphony, which is now perversely credited to Jagger and Richards. (And I'm sure The Verve would have won that one if they'd had the cash to fight it to a hearing).

I could write the catch to a hit tune tomorrow by hitting say teh notes BCF#AbCDB#. I could then find some guy claimed he actually wrote that sequence of notes in a work in 1987 and so I breached his copyright even though his tune may never have been released.

I even remember a song with a track containing a period of silence. Litigation ensued by some dozy muppet who insisted he had recorded a silent track so the copyright to silence was his.

Have an old vinyl album by Linda Ronstadt, "Heart like A Wheel", classy stuff.

Re: Eurovision 2012 - Engelbert Humperdinck for UK : Tue Mar 06, 2012 2:35 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

I am not happy with the way music copyright is defended, usually by people who are not the composer or artists but just "own the rights". One good example was The Verve having to give up every penny from the superb Bittersweet Symphony, which is now perversely credited to Jagger and Richards. (And I'm sure The Verve would have won that one if they'd had the cash to fight it to a hearing).

That peed me off too. I know there's defending your work etc, but it's not as if the Stones need the money. (Or maybe they do - I've lost count of the number of final tours/gigs they've done)

Re: Eurovision 2012 - Engelbert Humperdinck for UK : Tue Mar 06, 2012 3:51 pm  

Chris28 wrote:

That peed me off too. I know there's defending your work etc, but it's not as if the Stones need the money. (Or maybe they do - I've lost count of the number of final tours/gigs they've done)

Wasn't the Stones, though, it was Allen Klein, or his record company who held the copyright of some orchestral version of The Last Time. It was a bit weird since IIRC they had done a deal beforehand, but got stuffed anyway.

The orchestral version was recorded ironically by the Stones' former manager/producer Andrew Oldham as "Andrew Oldham orchestra"; there never was an "orchestra" as such, rather ad hoc session musicians. You can see why they would have needed to do a deal if you listen to "Andrew Oldham Orchestra - The Last Time (1965)" on some popular video sharing site but The Verve made an award winning, all-time great song out of the raw material, and didn't deserve to be raped like they were.

Re: Eurovision 2012 - Engelbert Humperdinck for UK : Tue Mar 06, 2012 7:32 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote: Wasn't the Stones, though, it was Allen Klein, or his record company who held the copyright of some orchestral version of The Last Time. It was a bit weird since IIRC they had done a deal beforehand, but got stuffed anyway. I'm sure you're well aware of the history of popular music management and the sharks, con artists, gypsies tramps and thieves that the industry has attracted almosr like its a tradition. I was going to mention the venerable Dick James, having read Elton Johns official biog with the legal case against DJM taking up most of the middle of the 500+ pages and so visited Wiki just to refresh myself on the finer points - take a look at it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_James I reckon Dick James has ressurected himself and written that 'kin article himself

Ferocious Aardvark wrote: Wasn't the Stones, though, it was Allen Klein, or his record company who held the copyright of some orchestral version of The Last Time. It was a bit weird since IIRC they had done a deal beforehand, but got stuffed anyway. I'm sure you're well aware of the history of popular music management and the sharks, con artists, gypsies tramps and thieves that the industry has attracted almosr like its a tradition. I was going to mention the venerable Dick James, having read Elton Johns official biog with the legal case against DJM taking up most of the middle of the 500+ pages and so visited Wiki just to refresh myself on the finer points - take a look at it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_James I reckon Dick James has ressurected himself and written that 'kin article himself