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Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

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Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#91

Post by coldtea »

cJ0th wrote: post #4

As a hobby music producer I just can't wrap my head around the logic behind copyright infringement. It's so arbitrary. It's illegal to steal a melody but sophisticated chord progressions are fine. It's illegal to copy the text of even the simplest verse but reverse engineering some complex synthesizer sounds is fine. Although I personally strive for it, I don't think originality is a point worth discussing. Music is…

>As a hobby music producer I just can't wrap my head around the logic behind copyright infringement. It's so arbitrary. It's illegal to steal a melody but sophisticated chord progressions are fine. It's illegal to copy the text of even the simplest verse but reverse engineering some complex synthesizer sounds is fine.

So, what's not to understand? Seems very well defined. Melodies and lyrics are more important than sounds and chord progressions.

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#92

Post by milesward »

I have struggled to master guitar-based songs on my handy electric Sousaphone for years. I grab a small bass guitar and POOF: pop songs are mechanically easy on this device, it's right there under your fingers. Turns out: the instrument informs and constrains the creation.

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#93

Post by milesward »

milesward wrote: post #92

I have struggled to master guitar-based songs on my handy electric Sousaphone for years. I grab a small bass guitar and POOF: pop songs are mechanically easy on this device, it's right there under your fingers. Turns out: the instrument informs and constrains the creation.

I suspect the opposite is true: second-line on a p-bass is probably a pain in the neck.

pun intended

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#94

Post by coldtea »

hashkb wrote: post #61
ebbv wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds reasonable but how do you define “any form of creativity/expression” legally? That’s the problem. If you know anything about writing music you should know why chord progressions can’t be copyrighted. There’s only 12 notes, there’s not that many unique chord progressions to be found in the Standard I/IV/V pop music format. Melodies and lyrics, on the other hand, there’s a nearly infinite supply. The proble…

You said "there's not many chord progressions to be found inside [a chord progression]". Pop music is free to get more complicated, using reharmonization, voice leading, instrumentation and every other trick in the "real music" book and stop 1/4/5ing us so hard. We (the audience) just love repetitive bullshit too much. It's our fault. Jazz, although built on a (less) restrictive harmonic foundation, tends to not have…

>We (the audience) just love repetitive bullshit too much. It's our fault.

Why is it a fault? Music is about what people love. Why should they stretch that to love something else? Because some consider it more "serious"?

>Jazz, although built on a (less) restrictive harmonic foundation, tends to not have this problem, because the musicians and the audience are more talented.

It tends to have the problem of very few caring about it -- and that audience is tiny (as seen in streaming rates, sales, etc) compared to other forms of music.

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#95

Post by mmanfrin »

privacypoller wrote: post #84

The interesting part of this is not actually the copyright infringement, but the aggressive use by the Del Rey camp as a marketing opportunity. Her song is a deep cut that was never a single and apparently Radiohead is trying to settle out of court, yet she's actively pushing the narrative of a "100% claim lawsuit" and how they're making her life a "living hell". Coupled with the deliberate manufactured image of Lana…

What? Radiohead is demanding full royalties for the song, for a melody they did not create. Why on earth should they just settle out of court?

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#96

Post by jimnotgym »

Joeboy wrote: post #72
jimnotgym wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The song is in E major, yet G# major and A minor are not chords in that scale. Guitarists learning scales? I mean like the names of the notes rather than the shapes they make on the neck? I am suggesting that knowledge of musical theory had no part in this at all. You need to think in the terms of an indie guitarist of average ability like Thom Yorke. Open, the fret after the one with the dot on, the next fret with…

> Guitarists learning scales? I mean like the names of the notes rather than the shapes they make on the neck? I'm probably not supposed to say this sort of thing here, but you're surely trolling.

I think I may have got the tone wrong here, but it was more self deprecating than trolling. I am a competent guitarist, but know little musical theory. The same was true of many of my friends. The guitar is easy to start out on and impress some non-players with. You can get a very long way with a few chords and tab.

However I would never claim to be a musician. I don't read music, I don't think in scales. I used to hang round with music students who marvelled at my solo improvisations, but I couldn't compete with them when it came to music theory. I learned the blues scale shape and added the interesting notes which my friends had proper names for..but it didn't stop me playing songs.

Those who do learn music theory have my utmost respect, they could do harmonic things I can only marvel at, but I knew 20x more guitarists that just learned songs from the magazines (before the internet), song books and each other until they had enough building blocks to do their own thing

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#97

Post by billsix »

mbrameld wrote: post #86
billsix wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Physically it is the result of sliding an open E chord down the neck to produce higher notes then, la piece de resistance, taking a finger off. Radiohead added a killer feature of turning the gain up on the amplifier for the chorus, genius. It's the kind of thing teenagers everywhere find in their second month of guitar mastery. E major, G# major, A major, A minor The song is in E major, yet G# major and A minor ar…

It doesn't matter that they're not musically in the same key. It's their physical position on the fretboard that is being compared to the physical position of the white keys on the piano

Proof that Creep cannot be played using only white keys.

https://youtu.be/mp64EY_WAcs

Q.E.D.

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#98

Post by ozten »

yohann305 wrote: post #34

Nowadays it wouldn't be hard to build a program that generates a 500+ hour long instrumental piece which contains 80%+ of all song progression sequences. Then release it under "free for commercial use" and nobody can every sue anyone else in the future. Thank you very much

During a trial, would the track have to have some notoriety, to be considered well know enough to have stolen from?

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#99

Post by foobaw »

I'll add on that this is an absurd lawsuit, in a music theory perspective. However, my legal knowledge is shabby.

Are there any precedents regarding cases like these? If, for some peculiar reason, Radiohead wins this case, then I can imagine they'll have the ability to just sue anyone that becomes popular that uses a similar chord progression / melody. Considering that "original music" is almost non-existent in pop music, what's going to happen then?

Re: Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music

#100

Post by bsaul »

jimnotgym wrote: post #7

For anyone who doesn't play the guitar, 'Creep' and the Hollies track is is derived from come feature a rather obvious chord progression. Physically it is the result of sliding an open E chord down the neck to produce higher notes then, la piece de resistance, taking a finger off. Radiohead added a killer feature of turning the gain up on the amplifier for the chorus, genius. It's the kind of thing teenagers everywhe…

a piece of music has four elements : harmony, melody, rythm and sound.

you gave only one similarity, the truth is that the rythm and melody are also 100% identical, and one would argue the sound is pretty similar as well ( but it's more due to both songs being western rock/pop).

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