Style Substance and Stealing
Ok, so since I’ve got this on my mind, let me figure out what I’m thinking.
I listened to Mala Fe last night, Sacala a Bailar or Saca la Negra, I’ve seen it listed both ways. I listend to a few other songs I’d heard by others that he has covered. I prefer, in some cases, his version. So, I was thinking.
I have on my computer about 15 versions of Bilongo. A few versions of Isla del Incanto, and a bunch of merengue and bachata songs that were once songs in different genres. I usually have a favorite version of each song.
The thing is, my goodness how many ways can one make merengue? Or a polka? Or a waltz?
So I’m wondering, maybe “we”, the people, are cool with the whole snatching of copyrighted material such as a song’s lyrics and melody because we just don’t see it as being unique. Well, in certain genres we don’t because we are accustomed to hearing 1000 merengues which are all merengue. Its, to our ears, generic. The music- generic. Like, to go back to my comments on Wayne’s post, I may see the trench coat I wear as generic and feel free to copy it and make it ungeneric (specific?) by embellishing it with my “trademark” style.
In our eyes a song may be a generic song. EVEN if someone has created it, we feel the song itself is generic and the only part “trademarked” is the particular interpretation when it was originally performed. So the song is free to be taken and customized,as long as the customization the original interpreter did is not copied.
BUT, when you make a song, or you write a blog or papers or reviews, you may feel differently. While I may like one version of Bilongo better than 5 others and differentiate each by the unique spin the interpreter has added, that doesn’t mean Bilongo itself truly is some generic blank slate devoid of someone’s personal touch.
I spend a lot of time listening to my music and though I dont KNOW music, I can recognize music written by certain composers. I can recognize the work of specific arrangers, regardless of who is performing the song.
Let me find an analogy to help make this more concrete for me, no pun intended in light of the analogy I will use. I may have a house and its NICE. So new people to the area copy my house, and they build the same one but with different colors, landscaping and so on. No harm, they say, they haven’t copied my house. They customized a version of my house.
But someone who knows architecture may be able to clearly see that the HOUSE, beneath all the geegaws and doodads is the creation of a certain architect.
I can hear songs and know who built it, who created it, I recognize their style. But it may be possible that people who arent looking at that thing, don’t. And so they feel that it is truly ok to go ganking the song “its not special, no unique trademark or style. i can take it and make it in my own style, its cool”. THey arent neccessarily evil or hypocritical, maybe just ignorant. Unable to see the unique style of not the singer or the producer, but of the composer. Unable to say- the structure of this song and the way the patterns flow, and the particular swing of these horns is something ONLY so and so does. I mean shit, its a merengue and they all sound the same.
When you have nonmusicians using other people’s work as building blocks, because they themselves have never built the blocks, but simply built songs from those blocks, they may just not know that a block may be as unique to the creator of it, as the building made from the blocks is to the one who designed and assembled it. Same with the consumers.
A trench coat is a trench coat, so if 100 people make 100 coats that use the same basic design I may see 100 uiquely customized coats. And not see that the coat itself was designed, cut and pieced by someone and bears their imprint.
So its cool to gank it.
Well, Im starving so I’ll continue pondering later.
