Infringements

[Moshe Denburg <denburg...>]

On 9 Apr 1996 14:19:19 GMT, Mathew Fields wrote:

>Do you really think that Stravinsky ever sought to slap his name as
>original author on 4-bar fragments from Rimsky's 1001 Russian Folk Tunes?
>Isn't it more likely that he sought to allude to tradition, pay homage
>to it, use it to supply distinctively "Russian" flavor in his early ballets,
>and use familiar tunes to lure listeners into his unique, quirky sound world?

Of course his intention was the latter, but I use him as an example of a
creative artist's attitude towards 'originality'. We do well to honour
the work of composition, not because every fragment is the composer's
own, but rather because the act of composition elevates these fragments,
and transforms them into a more coherent whole.

There is an interesting story, again concerning Stravinsky, that he was
sued, successfully, by a street musician whose original tune he
'pilfered' and incorporated into one of his compositions. I'll try to
re-locate the book in which I read this, and post it to the group.

>Today I meet people who feel that their free speech rights are being >squashed 
>because they are not allowed to tape music off the radio and >re-broadcast it 
>on the Internet without a liscense. The restaurant >industry is trying, with 
>surprising success, to be completely exempted >from royalties on ambience 
>music played in restaurants and taverns >(look up HR 789 and S 1137 at 
>http://thomas.loc.gov), on the theory >that ownership of music is constructed 
>fundamentally differently from >ownership of books and other texts.  The "work 
>is discovered, not >created" attitude is no laughing matter here.

I feel it is important to differentiate between the legal issues
surrounding the value of _work_, and the more philosophical issues of sui
generis creation vs. the idea of pre-figurement. As yourself, I find the
attitudes that you describe unethical and insensitive in the extreme.

But what _practical_ steps can authors take to secure the material
resources necessary for continuing their work? Certainly there are
matters that go far beyond the issue of 'property' that authors have a
need to speak to each other about. If certain unscrupulous persons choose
to commandeer the idea of pre-figurement to their own ends, this is , to
me, only further evidence of their total lack of an ethical framework.

But the problem of making a connection between the work of art and its
material reward persists. I have taken the position of 'fair use' - I do
not wish to be consumed by the need to defend every iota of my
intellectual property. (Who has the clout anyway?) By 'fair use' I mean
the following:
(this is an appendation to an original article of mine on Jewish Music,
to be found on the website of my ensemble, Tzimmes:
URL-   http://www2.portal.ca/~jsiegel/tzimmes.html)

Copyright and Fair Use Notification

The author does not object to the use of these materials for personal
educational purposes or for any
fair use, such as quoting or citing these materials, as long as his
authorship is credited by the user.
Making copies of these materials as part of any commercial venture, or
for any monetary reward,
requires the written consent of the author. All reasonable requests will
be honoured.

Of course, the above doesn't have much 'teeth' in it - but what does? I
simply don't have much recourse, so I may as well allow myself to come
into contact with those who really feel a connection with what I do.
Those who would appropriate my work as their own have no real connection
with me or my work. In an extreme case, I am prepared to take legal
action.

Frankly, there are few, if any, guarantees that authors will be
remunerated for their work, even with all the lobbying and performance
rights societies, and this law and that law. I just don't *see* any
betterment of the material situation for the majority of authors in the
near future. By all means we can affiliate ourselves with the
aforementioned societies, but this affiliation hardly informs our
discussion of inner truths.

Perhaps we've boxed ourselves into a specialist's view of life - 'I am an
author/creator, he is my audience/consumer' - but is this true? Aren't we
all the authors of our own lives in a real sense? Can not/ought not
business also be a creative act?

Again, I do not mean by this to fuel the rationalizations of the
unscrupulous, but rather to point out that the product of an author comes
_not only_ from a relentless ploughing the field of his/her chosen art,
but, to use the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti, from *all of life*.

In this, larger, context, the idea of the pre-figurement of beautiful
things, the works of art, is neither injurious nor naive. It at the very
least involves us in a discussion of 'who we are' and 'what we are made
of'. I am very engaged by the idea of intuition as separate from the
analytical faculty, though I would not devalue either; or, in other
words, the idea of experience/direct observation (and not only emotive
experience) as the true pre-cursor of study and the application of
logical systems.

In response to my post:
>>To me, the problem of composer-creator vs. composer-discoverer cannot be
>>resolved unless one is willing to differentiate between the experiential
>>mind and the analytical mind. Many composers, (I too read the posts on
>>rec.music.compose) wish to equate the two. I do not believe this to be
>>wise.

Matthew Fields replies:
>Well, where do you draw the line between experiencing what sounds good
>to you, and thinking about what sounds good to you?
>(deletions)
>I really don't see what the distinction between listener's mind and
>composer's mind has to do with discovery vs. creation.

You are equating 'experiential mind' with listening and 'analytical mind'
with thinking. As far as they are both employed in the act of
composition, you are correct. But what I mean by the 'experiential' is
that which gives rise to the need to construct what sounds good, the
original experiences of music that stirred you deeply in the first place,
and that you wish to experience again. This is the raison d'etre of
composition, not its analytical tools, no matter how necessary they may
be at times.

And I feel that it is important to point out the primacy of experience
over analysis. By this I do not wish to imply that the analytical mind
is somehow inferior to sensory experience, but rather that analysis is
not an end in itself.

My view is that in moments of intense experience of something beautiful
and true, there is no external agent present. The objet d'art is
experienced as if emanating from ourselves. This is the power _of the
art_, not of 'denburg' or 'fields' or any other separated ego. The
analytical mind fragments, it enforces its will upon the object of
contemplation; in short, it has an ego - as well it should. But the
egoless experience of the whole, which I believe is at the core of art,
leaves the tools of analysis far behind. This is what is meant by the
idea of pre-figurement or 'discovery'. Of course we create, and some have
created outstandingly. But we do not create everything alone. Of what use
is anyone's ego in the experience of something perfectly beautiful?

>I'm not sure why you mention "analytic" thinking here, as it seems
>to me "imaginative" thinking is 95% of composition for just about
>everybody.

I hope you're right; but I still have a sneaking suspicion that much of
what is taught to students of composition nowadays emphasizes analysis to
the detriment of the imagination. Not that I in any way wish to sanction
the vulgarisms of anti-intellectualism; but in learning an art, if one
does not begin with *that which one is truly touched by*, the
imagination, and the creative life that it makes possible, is placed in
jeopardy.

Moshe Denburg