[Fmpro] going loopy

[sean@shunkydave.com]

I'm going to chime in here.  When I was in college, writing 20th century
alietory music, I wrote a piece where I gave violins a set of notes,
violas no directions, cellos another set of notes, and bass a written
line.  The instruction was for the violin and cello to play in time with
the bass part (it was constantly changing) choosing whatever notes they
wanted from the set.  The viola was to play a melody around the violin and
cello line, improvised.  The bass played what was written.  It was more of
a brainteaser than an enjoyable piece, but it fit the assignment.

According to what you're saying here, I should share the writing credit
with the viola player.  Nope.  It was my piece, not theirs.  They didn't
come to me and say "I've got a great idea...I could do something like this
or this" and we wrote it together.  I had the idea, even though I had no
idea what they would play, and I got them to come do it.

If I put together a combo and I had the rhythm section playing a groove (I
wrote the bass line and keys), and I asked a conga player to join in, and
just asked him to fit in the groove, I'm going to expect him to have the
chops to play an appropriate style and tasteful fills where appropriate. 
If I want something special somewhere I'll ask for it.  If in his
experience he has an idea that would work well, I'll be open to it.  But
I'm not going to credit him with writing props.  It's not his piece.

--Sean



> If you hire a bunch of musicians and tell them to play something,
> anything,
> then they are playing their music and you are a producer, not a composer
>
> If you hire a bunch of musicians and explain your musical dream, your
> vision, in a way that has direction, focus and at least minimal clarity,
> then they are playing your music and you are a composer