Re: [Harp-L] Re: open source = jazz

[Philharpn@xxxxxxx]

The "open source"   used by jazz players has more to do with chord changes 
than melody lines. There are uncounted numbers of jazz tunes based on the chord 
changes of pop songs.

The "rhythm changes" which means the chords used in the Gershwin song "I Got 
Rhythm" are used as the basis to improvise many songs. The chord changes for 
the song "I've Got Rhythm" are the basis of much jazz and big band swing music. 


The really cheap and easy way to explore these changes is in 
these changes, there's a great resource by Jamey Aebersold titled "Rhythm 
Changes in 12 keys."
(Vol. 47. book /CD $14.90).   

What this means is that if you have one of those key of B harps, you can put 
it to use. (And if you need some more help, get Mel Bay's The Complete 10-hole 
Diatonic Harmonica Series by James Major in or all of the 12 keys. Why waste 
time if an $8 book will save you hours of time.)

This is not the same as using the melody line for the lyric "I got rhythm..." 
as the basis of a "new" song. Unlike most blues songs.

Bringing up "open source" with allusions to   the classical "variations on a 
theme"   is the old comparing apples and grapes. 

Improvising on chord changes (as the C chord "changes" to F or G7 and so 
forth) is not really "open source" either.

Chord changes -- like song titles -- can't be copyrighted.   Therefore, there 
can be no infringement of the chord arrangement used in one song by another.

The problem with blues songs is while most of them are chord based (the 
prominent riff is based on say a G chord shape, so once you fret a G chord in first 
position, you are ready to play all the melody notes in a section) if you j
ust play the chords you don't get much sense of the tune.

The Mississippi Sheik's "Sitting on Top of the World" (the basis for Robert 
Johnson's "Come on in My Kitchen") share the not only the same chord structure 
(using the chords G, C7 and D7) but the same melody line. 

In fact, if you had two musicians play the two songs together, you couldn't 
tell them apart. If they were in the same key they would be playing in unison.

This is nothing like what the classical players used to do with their 
"variations on a theme." They would take a section of music and change the notes 
around so that it was recognizable as the original but also changed in a way that 
if it didn't improve 


Blues players don't change anything around; they just play it as they take 
it. Usuually, note for note.


Jazz players also don't change anything around, they work on the chords and 
come up with a new melody based on the way the chords fall. (Of course, they 
are always exceptions: but they don't immediately come to mind.)

The audience doesn't care whether your wrote the song or based it on an 
earlier melody. The audience doesn't care whether you infringe on an earlier song 
-- and judging from the plethora of posts, neither do most harmonica players.

But if you are a halfway serious musician -- amateur or pro -- you ought to 
know whether you are playing a cover version of a well-known song or a song 
that uses the melody or riffs of an earlier song.    

And how do you know whether a song is based on an earlier song? Everybody 
knows that it's easy to pick up a harmonica and that you can learn to play one in 
an hour.

You can listen to anthologies or just listen to a lot of blues over the 
months and years. After you a while you will recognize the familiar ones. There's 
really no shortcut. But don't get discouraged, there are only about 12 
different "melodies" or characteristic riffs used in blues anyway.

Keep on harpin
The more you know, the better you play

Phil Lloyd
tempus fugit, carpe harp




In a message dated 7/6/07 8:15:51 PM, bogio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:

> URL from George Brooks:
> http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387
> Thanks, George, for a wonderful link.  The author encapsulates much
> of this recent onlist discussion exquisitely, in particular...
> "Blues and jazz musicians have long been enabled by a kind of "open
> source" culture, in which pre-existing melodic fragments and larger
> musical frameworks are freely reworked. ... Today an endless,
> gloriously impure, and fundamentally social process generates
> countless hours of music."
> 
> "Open Source" music ... Blues and Jazz, obviously.   Music and Art in
> general.  Makes abundant sense for me.
> 
> Bobbie
> 
> P.S.  Hi, folks.  Major computer and financial woes since
> April.  Glad to be back... hope to make it to SPAH.
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> 
> 




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