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LongBeachArena72

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DandelionPowderman

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GasLightStreet

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DandelionPowderman
Harmonies and musical details might be provided or suggested by the producer.

Or band members or backing vocalists.

Exactly.

So ... I'm gathering that the creation of harmonies and 'musical details' is NOT songwriting. Correct?

Of course it is, but you're fighting windmills here.

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wonderboy
Musical harmony is what the Stones do best, imo. Their best songs sound as if all the players -- guitars, bass, drums, singer, piano -- are listing to each other and playing off the other guy.
Keith's backup vocals on something like Exile are also an example of this. I think his backup singing has always influenced Mick's lead singing.
My criticism of Mick's solo stuff and some of their later songs is that it sounds like the guitar player did his thing, then somebody else came in and did their bit, then another player did his bit and the producer put them all together. That can work (Steely Dan did that and it sounds mostly seamless) but it's not the same as the players all working together, imo.

I'm going to get out of my depth here real fast but it would help me to understand how specifically we're using the term "harmony." Many rock fans, for example, think of "harmony" in terms of back-up vocals that complement the lead vocal line. My understanding, though, is that harmony has a far broader and more fundamental meaning: multiple pitches being played at the same time, e.g., chords. In that sense harmony of course is the basis of most, if not all, pop music and so I'm struggling a bit to understand what I sometimes see as its relegation to the province of producers or background singers.

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TheflyingDutchman

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LongBeachArena72

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DandelionPowderman

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GasLightStreet

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DandelionPowderman
Harmonies and musical details might be provided or suggested by the producer.

Or band members or backing vocalists.

Exactly.

So ... I'm gathering that the creation of harmonies and 'musical details' is NOT songwriting. Correct?

Of course it is, but you're fighting windmills here.

So you're saying that Marty Fredriksen wrote songs on Goddess In The Doorway instead of merely producing them?

"I'll try this doo-wop-vocals with a higher pitch", now pay me for songwriting - is that how you think it should be?

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DandelionPowderman

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TheflyingDutchman

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LongBeachArena72

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DandelionPowderman

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GasLightStreet

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DandelionPowderman
Harmonies and musical details might be provided or suggested by the producer.

Or band members or backing vocalists.

Exactly.

So ... I'm gathering that the creation of harmonies and 'musical details' is NOT songwriting. Correct?

Of course it is, but you're fighting windmills here.

So you're saying that Marty Fredriksen wrote songs on Goddess In The Doorway instead of merely producing them?

"I'll try this doo-wop-vocals with a higher pitch", now pay me for songwriting - is that how you think it should be?

No. What I'm saying is that adding something substantial to a song is a part of the songwriting. It also depends on what kind of music you're talking about.
In case of the Rolling Stones it varies from song to song. Many are clearly Richards and Jagger. Other Stones songs are a collective, creative and not the least -mind you- a democratic process (sharing songwriting credits). In case of Memo from Turner, to me, Ry Cooder's playing is a part of the song writing. The same goes for MT on "Shine a light". Without the last to examples the songs sound empty and unfinished. I know you will disagree with me. A matter of musical empathy.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2017-07-17 00:01 by TheflyingDutchman.

Harmony is basically the sound of things that go together well.
Usually defined as singing, with the singers taking slightly different parts. But it works for music, too.
I think Keith is a master of this. He has a knack for layering different guitar bits to make a wonderful sound. Bill's contribution here is still not fully appreciated (except for many of us, including Hopkins!)
Dylan has a sense of this, too. I have read the musicians who played with him mentioned that he would say things like, 'play something purple there' indicating that he wanted a certain sound to fit with the other sounds.

In classical music, Bach was one of the first to introduce harmony.
Here is a nice description. I am not a musician so much of this goes over my head. But when I'm listening to something like TTNGoodbye and Wild Horses I appreciate the guitars working together to make a sound greater than the individual parts.

[science.larouchepac.com]

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TheflyingDutchman

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DandelionPowderman

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TheflyingDutchman

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LongBeachArena72

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DandelionPowderman

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GasLightStreet

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DandelionPowderman
Harmonies and musical details might be provided or suggested by the producer.

Or band members or backing vocalists.

Exactly.

So ... I'm gathering that the creation of harmonies and 'musical details' is NOT songwriting. Correct?

Of course it is, but you're fighting windmills here.

So you're saying that Marty Fredriksen wrote songs on Goddess In The Doorway instead of merely producing them?

"I'll try this doo-wop-vocals with a higher pitch", now pay me for songwriting - is that how you think it should be?

No. What I'm saying is that adding something substantial to a song is a part of the songwriting. It also depends on what kind of music you're talking about.
In case of the Rolling Stones it varies from song to song. Many are clearly Richards and Jagger. Other Stones songs are a collective, creative and not the least -mind you- a democratic process (sharing songwriting credits). In case of Memo from Turner, to me, Ry Cooder's playing is a part of the song writing. The same goes for MT on "Shine a light". Without the last to examples the songs sound empty and unfinished. I know you will disagree with me. A matter of musical empathy.

Finding a backup harmony is "cresting something substantial to the song? How often have you experienced that yourself: that backup singers who adjusted the harmonies got songwriting credits?

Memo From Turner was written before Cooder added his part. The song was there. He did his job as a guitarist and improved it. He didn't write it, as far as I know.

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DandelionPowderman

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TheflyingDutchman

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DandelionPowderman

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TheflyingDutchman

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LongBeachArena72

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DandelionPowderman

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GasLightStreet

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DandelionPowderman
Harmonies and musical details might be provided or suggested by the producer.

Or band members or backing vocalists.

Exactly.

So ... I'm gathering that the creation of harmonies and 'musical details' is NOT songwriting. Correct?

Of course it is, but you're fighting windmills here.

So you're saying that Marty Fredriksen wrote songs on Goddess In The Doorway instead of merely producing them?

"I'll try this doo-wop-vocals with a higher pitch", now pay me for songwriting - is that how you think it should be?

No. What I'm saying is that adding something substantial to a song is a part of the songwriting. It also depends on what kind of music you're talking about.
In case of the Rolling Stones it varies from song to song. Many are clearly Richards and Jagger. Other Stones songs are a collective, creative and not the least -mind you- a democratic process (sharing songwriting credits). In case of Memo from Turner, to me, Ry Cooder's playing is a part of the song writing. The same goes for MT on "Shine a light". Without the last to examples the songs sound empty and unfinished. I know you will disagree with me. A matter of musical empathy.

Finding a backup harmony is "cresting something substantial to the song? How often have you experienced that yourself: that backup singers who adjusted the harmonies got songwriting credits?

Memo From Turner was written before Cooder added his part. The song was there. He did his job as a guitarist and improved it. He didn't write it, as far as I know.

I'm not talking about back up harmonies here, but guitar playing. To my musical feeling, Ry Cooder finished the song by playing a very significant part of the song, (his intro almost defines the song) thus he deserves songwriting credits. If we had played in the same band and had become famous, we would have ended up in court.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-07-17 00:47 by TheflyingDutchman.

Maybe the issue is that a song used to be the sheet music. You took the sheet music and played it, maybe interpreted it any way you want.
But now we think of a song as the record -- all the choices that went into the making of the record. So Jimmy Miller suggesting those shakers in JJF had a hand in creating the record. In my mind he helped 'write' the song. Same as the contributions of Nicky, the horn players, Preston, etc.
Jagger/Richards getting credit is a business decision in my mind, being they are the ringleaders and most important people in the process.

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wonderboy
Maybe the issue is that a song used to be the sheet music. You took the sheet music and played it, maybe interpreted it any way you want.
But now we think of a song as the record -- all the choices that went into the making of the record. So Jimmy Miller suggesting those shakers in JJF had a hand in creating the record. In my mind he helped 'write' the song. Same as the contributions of Nicky, the horn players, Preston, etc.
Jagger/Richards getting credit is a business decision in my mind, being they are the ringleaders and most important people in the process.

There might be a reason why you put write in ""?

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DandelionPowderman

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wonderboy
Maybe the issue is that a song used to be the sheet music. You took the sheet music and played it, maybe interpreted it any way you want.
But now we think of a song as the record -- all the choices that went into the making of the record. So Jimmy Miller suggesting those shakers in JJF had a hand in creating the record. In my mind he helped 'write' the song. Same as the contributions of Nicky, the horn players, Preston, etc.
Jagger/Richards getting credit is a business decision in my mind, being they are the ringleaders and most important people in the process.

There might be a reason why you put write in ""?

I'm not sure helping with the arrangement has something to do with writing a song.......

__________________________

If you had the sheet music to Brown Sugar, for example, and gave it to a hundred bands, how many of them would turn it into a great record? Very few.
What the Stones did was take a good song and turn it into something special with what they did in the studio -- the playing, arranging, producing, making decisions about what instruments to use, etc., etc., etc. All those things are part of writing the song, imo.
Rock music is what you do with the song. I think Keith talked about that one time, although I can't find the source. He talked about how they knew how to make records.

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DandelionPowderman
So you're saying that Marty Fredriksen wrote songs on Goddess In The Doorway instead of merely producing them?

For what it's worth, Marti claims he co-wrote and co-produced the album in one of his press bios. Then it turns into the Hollywood deal of credit not always reflecting contributions.

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wonderboy
Maybe the issue is that a song used to be the sheet music. You took the sheet music and played it, maybe interpreted it any way you want.
But now we think of a song as the record -- all the choices that went into the making of the record. So Jimmy Miller suggesting those shakers in JJF had a hand in creating the record. In my mind he helped 'write' the song. Same as the contributions of Nicky, the horn players, Preston, etc.
Jagger/Richards getting credit is a business decision in my mind, being they are the ringleaders and most important people in the process.

Thjs is close to how I'm starting to think about pop songwriting, especially in the context of The Stones. I was considering the other day the distinction the Grammys make, for example, between Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Record of the Year, of course, recognizes the totality of a single track's achievement (writing, performing, engineering, production, etc.) while Song of the Year is an award to the songwriter(s) who composed the song.

I believe that it's nearly impossible for us mere mortals (i.e., non-musicians) to really distinguish between the performance of a song and the song as composed. I don't think I really understand in the context of a band like The Stones what "composition" really entails. It seems that there's a germ of an idea provided by someone (I suppose always Mick or Keith) which is then developed organically in the studio by a group of musicians until a finished song is recorded. Who can really tell who wrote that song? I'm just not sure.

These are guys who from most reports in their heyday were not nearly as musically impressive as bandleaders like Brian Wilson. Their ideas were more likely to emerge as sketches in need of significant trial-end-error-type experimentation and development than to spring more or less fully formed from their respective brains. It's just a different way or working, I guess. You certainly cannot argue with their success. But I think you can begin to question what 'authorship' really means in the context of The Rolling Stones and whether one member of the songwriting partnership is more 'musical' than the other.

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wonderboy
If you had the sheet music to Brown Sugar, for example, and gave it to a hundred bands, how many of them would turn it into a great record? Very few.
What the Stones did was take a good song and turn it into something special with what they did in the studio -- the playing, arranging, producing, making decisions about what instruments to use, etc., etc., etc. All those things are part of writing the song, imo.
Rock music is what you do with the song. I think Keith talked about that one time, although I can't find the source. He talked about how they knew how to make records.

Yes, Wonderboy. IMO now you are talking about the essence of the Stones. That only they can do a "Brown Sugar". Or why it is almost impossible to cover the great Stones songs.
Very good point about the sheet music, and how no one would probably turn in a decent song. All your posts have been dead on in this thread.
I don't have anything to add yet; got to think on this some more.

Is there a quote somewhere about why the band abandoned the "Nanker Phelge" moniker? There was a time very early on when the Stones had recorded nearly as many of those tunes as Jagger/Richards songs. Were Nanker and Phelge simply not pulling their weight? Were Mick and Keith just tired of doing the heavy lifting and thought keeping the credits to themselves more accurately reflected how the songs were really being written?

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LongBeachArena72
Is there a quote somewhere about why the band abandoned the "Nanker Phelge" moniker? There was a time very early on when the Stones had recorded nearly as many of those tunes as Jagger/Richards songs. Were Nanker and Phelge simply not pulling their weight? Were Mick and Keith just tired of doing the heavy lifting and thought keeping the credits to themselves more accurately reflected how the songs were really being written?

They started writing more of their own songs rather than adding lyrics to Jimmy Reed and Bo Diddley-songs?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-07-18 22:34 by DandelionPowderman.

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TheflyingDutchman

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DandelionPowderman

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TheflyingDutchman

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LongBeachArena72

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DandelionPowderman

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GasLightStreet

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DandelionPowderman
Harmonies and musical details might be provided or suggested by the producer.

Or band members or backing vocalists.

Exactly.

So ... I'm gathering that the creation of harmonies and 'musical details' is NOT songwriting. Correct?

Of course it is, but you're fighting windmills here.

So you're saying that Marty Fredriksen wrote songs on Goddess In The Doorway instead of merely producing them?

"I'll try this doo-wop-vocals with a higher pitch", now pay me for songwriting - is that how you think it should be?

No. What I'm saying is that adding something substantial to a song is a part of the songwriting. It also depends on what kind of music you're talking about.
In case of the Rolling Stones it varies from song to song. Many are clearly Richards and Jagger. Other Stones songs are a collective, creative and not the least -mind you- a democratic process (sharing songwriting credits). In case of Memo from Turner, to me, Ry Cooder's playing is a part of the song writing. The same goes for MT on "Shine a light". Without the last to examples the songs sound empty and unfinished. I know you will disagree with me. A matter of musical empathy.

Mick Jagger writes a blues song: music and lyrics. Hires musicians to play it for recording. One of them is Jimmy Page. He plays slide.

Playing the slide guitar does not equate to 'song writing'. Jimmy Page had no hand in writing the song.

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wonderboy
Maybe the issue is that a song used to be the sheet music. You took the sheet music and played it, maybe interpreted it any way you want.
But now we think of a song as the record -- all the choices that went into the making of the record. So Jimmy Miller suggesting those shakers in JJF had a hand in creating the record. In my mind he helped 'write' the song. Same as the contributions of Nicky, the horn players, Preston, etc.
Jagger/Richards getting credit is a business decision in my mind, being they are the ringleaders and most important people in the process.

He had a hand in making it sound better. That's not songwriting.

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wonderboy
If you had the sheet music to Brown Sugar, for example, and gave it to a hundred bands, how many of them would turn it into a great record? Very few.
What the Stones did was take a good song and turn it into something special with what they did in the studio -- the playing, arranging, producing, making decisions about what instruments to use, etc., etc., etc. All those things are part of writing the song, imo.
Rock music is what you do with the song. I think Keith talked about that one time, although I can't find the source. He talked about how they knew how to make records.

That's production. Just because someone came up with an idea that a garbage can sounds great as a percussion track doesn't mean they get songwriting credit or production credit.

In the case where Jimmy Paige contributes a slide guitar, there are many instances in which he would get a songwriting credit, imo. Especially if it's just a standard blues number and the slide is the best thing about the song.
...
I remember reading a story about Paul McCartney putting together one of the Beatles' early songs that might illustrate this point. He wanted a French horn on the song. So the horn player comes in, listens to the track and says, 'What do you want me to play?' Paul said, 'Just play in the break there.' The horn player shook his head, and George Martin had to explain to Paul that he needed to tell the player what to play. So Paul hummed the part.
Paul was used to the way a rock band worked, where George would come up with the lead on his own. So George had a hand in writing the song, imo.
The Beatles solved this issue by letting Harrison come up with his own songs (in which Paul and John contributed), so it wound up equaling out.
In the Stones, I think Bill and Charlie settled for not getting credits because they were getting equal shares of other money. And, yes, I think Charlie shaped many of their songs, Moonlit Mile, for example, wouldn't have been a great record without Charlie deciding to use mallets and playing the pattern he chose.

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wonderboy
In the case where Jimmy Paige contributes a slide guitar, there are many instances in which he would get a songwriting credit, imo. Especially if it's just a standard blues number and the slide is the best thing about the song.
...

Your opinion is wrong. He's not the songwriter. The string and horn section for Zep's Kashmir should get songwriting credit according to your opinion.

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GasLightStreet

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wonderboy
In the case where Jimmy Paige contributes a slide guitar, there are many instances in which he would get a songwriting credit, imo. Especially if it's just a standard blues number and the slide is the best thing about the song.
...

Your opinion is wrong. He's not the songwriter. The string and horn section for Zep's Kashmir should get songwriting credit according to your opinion.

Well, it all depends. Did Paige write the music for those parts? Did Jones write them -- pretty sure he was gifted in that kind of thing?
Becker and Fagen solved that problem by just hiring session men and paying for their efforts that way.
I don't know about Kashmir, but didn't Jones get credit on some Zeppelin songs for making contributions beyond just playing bass?
Ultimately, it's a business decision. There were songs in which Mick did all the work, and then maybe Keith came in and laid down a guitar and got a credit. Probably on a song like MY, Bill did more for the song than Keith. M&K decided that was right for them. Might not work in other bands.

On Kashmir, Paige, Plant and Bonham got credits.

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wonderboy
Harmony is basically the sound of things that go together well.
Usually defined as singing, with the singers taking slightly different parts. But it works for music, too.
I think Keith is a master of this. He has a knack for layering different guitar bits to make a wonderful sound. Bill's contribution here is still not fully appreciated (except for many of us, including Hopkins!)
Dylan has a sense of this, too. I have read the musicians who played with him mentioned that he would say things like, 'play something purple there' indicating that he wanted a certain sound to fit with the other sounds.

In classical music, Bach was one of the first to introduce harmony.
Here is a nice description. I am not a musician so much of this goes over my head. But when I'm listening to something like TTNGoodbye and Wild Horses I appreciate the guitars working together to make a sound greater than the individual parts.

[science.larouchepac.com]

I couldnt disagree with you more.

Here is a question to John Paul Jones of Zeppelin (I think this is what Jones/Wyman/Taylor were up against):


On the band's last album, "In Through The Out Door," you received more songwriting credit than on any previous album. Why was that?

JPJ: I was always involved with that stuff on all the albums, but I got more credits on that album because Page was less involved with it. Basically, I was at rehearsals earlier and Robert and I more or less wrote that album together.

In all honesty, I'd say that I probably should have paid much more attention to the writing credits in the earlier days of Zeppelin. In those days, I'd just say, "Well, I wrote that, but it's part of the arrangement," or something like that, and I'd just let it go. Not realizing at the time that that part of the arrangement had more to do with the writing than just arranging something. I always thought that John Bonham's contribution was always much more than he ever received credit for as well. In fact, I know it was.

Zeppelin was really a partnership between four people, and sometimes when you see songs with "Page-Plant" on everything, it makes it seem like it was a "Lennon-McCartney" situation where they wrote everything and John and I just kind of learned the songs that Jimmy and Robert taught to us [laughs]. That's so far from the truth, it's ridiculous.

Regarding the contributions of band members who are not songwriters:

One way to think about might be to examine how a band member comes to play his or her part in a song. If a bass player or guitarist or horn player, for example, is told by the songwriter "for the next eight bars play something cool in your own style that is congruent with the chord progression I've established in this song," then my guess would be that that player would not 'qualify' for a songwriting credit, no matter how killer his/her contribution might be.

If, on the other hand, in the process of 'jamming out' a song which is in an embryonic state, a non-songwriter comes up with a riff, for example, that elevates the music and takes it in a new direction and in effect redefines that 'song,' then that player has probably helped write the song.

John Paul Jones wrote the iconic riff (and the overall tune) of Black Dog, and I believe he does get the main songwriting credit - or at least a co-writing credit.

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

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GasLightStreet

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wonderboy
In the case where Jimmy Paige contributes a slide guitar, there are many instances in which he would get a songwriting credit, imo. Especially if it's just a standard blues number and the slide is the best thing about the song.
...

Your opinion is wrong. He's not the songwriter. The string and horn section for Zep's Kashmir should get songwriting credit according to your opinion.

agree

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LongBeachArena72
Regarding the contributions of band members who are not songwriters:

One way to think about might be to examine how a band member comes to play his or her part in a song. If a bass player or guitarist or horn player, for example, is told by the songwriter "for the next eight bars play something cool in your own style that is congruent with the chord progression I've established in this song," then my guess would be that that player would not 'qualify' for a songwriting credit, no matter how killer his/her contribution might be.

If, on the other hand, in the process of 'jamming out' a song which is in an embryonic state, a non-songwriter comes up with a riff, for example, that elevates the music and takes it in a new direction and in effect redefines that 'song,' then that player has probably helped write the song.

Agreed.
Plus he stands up and asks for a credit.
Thinking of the Stones, Wyman might have deserved a credit on Miss You or Fingerprint File, for example.

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wonderboy

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LongBeachArena72
Regarding the contributions of band members who are not songwriters:

One way to think about might be to examine how a band member comes to play his or her part in a song. If a bass player or guitarist or horn player, for example, is told by the songwriter "for the next eight bars play something cool in your own style that is congruent with the chord progression I've established in this song," then my guess would be that that player would not 'qualify' for a songwriting credit, no matter how killer his/her contribution might be.

If, on the other hand, in the process of 'jamming out' a song which is in an embryonic state, a non-songwriter comes up with a riff, for example, that elevates the music and takes it in a new direction and in effect redefines that 'song,' then that player has probably helped write the song.

Agreed.
Plus he stands up and asks for a credit.
Thinking of the Stones, Wyman might have deserved a credit on Miss You or Fingerprint File, for example.

I should add as always that I am out of my depth in these strictly musical discussions. I just try to listen and then report what makes sense to me. As I've said before, I find the concept of 'songwriting' in the context of a collaborative enterprise like a rock band to be a very tough nut to crack. The processes of songwriters like Brian Wilson or Stevie Wonder, for example, are easier for me to 'understand' than guys in a group who lean on each other to produce something together.