Marlowshere Blog (#139)

Keeping an open mind allows for a more interesting and better end product. This is true in business, academia, or the arts. This may seem like a simple, no-brainer piece of advice, but the ability to step back from preconceived notions and allow others into the process without judgement or outright rejection takes an open attitude.

An Open Mind About Genre and Style

In late 2016, Aldemaro Romero, Jr., the Dean of the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences at Baruch College (City University of New York) called me into his office (I teach courses in media and culture at Baruch College). The reason for the conversation? He wanted to produce a music video about the school aimed at prospective students and incoming freshmen and wanted me to suggest (I thought) a music track for the video. I was in the process of making a few suggestions of extant music when he interrupted me and said “I want something original.”

In other words, he wanted me to create a piece of music—around four minutes–that would become the score for the video. Dean Romero was aware of my various music activities within and outside the college. I was a logical choice to be involved with this.

I asked him for some thematic direction and some words he thought might be included in the track. It was agreed almost from the outset that the music track should incorporate lyrics, as opposed to a purely instrumental approach.

My next step was to contact Janet Lawson. Janet is not only a highly respected, Grammy-nominated singer, she also teaches vocals at The New School in New York City. More importantly, she is a gifted lyricist. We had previously worked together on several other projects where I had written the music and she had crafted the lyrics. She has a knack for coming up with just the right words to express a feeling or a concept. Her lyrics also convey some emotional depth. I met Janet at an ASCAP-sponsored jazz songwriting workshop led by the late Dr. Billy Taylor in 1980.

After conveying to Janet the themes the Dean was looking for, I asked her to come up with a few lines, just to see if we were on the right track. Within 24 hours Janet sent me this opening lyric: “My Heart Is Beating to the Rhythm of My Future.” Immediately I thought it was just right. I passed it on to the Dean who concurred. We had a very good beginning.

I ask Janet to expand on this theme. A couple of weeks later she sends me a more developed set of stanzas with a refrain: “I wonder yes, I wonder why, I wonder, do you wonder too?” It was just right given the academic context of the prospective video.

However, at this juncture I was beginning to come to a realization. While neither of us had ever been associated with a hip-hop or rap music project, she had inadvertently written an opening lyric with a strong four beat rap feel. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Problem was not all the lyrics had internal or ending rhymes. We went through four iterations of the lyrics before it was right. The Dean approved.

An Open Mind About Talent

The next challenge was finding young rappers to record the lyrics. I thought this would be a relatively easy task. Not so. Also, there was the issue of scheduling the recording session. It took several weeks to find enough rappers who could record all on the same day at Dubway Studios (NYC). We ended up with several members of The Blue Notes, a Baruch College a cappella group, a jazz bass student from The New School with a propensity for rapping, plus a couple of youngish professional Hispanic singers. The icing on the cake was Dean Romero himself who was present at the recording session. When I turned around and said I really needed one more voice, his hand went up in an instant. His voice is included in the rap’s “I wonder how” refrain.

The overall structure of the track was in three sections: opening lyrics, an in-the-middle instrumental interlude, closing lyrics.

It was my concept going in that given the diversity of Baruch College’s student body—it is the most diverse public college in the United States—that this should be expressed somehow in the music track. This is what we did. Working with engineer Jim Gately at Valhalla Studios (New York City), we chose 10 public domain hip-hop/rap drum tracks from the Internet. We then laid these out in a somewhat arbitrary order. As it turned out, it was the right order.

When we got to the middle “instruments only” section I had jazz pianist virtuoso ArcoIris Sandoval improvise different culture sounding melodic lines using an electronic keyboard that could generate different instrumental sounds. Each instrument melodic line lasted 18-seconds. For one of the lines I had her record the opening section of Bach’s C-minor Prelude from the “Well Tempered Clavier” on the Rhodes keyboard that just happened to be sitting idle in the Dubway recording studio. She also improvised lines for sitar, koto, steel drum, South American pan flute, and Middle Eastern horn. The two other improvised “instrumental” melodic lines were provided by Jim Gately (who also plays guitar) and Michael Hashim who recorded a “jazz” line on alto saxophone. All told the eight middle section instrumentals convey a sense of world music and, therefore, of a diverse culture.

When I delivered the mastered track to the Dean he immediately auditioned it for several student groups. According to the feedback the track hit the mark. The students got it. Once the video is shot and edited to the music track, Dean Romero intends to distribute the music video to as many outlets as possible.

If you’re interested, you can listen to a sample of the track at https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/eugenemarlow15. Fittingly, the lyrics to “My Heart Is Beating to the Rhythm of My Future” reflect the theme of keeping an open mind in the creative and learning process.

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The Marlowsphere Blog (#103)

Electronic media have had a huge impact on the sphere of intellectual property.  Not only have electronic technologies sped the transmission of information to the level of the speed of light, it has also provided opportunities for surreptitious theft, regardless of copyright ownership.

For example, along with China’s relentless economic expansion since the early 1990s, theft of intellectual property appears to be rampant. The issue of hacking by special military units headquartered in Beijing, notwithstanding, the Chinese are ripping off music by others left and right.

A little over nine years ago Bruce Iglauer, president of Chicago-based Alligator Records, testifying before the Committee on Small Business in Washington, D.C., to a group of representatives stated:

“When it comes to ripping off American sound recordings, China is one of the worst. The magnitude of record piracy there eclipses any other country. China is potentially the biggest market in the world for American music. . . maybe even bigger than the USA. With the growth of the Chinese economy and the huge population, the potential for massive sales of American music in China in the next few years is great. . . .[However], it is not a matter of ‘if’ our music will be pirated in China, but rather ‘when’.”

The issue of who owns what, at least in the United States, when it comes to intellectual property—and in this context is included music of all kinds—is not new. To quote liberally from Christopher Winn’s book I Never Knew That About New York  (Plume, 2013):

“One evening in the spring of 1915 Victor Herbert, the Irish-born Tin Pan Alley composer and founder in 1914 of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) walked into Shanley’s Restaurant [at the time located at No. 1204 Broadway, New York City] and heard a song from his hit operetta Sweethearts being played. Herbert decided to sue the restaurant for violation of copyright, and in 1917, in the first case of its kind ever brought, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes found in Herbert’s favor, ruling that Shanley’s profited not only by its food but by the music it offered. “If the music did not pay, it would be given up,” said Holmes. Since then performing rights societies have had the right to collect license fees from any performance of musical works under the copyright act. The ruling is still being tested today with regard to downloads from the Internet.” 

Speaking of which, in another very recent Supreme Court case, the high court found against Aereo, a company—backed by media mogul Barry Diller—that was taking broadcast signals and re-transmitting them to subscribers for a fee over the Internet. Aereo charged users a low monthly fee to stream live broadcasts of TV channels on mobile devices using miniature antennas that the company hosts. Aereo, which was available in 11 U.S. cities and estimated to be tiny compared to 100 million paying TV customers, says its service does nothing more than what a personal TV antenna would provide. The justices ruled 6 to 3 that Aereo violated copyrights by streaming broadcast channels to customers. The Supreme Court decision effectively shut Aereo down.

The advent of Aereo is yet another example of the opportunities presented by the Internet to potentially break up the monopolies of the more traditional media in terms of distribution venues. In Aereo’s case, it didn’t work because of Aereo’s complete disrespect for copyright ownership. But new electronic media have not yet completed their influence. Ever since Netscape, the Internet has dented the intent of copyright law and diminished the monetary value of music made available on the Internet. The Internet has provided a means for people to steal the work (and money) of others. And what used to be thousands of dollars in royalty revenue has become pennies, particularly since the advent of Spotify.

All this raises the constant need for musicians and composers/arrangers to copyright their work wherever and whenever possible at all times. Part of the problem lies in the musical culture’s ethos of sharing music among colleagues without regard to copyright. To quote American poet Robert Frost from his poem “Mending Wall”: “Good fences make good neighbors.” The meaning in this context is that giving formality to one’s intellectual work—writing, composing, performing, et al—such as in a copyright notice on a work or submitting work to the American Copyright Office in Washington, D.C., lets everyone know who owns the work and it keeps everything above board.

There are countless stories of jazz musicians and composers, for example, flagrantly cheated out of their legitimate royalties by unscrupulous managers and publishers merely because the latter knew how to take advantage. In today’s music world, regardless of one’s stature, making a copyright claim—either by putting it on the work or presenting the work for the imprimatur of the government—makes clear who has ownership. In the long run, it makes for professional respect and a better business relationship all around.

Please write to me at meiienterprises@aol.com if you have any comments on this or any other of my blogs.

Eugene Marlow, Ph.D.
July 14, 2014

© Eugne Marlow 2014

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