Yes, it's all been done. I wrote a story for Gelf last year about music plagiarism, where I explored some interesting issues about originality and ownership of similar-sounding songs. At what point can an artist get a song protected? If someone else steals the melody? The lyrics? The intonation? The same chords?
I was reminded of these perplexing questions when I saw the below YouTube clip of a stand-up at Penn State marveling at the fact that he can't escape "Canon in D" due to its chords' ubiquitousness in modern rock music. He took some creative liberties - not every tune he plays has that exact 1-5-6-3 chord progression ("Let It Be," "No Woman No Cry" and "With or Without You," are all 1-5-6-4) - but the point's well-taken.
Indeed, I can't tell you how many times I've been jamming on that 1-5-6 riff on the piano and come across a famous pop melody ("Under the Bridge," "Head over Feet," even Akon's "It Don't Matter"). Back in my freshman year emo phase - all three weeks of it- I was messing around with tunes by the eternally lovelorn Dashboard Confessional, and realized that "Hands Down" had the same chords as a slightly more optimistic love song called "Let's Get It On." (Not to mention Van Morrison's "Caravan" and the verses in "Here's to the Night").
Apparently, G-Em-C-D can be applied to depressed singer-songwriters, graduating from high school, making babies AND barefoot gypsies singing around the campfire. Go figure..
">
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment