Re: Rock vs Classical = Originality vs Faithful copy - discuss

On Apr 30, 11:14 am, JohnB <johnbo...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Just a thought that came into my head from nowhere, so (as an old
friend used to say) let's run it up the flagpole, see if anyone
salutes it:

Classical music is played from the score, note for note, as it is
written. It is the job of the orchestra and its conductor to recreate
as they think fit (and with the conductor having the definitive say)
the way the composer envisaged the piece. So, the whole point is not
to develop a piece away from it's original starting point, but to
recreate what the original creator wanted, structurally and
emotionally.

In rock music, this is what tribute bands do.

In rock* music, the intention seems to be to reinterpret everything.
Unless you were the original creator of the piece and had total
control over its production, each musician tends to have a say in how
a piece is developed. In the Beatles, on the whole there would be
creative input from each band member to develop the composer's
original idea - and these ideas would not be regarded as "composition"
but "arrangement", even when words or melodic phrases might be
altered.

* I mean this to include all forms of rock music but also pop, blues,
and much else.

Any band that covers someone else's composition will tend to develop
it a stage further. Often, a piece will be greatly transformed and
maybe improved by another's adaptation, a great example of this being
Harry Nilsson with Badfinger's "Without You".

I don't really know where I'm going with this - but it strikes me as
quite something to equate tribute bands to the great classical
orchestras!

classical music allows for *some* interpretation via the conductor.

.