Author: Stan

Jacob Collier concert

Saw musician extraordinaire Jacob Collier in concert last week. A lot of fun. Sold out crowd of 1500. I just hope he picks a better venue if he returns. One thing I don’t get about concert crowds though –

At a party, your friend starts telling a joke you’ve heard her tell before. You do which of the following?:

  1. Interrupt repeatedly to tell everyone how good this joke is
  2. Start telling the joke along with her
  3. Enjoy the subtle changes and refinements in this version
  4. vicariously enjoy the first-time experience of those who haven’t heard the joke before

So why shout-out, sing-along-with or otherwise coverup the performance of an artist you (and others) paid good money to see and hear without being invited to do so? Especially when that artist already provides many opportunities for audience participation?

Not too long after I posted this a Jeopardy contestant from Seattle, Washington, Tory Waltrip, related how she was almost thrown out of a Celine Dion concert for singing along because, as she stated “it turns out strangely enough, people went to the concert to hear Celine and not me.”

Realigned

Came across this old piece of mine from the 80s, when I was still doing jazz, called: Realigned.
It’s not bad. Well‚ better than I remembered anyway. Here’s an excerpt, the last minute of the piece.
Listen to: Realigned.

Praise Ye the Lord

Finally had a chance to add this recording of a performance from January 2015 of my hymn: Praise Ye the Lord.

Big thank you to Ben Lane, and the Cathedral Choir from the Cathedral Church of Saint Luke. They really did a great job finding the music hiding in the notes!

Listen to: Praise Ye the Lord.

The Angel Gabriel

This Christmas season (2014), there was a performance of my string orchestra arrangement of the carol The Angel Gabriel.

As commonly happens, there didn’t appear to be enough rehearsal, so the performance is a bit tentative, and the tempo a little too slow, but you can get the idea of what it should sound like.

Listen to: The Angel Gabriel.

Veterans Day concerts tickets

Tickets went on sale today for two of the venues performing Veterans Day concerts featuring my music!
The concerts benefit K9s for Warriors, a Florida charity that rescues, trains, and pairs service dogs to returning soldiers who need them.
The performers are:
the Sovereign Brass
and Trinity Prep High School Choir.
Featuring all new music by local composers written especially for these concerts.
The content:

   an opening brass fanfare
   a choral work
   then: a series of poetry readings by local poets
         each followed by a work for brass ensemble
   with a final choral work.

My piece is the 2nd brass work, about Duty, Honor and Sacrifice.
So a great program, for a good cause!!
The first performance is 7:30 PM, Sunday, Nov. 9th, 2014,
at Trinity Prep High School Auditorium, Winter Park.
$20. You can get tickets here.
The 2nd performance is 7:30 PM, Monday, Nov. 10th, 2014,
at USF Concert Hall, Tampa.
Tickets on sale soon.
The 3rd performance is 7:30 PM, Tuesday, Nov. 11th, 2014,
at Community Presbyterian Church, Jacksonville (Atlantic Beach).
$30. You can get tickets here.
Get the word out, share with your friends.
Also a big thanks to our sponsors:
Bryce L West Foundation
Timucua Arts Foundation
Herschel Lasik
Full Sail University

Monkey selfie

There has been quite a bit written recently about the case of a British photographer, David Slater, where a monkey took his camera and took a “selfie”. Wikimedia posted the photo, the photographer asked them to take it down because it is a copyrighted work, Wikimedia refused on the grounds that the monkey actually took the photo, so its not David Slater’s to copyright, and the monkey has no copy “rights”‘.

I won’t post the photo here, because I think the photographer owns it and the copyright.

I have two arguments:

1) a nature photographer sets up a camera in the woods, attached to a trip plate or a motion sensor. A deer enters the scene, stepping on the plate or triggering the photo from his motion. Technically, I suppose the deer took the photo. But is there anyone who would argue that the resulting photo (and it’s copyright) doesn’t belong to the nature photographer? What if you triggered a security camera in a store? Would you say that you own that picture and the store doesn’t, because they didn’t “take” the picture?

2) a thief steals a woman’s necklace, and using only components from the original necklace, re-cuts some of the stones, removes some items, and reassembles the result into a bracelet. When he attempts to sell the bracelet to a fence who is an undercover cop, he is arrested and he confesses everything. Who owns the bracelet? I think it is immaterial, based on artistic merit, whether the resulting bracelet is now only worth a fraction of what the necklace once was, or is worth hundreds of times the original; the bracelet clearly belongs to the original owner of the necklace. And that’s with a “work of art” created by a human being who knew what he was doing.

In other words, if I had stolen the photographer’s camera and taken a picture, I don’t think anyone would entertain this specious argument, even if the picture I took was better than any of his.

What would have entered the public domain in 2014?

Prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which went into effect in 1978) the max length of copyright was 56 years (the initial 28 plus an optional renew for 28). So works from 1957 would be entering the public domain this year.

That includes:

Plays and Books: Samuel Beckett: Endgame, Jack Kerouac: On the Road, Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged, Dr. Seuss: How the Grinch Stole Christmas & the Cat in the Hat, Ian Fleming: From Russia, with Love.

Movies & TV: Richard Matheson: The Incredible Shrinking Man, David Lean: The Bridge on the River Kwai, the Burt Lancaster & Kirk Douglas version: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the Glenn Ford & Van Heflin version: 3:10 to Yuma, 12 Angry Men, Sweet Smell of Success, Jailhouse Rock, Funny Face, An Affair to Remember, early Leave It to Beaver, early Perry Mason, Elvis Presley’s third and final appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Music: That’ll Be the Day, Peggy Sue, Great Balls of Fire, All Shook Up, Jailhouse Rock, Shostakovitch: Symphony No. 11, Bernstein & Sondheim: West Side Story.

And that’s really only a small portion. Typically only 15% of copyright holders renewed past the initial 28 years. So that would mean that 85% of the works created in 1985 would also be entering the public domain.

The truth is that only the famous works, like those listed above, would have been renewed (for books, the renewal rate was only 7%!), since most things exhaust their commercial value rapidly. So the real harm of auto-renewal and the extended terms is that in most cases the copyright holder is not receiving any significant royalties and the works are often commercially unavailable and off limits because of the continued copyright. Neither the creator nor the public benefits from the extension.

Idea vs. Expression

Great article by Zachary Strebeck explaining why you can’t copyright an idea, the limitations of copyright, and what is actually protected under copyright law.

Read the article here.

Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella

Also, this Christmas season, there was a performance of my string orchestra arrangement of the carol Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella.

This performance was perhaps a little tentative, but there was only one rehearsal prior to the concert.

Listen to: Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella.

I Hear America Singing

My largest work to premier this year was for a patriotic program, I Hear America Singing. It’s written for Baritone soloist, mixed chorus, and orchestra. The text is from Walt Whitman.

I wrote it with the wonderful voice of Thomas Potter in mind, and was very fortunate that he was available for the performance.

Listen to: I Hear America Singing.

You can also download the text here.

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