Ah, my first blog entry on the Daily KOS. I feel so driven and purposeful. First I must destroy a bit of the anonymousness of my entry with a basic description of what I am. I am a composer, amongst other things I do in my life, but I do emphasize music composition as a life goal to most of the people I meet. It is an extremely difficult career, for life in the United States of America during this era is extremely difficult for any musician who dedicates his or her life to the creation of formal concert music. So, I, for some reason, hear symphonies, string quartets, piano quartets, trumpet concertos, ect... in my head and then I go through the process of writing them down on paper. I am addicted to this. This process is now a requirement in my life, for I have made it sacred. Anyone who stops me is evil.
Enough about me. An interesting thing happened on my drive to work. I am a music teacher. I have to feed a family of four. I heard a NPR interview that simply boggled my mind, angered me, and with a final choice to turn the radio off, driving silently with the drone of my clicking 17 year old car engine. The interview was with a famous person who discussed his music. This was not an individual who performed or created music, he simply had a list of music tracks on his computer device, and this music was his because he had it on his list. He used his music for exercise routines and he gave his music to others while he did his exercise routines with them. The mind boggle was NPR's emphasis on the music being his, as if he owned it - and no one else owned this music. We must forget that other people created, performed or sang his music. NPR then proceeded to publish this individual's music list on their web site. Let me get on thing clear, nobody owns music. Emphatically, you cannot own music.
But the Music Industry (now there is a corporate entity that boggles the mind- music and industry) of the USA continually cranks out mind numbing propaganda that convinces everyone, especially our youth, that they can own music that they currently own and can resell to you. We used to etch it on discs slap interesting art on it and sell it in malls. Now we simply click on a link and it is downloaded on your device (devices produced it sweat shop factories). No need to practice the violin. Just click away and it is all yours. But, it is not yours and it never will be yours, or mine or anybodies. You can't own music.
Even all of the machinations that I do to write music down on paper and then play it for him or her does not make it mine. Writing it down on paper then signing my name to it does not make it mine. Music is not here, socially, between us for the benefit of ownership exchange. Music is an infinite possible arrangements of tone and rhythm patterns - with a syntax. We do need a syntax, so musicians can get together and agree how to make the stuff. One more myth to break, music is not a language, I cannot order a pizza with tonality and meter or tone and rhythm. Music is not words.
When I compose music I am using the same stuff that other composers use: chords, meters, orchestral timbres. Even when I combine them in a unique way, I still use the stuff of others. But, continually my fellow composers fuss with each other, especially in the formal music category, about who is creating the newest sounding music, the most unique music of all time, sacred newness. Call the attorneys and judges for a settlement on what is copyrighted. Call the corporate lobbyist to write laws for our representatives to enact laws about who owns music and who can and cannot sell it, or best of all: who can and cannot give it away for free.
The humor in all of this "music ownership for resellers" is that music will survive this reseller ignorance. Time will pass. Eras will move with the moon and sun, and our children's children will look back on what we attempted to do with music and giggle.
Music is for creating and sharing, and yes indeed all music is good, for that is another topic: how the Music Industry isolates music styles into tribes - my music is good, yours is bad. Music isn't with us to be owned, it is here for us to express ourselves. And now I must return to music (writing it that is), for it owns me!