Lazz

You mean that's not him in the video ? Hang about - if only I can remember where I put my glasses - I'll look again.

Stone me rigid ! So is this one: The Zimmers

OK - this isn't a music video - but I like it - and it is relevant.

Important questions, good Colonel. For me, as to the first, one thing I love to do just for sheer unrealistically sensual self-pleasure of the procedure, is write out a lead sheet by hand. Though it may sound wierdly perverted to many, I get deep satisfaction from the mechanical design process. Trying to make it as practical and pretty as possible. Measuring out bar lengths and note placements. Forcing print to be neat and tidy and legible - unlike normal handwriting indecipherable even to myself. Keeping the route-map clear and simple. Marking intro, el Signo, coda, repeats, with extravagant flourishes able to be sight-read by any passing muso at a couple of paces. Then I stick it in the book with the others. From time to time, courtesy of fine friends in preparation for a session perhaps, they make it into software in that format which makes 'em look like they come from one of the 'Real Book' volumes. Otherwise, I just scan the hand-written chart. Whichever - I end up with a *.pdf file of the song. So if anyone should ever want to do the tune, I can send 'em a copy. And all the time I'm adding to this private masturbatory indulgence called the Lazzerini songbook - a total shameless pleasure - I now have no guilty secrets left to share with scandal-sheets for an undisclosed sum. Planning to self-publish a song-collection in handy fake-book format some time in the future. Once the market happens. I also register publishing copyright with my local performing rights society. They don't require the lead-sheet for me to do this, of course. I just like to have one handy. All they want to know is the title and who owns it (the title of the title, I guess). Then it's on to addressing the issues at the next two steps you've got listed. Those lead-sheets only come in handy for those discerning souls wishing to add the songs to their performance repertoire. Presently, there are four artists with my monicker in their gig-pad. Getting name-checked to a hip listening audience is a literary form of viral marketing for me, I think, while also offering the occasional vanity indulgences of puffed pride. A few CD reviews here and there are beginning to mention our names with approval. I like that. In a couple of months, one of these special artistes is set to sing our songs at a most reputable room on the NY circuit. Hopefully, the material will make some useful impact in distant broader significant reaches of the business and we will be noticed a little more. And also hopefully, other artists/performers will gradually start taking a little bit more notice, at least, than before. People need to hear the stuff. The stuff needs to get heard. It’s difficult to do make those things happen – but once it starts rolling, it should get easier. Even those who now have a chart have to have been able to have heard the song in order to decide they want to do it before they get to request the music. So we definitely need a demo as well. How blown-out should it be ? I only think I understand what you mean by ‘blown-out’ – but I’m not really certain for sure. I need a demo to be pretty basic and simple and as good as we can make it. I want the song to stand and communicate. I want the setting to allow play-room for arrangers’ and producers’ imaginations. I want the session performances to be convincing and authentic without being overly professionally intimidating. I want the auditioning listener to be able to believe they can own the material. I have only just started to get the hang of doing this psychological-comfort bollocks and pulling off practical production logistics. But that’s our rough thinking and rationale right now. Our songs all have targets in mind throughout conception and design. Yet even on the odd occasions where I have been able to stick the demo right directly into the sweaty hands of one of the intended recipients, I have been disappointed by the inability to actually ensure they are gonna sit down purposefully ready and willing to properly listen and study the stuff even after they’ve looked me in the eye with a soft and sincere ‘thanks very much’ while pocketing the demo somewhere and probably forgetting about it immediately. Getting it to the right people, getting it heard, getting them to listen seems for me, at my own patient snail slow pace, to be dependent upon graceful persistence and the schmoozy building and development of professional relationships. We are starting to make head-way in this. And, as I have already said, I believe it should get easier once a reputation for a certain style of pro-quality starts rolling along and accumulating more believers with coin at each turn. Needless to say, I have the keys to no city, and I am only such a complete farkin expert in the first place because I am a solid student of failure from a career of direct experience – my measurable income from these most valiant efforts stands at less than fifty bucks so far and, if full accounting for associated expenses are reckoned, they inhabit the wild far reaches of extreme negative quantity. I could always get a proper job. Have two of them already. And if Steve can believe in faeries then we still have a chance at a decent earner one day. At the moment though, as far as making a living, I have no illusions. Things could change. Any minute. I believe. Curious. Right now, I'm working on a latte.

W.S. Gilbert, Johnny Burke, Johnny Mercer, Sammy Cahn, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, Betty Comden, Billy Strayhorn, Stephen Sondheim, Mike Stoller with Jerry Leiber, Gerry Goffin with Carole King, Smokey Robinson, Percy Mayfield, Tim Hardin, John Sebastian, Jimmy Webb, Jake Thackeray, Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks, Oscar Brown Jr., Hal David, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Dave Frishberg, Andy Partridge, Walter Becker & Donald Fagen, Fran Landesman, Tom PhantomEngineer, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Ron Sexsmith, Bob Rylett. I like these guys because they are all incredibly smart and crafty with words and style. There must be loads more.

Look out !! I am in love again. This is a young woman called Hiromi Uehara. She is absolutely killing. Love & Laughter XYZ And in a duet with Chick Corea - Spain What a great time she's having.

None that would be of any immediate benefit. Knowing too much is a severe disadvantage. It would make you give up right at the start Joe has to hoe his own row.

Hey Al - what was the result ?

I am a Canadian member and I have never heard of this lot before. Maybe I should have - but I am naturally suspicious. Smells funny to me.

Face-to-face and 'phone calls. Make friends, make 'em laugh. Keep in touch.

Thanks, John.

Cannot disagree. But my two questions remain: I know what he does with his mouth and his energy. Good job. But apart from exploiting tax-law to his own personal advantage and regularly voicing an essential opinion on how others should be spending on aid, what is it he has done with his own money ? And what is it that he has actually achieved on behalf of the third world ? I mean in concrete objective terms - not p.r. Help me out here.

Well - he speaks well and regularly on issues that need to be nailed to an internationalist agenda. So he's using his status and profile to lend exposure. Well done. But so what ? Just exactly what had he done with his own money ? And exactly what has he acheived on behalf of the third world ? I mean in solid identifiable concrete terms - not just hot air. Somebody tell me.

Never heard of her. You're right - she's great. D'ya think she'd consider bigamy ? But who are "these two" ? I ended up the same place.

Excellent !!

Oh sod it !! Now you tell me. I struggled all the way trying to sing it to 'Nellie The Elephant'.

Hey John, I just feel that the changes and melody are/were such a basic part of the idiom that the question of 'who plagiarised who' consciously or sub-consciously could go on forever. Where did Ronnie Mack get his song from ? I seem to remember there being a musicologist of some repute involved in testimony who spelled out the general lack of originilaty in 'He's So Fine', 'My Sweet Lord' and a whole bunch of other smilar beasts. The main issue appears to have been that, until George Harrison's song came around, there was nobody worth suing. It also seems clear to me that the dispute could have easily been resolved by mutual agreement had not the grubbily acquisitive Allen Klein been involved. To me, it was a big non-issue that should and could have been made to go away quietly, but Klein's greed and trickiness prolonged the dispute and forced the issue into open court. And - in response to queries from John and DeadSkinny, the appeal court's position on the notion of 'subconscious plagiarism' was that the nature of intent had zip to do with the facts of infringement - i.e. there is no need to demonstrate an 'intent to infringe' in order to find that infringement has been committed. There wa a Steely Dan case, too. Don't think it came to court. Keith Jarret just said 'Oi!! - You nicked that from me," and they said, "Fair cop, guv', here's the cheque." I s'pose now I'll have to go and refresh my memory about which tunes were involved. Now, having said all that, I can't seriously imagine Dylan ever suing me for a rip-off because first, the similarities are mutated and pretty well hidden to most folk unless they're pointed out, and secondly, I think I would be happy to argue thet, like 'My Sweet Lord' and 'He's So Fine', there is a complete lineage of echoes through the years in the basic melody and changes. More serious and objective infringements happen all the time without provoking complaint - buggered if I understand why that happens. Off the top of my head.... Jagger-Richards claiming copyright for Robert Johnson's "Love In Vain'. B.B King not suing Rod Stewart for the direct lift of 'Rock Me Baby" in "Rock My Plimsoles". Cat Steven's "I Love My Dog" being exactly note-for-note the same as Yusef Lateef's 'Plum Blossom" The list could go on - flagrant and blatant - yet they take credit and get away with it.

I personally think George Harrison was innocent and the charge against him was quite ridiculous. Neither do I believe in subconscious plagiarism. I think plagiarism should be very conscious and full of intent. For example, now that I have drawn it to your attention, if you click on 'Lazz Songs', below, and check out 'Clean Up Your Room', you may notice that the bridge bears an uncanny resemblance to 'Blowing In The Wind'. But it's well-hidden, that's all.

All I remember is Nellie the elephant packed her trunk And trundled off to the circus Off she went with a trumpetty-trump. Trump-trump-trump. Jug any mammary ? That's nice...

If you mean the song from My Fair Lady, that'll be Alan Jay Lerner and Fred Loewe. Nice to see you, Donna. Carry on...

Sadly, I live life without Desktop Audio Workstation. I am DAW-deprived. In the studio we use Pro-Tools. I thought evryone does. What do I know ?

Glad we speak the same language. And relieved there's no worries - had me concerned for a bit there. I don't see Songstuff having trouble. You behave responsibly when dealing with infringement issues. That's a matter of record. No problem. The issue of Errors and Omissions Liablity insurance recently intruded into my life by some strange co-incidence. My current priority, of course, is to postpone all belt-and-braces expenditure for as long as possible. Current strategy is to have indemnifications in contracts. Low-risk/non-risk. Cool

Hi John. What's happened to slap this on your agenda, I wonder? Anything going on in your life to make this something other than a non-issue? Here's a few other immediate observations to muddy the waters: 1. most unlikely that anyone sues for infringement unless the defendant is loaded with dosh. 2. don’t plagiarise in the first place. 3. they can’t take away the tools of your trade. 4. merely listing your co. as being of limited liability is useless unless you’ve taken the steps to legally incorporate as such. 5. would you really want the burdensome bother of regular administrative obligations associated with company registration?

Yeah. An example of how the major conglomerates now exercise power through ownership and control of the new media channels more than content. More power to Derek Sivers, I say - he's a good man.

Yeah John. Very timely. I am keen to read the rest of the series. It seems especially important, to me, for you to be articulating and sharing ideas of structure. The notion of "a language that enables you to effectively discuss songwriting" is also something that interests and intrigues me. Bugs me, too, that I'm continually stumbling over the ambiguities of terminology like Verse, Chorus, Refrain, Bridge, Hook, and the ways popular useage seems so completely disconnected from the conventions of established tradition. I can walk onto any job and explain that the verse is rubato, for example, and that we go only once through the chorus directly to the coda - and make immediate sense to the guys I'm working with - but it is my distinct impression that few regular songwriting forum participants would understand what was going on. And I think that we should understand.