MusicPlayerNetwork.com Forums Featured Craig Anderton's Sound, Studio, and Stage Who Really Wrote Your Favorite Song?

complicated topic. I did not know that 55,000 new songs were uploaded on streaming services every day

https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-re...hu&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

I'm pretty sure I have figured out how to do this without a paywall being involved. If anyone encounters a paywall please let me know.

I just had to click "Read Article", the second option on the pop-up.

Then I read it. Not surprising, another tale of swine eating worms. There are plenty of both to go around.

That's 20,075,000 songs a year by the way. I bet I don't listen to more than 50-60 of them.
I have no idea what it means or more importantly, if it means anything at all to me. I'm a songwriter, I've released around zero songs per year so far. If when I do release, I'll have a couple of albums or so unless I get busy.

In context, lottery tickets don't sound so bad.

To be honest, most of my favorite songs are classical. I like a lot of pop, rock and electronic music, but the compositions don't compare to the masters.

Favorite song? Impossible.

I have well over 600 CDs, as many LPs, and there is no way to count how many downloads I've purchased. My digital Walkman has over 10,000 songs on it, and it doesn't include any of my Classical (Romantic to Contemporary) music.

There is no way to have a favorite, or even a top 40, not even a top 100.

Insights and incites by Notes

Barry Manilow wrote it because he wrote the songs...

I remember how funny it was to me when I found out Barry Manilow did not actually write that song. Pretty funny, considering how direct the lyrics are.

I read a speculative paper that argued that JS Bach's wife actually composed the Bach Cello Suites because they don't exhibit as much counterpoint, as much whatever as the Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. I dunno, I think the Cello Suites were written as they are because cello is much harder to play than violin!

I did learn the Solar by Miles Davis was actually composed by Chuck Wayne. But Miles took a lot of credit for tunes which he likely didn't write. Blue In Green is another - mostly like it was Bill Evans who wrote that.

I guess somebody's gonna tell me that "Yesterday" was actually written by a janitor that John and Paul stole from.

Becker and Fagen got all their songs from a guy named Charlie Freak, a mysterious street musician who claimed to be from Planet Nibiru.

Dunno who the authors are for my favorite J-pop tunes, not being able to read Japanese myself.

They were attributed to his wife, because Bach needed to circumvent a copyright suit brought by his record company. Because the contract was with J. S. Bach, the record company was powerless to pursue a suit against Betty Bach. Happens all the time in the music industry.

Ah yes, the forgotten 3rd wife, Betty Bach, who took credit for the work of 2nd wife Anna Magdalena

According to Led Zeppelin, they wrote a bunch of old blues tunes that were recorded many years before Led Zeppelin was a band.

According to the Rolling Stones, their cover of Walkin' The Dog on their first album was written by Slim Harpo.

There is a right way and a wrong way to do these things.

Bach wrote a bunch of stuff to prove that you could now play in all keys on one keyboard and have the fifth be just a smidge out of tune in every single key. Perfectly imperfect. So somebody tried to fix it by having both the tempered scale and the just scale (for weirdos who played unfretted bowed instruments and such). That sort of worked except now not only are the fifths just a smidge out of tune, they are also in tune. None of this can truly capture the notes that are in the deep blues, Middle Eastern or Indian music.

So, it is impossible to play music now. Which is why we can't stop doing it.

No one writes music. We all just rewrite and remix and recycle other people's stuff.

Now when a stranded astronaut on a distant planet in a lost galaxy has a child who writes music having never had any lessons or for that matter never heard any music whatsoever - now that would be writing music.

Originality is overrated.

nat