At 5:20 PM -0500 6/22/02, John Howell wrote: > > >Irving Berlin not only survived but flourished not being able to read or >write a note of music. He could play what he wanted (supposedly only in >the key of F#, and I guess the pianos rigged with movable keyboards to let >him do this are right there in the Smithsonian), and he hired musical >secretaries to take down his songs and put them into notation.
I've heard that account from many different sources, and I find it hard to beleive that Berlin's assistants were only taking down musical dictation. Berlin's harmonic sense was (by all other reports of people who heard him play his own songs, like Alec Wilder!) quite limited, and the harmonies of his tunes are quite sophisticated at times, to which I think the credit should go to his assistants. Like Linda, I have often been in the position of arranging a melody that some client has played to me using I, IV, and V chords, and making it quite lush using my own harmonies, to his delight. I suspect that Berlin's relationship with his assistants was similar. Because of the way copyright laws are set up, the person who worked out those beautiful chords to all those Berlin tunes doesn't get a penny of royalties, as only lyrics and melodies are copyrightable. Yet, IMHO, those songs might not have been the successes that they were without the contribution of the assistant, so wouldn't they be due a bit of spare change? Christopher _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
