Just calling a person a composer doesn't make him/her one.
Christopher BJ Smith wrote:
At 12:56 AM -0500 11/10/02, Darcy James Argue wrote:On Sunday, November 10, 2002, at 12:10 AM, Linda Worsley wrote:However, Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Prince, et al. ARE songwriters. I don't choose to call them composers. Hell, I don't even call Irving Berlin a "composer".
Well, no, of course not. So long as we're picking nits, Irving Berlin was a songwriter in my book because he really didn't concern himself with the details of orchestration, arrangement, interpretation, etc of any of his tunes. As far has he was concerned, he was responsible for the lyrics, the melody, and the chord changes (with various degrees of help at all three stages), and that was it. He had no interest in creating the "definitive" recording of any of his works (with the orchestration *he* wanted, the arrangement *he* wanted, the recording techniques *he* wanted) -- in fact, the idea that there could even be such a thing as a "definitive" recording was probably incredibly foreign to him. Most (not all) pre-Beatles songwriters operated in this way.
I'm not sure the idea of a "definitive" recording, or even of a "definitive" performance, is important at all to the concept of "composing." Is a person any less a composer if they leave some, or all, of the performance details to someone else? Apparently you and Linda think so. I don't.
Also you two seem to be in agreement about a "songwriter" being less than a "composer." I don't agree here either. A songwriter is a kind of a composer who composes songs. If he also writes lyrics, then he is also a lyricist. And he doesn't have to write any of it down to preserve the title "composer."
I just don't feel that the "ability to write it down" has any bearing whatsoever on whether someone should be considered a composer vs. a songwriter.
Oh yeah. I just said that, without realising that we agreed on that point.To me a composer is someone who concerns himself will all aspects of the musical statement, from the big picture to the gritty details, whereas a songwriter is someone who is concerned with providing a (relatively open-ended) musical blueprint and is content to let other people fill in the details.
Hmm. So I guess all those great jazz composers we all like were just "songwriters?" Part of being a great jazz composer, IMHO, is being able to provide the blueprint for the performers (I like the architect analogy) regardless of how much or how little detail it contains. Baroque pieces do not routinely have every detail notated; the performer is expected to fill in ornaments, and even entire cadenzas, not to mention the whole figured bass concept. Were these guys not "composers" either?
I suppose what we are really talking about here is the kind of composer that Darcy and Linda respect (and presumably want to be). I still maintain that there are good composers and bad composers, but they are all composers no matter how much detail they decide on or whether or not they get help at any stage.
Christopher
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