At 8:42 AM -0500 2/21/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
by the way, I sent some interesting links to sites that are devoted to eliminating (or at least controlling) muzak and other noise pollution to the Finale list. maybe it won't amount to much impact, but adding our voices to the call for reform is something that we all can do without a huge commitment of time and personal resources. And, if you recall the musicians strike of 1948(??) it brought international attention to the issues and forced the money making machines of the industry to their knees.
I could be wrong, and haven't read up on it lately, but I thought the union strike was in 1942, and eventually fizzled because it was considered unpatriotic and detrimental to the war effort. I would have been 6 at the time, and 9 years short of joining the union! But you may also be thinking of the ASCAP strike against the broadcast industry (which I ALSO can't remember when it was!).
ASCAP won that one, although bringing the industry "to their knees" might be a bit of an exaggeration. They were simply forced to accept higher royalties for the use of ASCAP music (which HAD BEEN all of popular music up to that point). It also led to the founding of BMI by the industry in competition with ASCAP, breaking their monopoly, to opening up the air waves to country, western, gospel, Black and other ethnic musics that had previously been tiny niche markets and way below most people's radar, and to the creation of disk jockey shows once TV started taking over the popular entertainment function that radio had previously been serving. And peripherally to the gradual relaxation of the stranglehold that jazz had had on the middle of the road music industry, paving the way for Rock to move into that slot while the old jazzers who ran the union weren't looking!
And one other historical fact has to be kept in mind. In the 1940s the trade union movement had enormous power in this country. James C. Petrillo was the absolute dictator of the musicians' union, and had the power to bring economic pressure to bear that we can't even conceive of today, now that trade unions no longer have that kind of power. (If Broadway producers had tried to do away with union musicians, as they are today, Broadway would have been dark and unprofitable instantly!) President Truman even had to nationalize one union--I think it was the railroad union but it might have been the steelworkers--in order to avert economic chaos. (Unlike President Regan, who deliberately set out to break the air traffic controllers union and did so!)
Lobbyists and big business and the buying and selling of legislators we have always had with us and probably always will, so learn from the copyright mess we're in right now, thanks to Sonny Bono and the Millenium Mickey Mouse Law! And you think a grass roots movement will result in banning Muzak? Lotsa luck!
A propos of Muzak, back in the '60s my quartet made a national tour with the Richard Maltby Band, doing a series of sales conferences for GMC Trucks. Dick was (and perhaps still is) one fine, very gifted arranger, and it so happened that a good part of his income came from producing recordings for ... you guessed it ... the Muzak Company. The arrangements had to be written to very strict specifications, of course, laid down by the psychologists on Muzak's payroll, but Dick didn't mind that at all, and told us he actually enjoyed the sessions because he got to hire the very best players in the industry, everything was done perfectly on the first take, and the paychecks were generous. Perhaps comparable to Mozart writing divertimenti for garden parties! And it provided well-paid work for live musicians, arrangers, composers, copyists, librarians, and recording engineers, none of whom had the slightest bit of control over how their product was eventually used. (But no vocalists, of course. That was one of the restrictions.)
So it's one thing to rant against "Big Business," who after all were smart enough to come up with a product and market it successfully, and quite another to fail to recognize the "little people" who needed the work to support their families. And still do, including the arrangers and engravers on the Finale List, to bring this post full circle. My advice? Get ear plugs!
John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
