Yow, time flies. Column #13 means that we’ve been talking about this stuff for a year already. I hope all of you have come a long way, or at least closer to being able to do what you want to do. I for one, have managed to drag my sorry ass into the Nineties: I used to write this thing out longhand (on a tour bus at 4 a.m., usually) and then go looking for a store with a fax machine-now I just send it in via E-Mail. Anyway, this month we’ll continue discussing boring and unpleasant things that you need to know if you’re planning on swimming in the murky and shark-infested waters of the music industry.
I think that one of the craziest things about the western scale we’ve all agreed to use is that, while there are only 12 notes, musicians come up with new combinations of these notes all the time. What’s really amazing is the number of times only three or four notes have been combined into instantly recognizable and classic guitar riffs. Think about it; you can recognize the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction,” Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water,” Pantera’s “Cowboys from Hell” or just about anything by Black Sabbath almost instantly. Hell, the “wah-wah chiks” in front of “Voodoo Child” say, “Jimi Hendrix, genius” before you even hear a note!
What I’m getting at is that while we’re talking about any kind of rock music, the riff’s the thing and as the guitar player in your band it’s your job to come up with that next great combination of notes. It’s getting harder and harder to write original music and when you do come up with something that you’re really proud of, you’re going to want to protect it.
Have you heard about this? Guy wants to be a songwriter, sends his demo to some record labels. Next thing he knows, he hears what he swears is his song on a Michael Jackson record and sues-I don’t remember who won, but I bet it was the guy with more lawyers. But it’s not only a good idea to copyright your songs because people steal good ideas; it’s also nice to legally “own” a tune after doing all that work on it.
Good question. As I’ve been writing songs with White Zombie since 1989, I should know all about this stuff, right? Wrong! When it came time to talk about copyrighting, I realized I’d never dealt with it myself, and therefore had no clue. Jimmy Brown from Guitar World was kind enough to help out with this info.
Now, is putting the copyright symbol (©), your name and “1997” after a song title enough? Anyone with a pen can do this, but will it really protect you or give you any legal rights? Nope.
I’ve often heard that the easiest way to copyright a song is to put it on a cassette and then send it to yourself-the idea being that, providing you leave the envelope sealed, the postmark date will prove that you had written the song by a particular date. This is often called the “poor man’s copyright.” Sounds simple enough, but the trouble is that this method won’t hold up in court if you’re trying to prosecute someone for ripping off your material because (remember your report card?) it’s pretty easy to steam open an envelope and reseal it. You gotta do more…
Yeah, I know this takes something that was cool and makes it about as much fun as taking a test, but like I said: you bust your ass writing songs, and those songs are the key to your future in music. The best way to do this is to register them with the US government. Call the Copyright Office’s Request Hotline (202.707.9100) and ask for some copies of Forms SR or PA. Then, fill in the form and return it along with a recording of the song you want to register as copyrighted. It costs $20.00 per tape but if you want to save some money, you can put more than one song on the tape-they’ll all get copyrighted at once providing you give the collection just one title (like “The Songs of Hal Jalaikakick,” or whatever). The Copyright Office will keep your tape and then send you a certificate. If you can notate your music, you can also register your music and lyric sheets too. The Copyright Office also has an information line (202.707.3000) you can call if you wanna know more
Next time I’ll talk about some ways to MAKE MONEY. Did I get your attention? In the last column we looked at the opening four bars of the “I Am Legend” [La Sexorcisto] intro. FIGURE 1 is the next eight bars of the piece. Later.
