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Subject: Re: [Mellotronists] So I fucked up

From: "jonesalley" <jonesalley@...>
Date: 2004-11-10

>>> What about Mozart? (a 5 years old child is not supposed to
have much songwriting experience :P). Anyway discussing this is a bit stupid. There would always been musicians composing excelent music just at the beggining of their "musical training" (what about "The Doors" - one of my personal faves - or Greg Lake -"Lucky Man" was composed when he was 14, much befor joining KC - or many others...) and musical genius that require a lot of experience to start writing good songs (Beatles comes to mind, IMHO they started to make really good music with the "Revolver" album -- Danger! Danger! Beatles' Heresy On The Way :D). In fact, one of the first tunes I wrote on the piano (when I discovered what a "Minor Scale" was :) is now one of my band's favourite tunes.

-----I was expecting somebody to pull out the Mozart card with a flourish and an "aha!"  Now that it's been done, let's look at the truth.  Anybody ever listened to those extremely early compositions of Wolfie's?  They suck.  Curiously enough, they sound like they were written by a primary-school-aged child.  The ONLY amazing thing about them was that they were COMPLETED compositions, stylistically and compositionally correct for the time, that were written by a very young person.
 
I also beg to differ that this is a stupid conversation.  I am terribly tired of hearing first efforts paraded around as epic music that broadens the horizons of composition.  IF you can find ONE first composition that qualifies as great music, I will be amazed, and that will only demonstrate what an exception to the rule it actually is.  The Doors?  Right, once again, none of those guys had written any songs before the band formed.  Greg Lake and "Lucky Man?"  First of all, "Lucky Man" is NOT a great composition.  It is a VERY ordinary and non-innovative song. The only thing that made it into the musical icon it is today was Keith's 45-second improvisation at the end, which was not really intended to be a part of the song and was only placed there at the insistence of the producer.  Once again, please read my original comments slowly.  You have missed the entire point.
 
And Nacho, please understand that I do not intend any personal attack on you or your songwriting abilities, but using the anecdotal evidence of your own composition is anything but compelling evidence.  I grant NO CREDIBILITY to the opinions of friends, fans, and family members when it comes to original music performed in a local-band setting.  If you play your song before an audience of utter strangers who have never heard it before and don't know anything about you and it receives great acclaim under those conditions, I'll be willing to listen to further debate, but I've been playing out long enough to know that the opinions of those friends, fans, and family members mean absolutely nothing.  They would like just about anything you do that isn't utterly wretched and even then they are usually still pretty forgiving.
 
I stand by my original point.  It takes at least one hundred completely finished compositions before a writer of music comes up with anything worth listening to.