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Whenever people ask about copyright laws they often want to be given some hard and fast rules like "you can use 4 notes" or "you can use a sample up to 7 seconds|" or "it's fair use." But often copyright cases are down to down to a judge and/or jury to decide the context. So it is very unscientific and judgements can seem very tenuous and inconsistent.
Copyright is a Three Legged Stool. If all 3 legs are in position, the case for an infringement of copyright exists. If any, or all, the legs are missing, the case is weakened, and the stool falls over.
The 3 legs are:
1. Access
Has one composer had any way of hearing another work to allow one to be a copy?
You notice that a famous star has a hit that sounds very much like your tune...
Articles & Resources
A collection of the" best of the best" contributions by members. Playing, improvising care & repair tips and hints. Contact us if you want to publish an article.
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1 How do I get work as a composer for film, radio, TV or games?
I wish I could answer this question, or at least get paid every time someone asks it. Initially I was interested in composing music for TV commercials. After a long time taking my demos around to advertising agencies and being told The music on your showreel is great, but you haven’t composed for any real commercials yet so we can’t give you a job. I realised I was trapped in a vicious circle: you need to have worked in order to get work. Finally I got a chance, I was playing in an R & B band in a pub and someone in the audience who liked my playing introduced herself as the marketing manager of a multinational corporation and asked her ad agency to try me out. They...
I have done a bit of transcribing and use Transcribe ! software which is brilliant in every way. It helps me enormously.
My sense of relative pitch and my ability to translate rhythms from their sound to their notation and vice versa are not good at all, but I think it is worthwhile trying to get every aspect of the transcription right (key, harmony, pitches, rhythms, articulations and effects). You can always go back and refine your transcription later on.
Here is a rough outline of my transcribing process (I use Transcribe! and Sibelius simultaneously open), but you can do it onto paper or whatever you want.
Get the version of the tune that you want to transcribe (er, obviously !) - that might mean capturing it from YouTube or...
As a veteran of more function gigs than I care to remember me and my merry men (and ladies) have fallen foul of a wide array of things that can potentially go wrong, misunderstandings and the like. In the spirit of making our shows run smoothly, and in conjunction with my work colleagues here at sax.co, I’ve devised a letter which we now send out with our booking to try and head off some of the more predicable pitfalls. Feel free to use/modify/ comment for your own projects….
Thank you for your booking. To ensure your event runs smoothly on the day we
would ask you for the following provisions-
-Vehicle parking for up to 3 vehicles within easy access of the playing area (we travel reasonably light but drum kit and keys can be quite...