Stephen Arnold Music

As a part of the sales department here at Stephen Arnold Music, I know that the instruments I play are my Toshiba telephone and my mighty Mac PowerBook G4. That’s my daytime life. But when I go home, it is another thing altogether. In my home office (sometimes I refer to it as my stage), I keep three of my best friends: a (what can now be called vintage) C-1 Gibson Classic guitar I received new from my mom and dad when I was a sophomore at Banks High School in Birmingham, a gorgeous wine red 2007 American-made Fender Stratocaster guitar that my wife gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago, and my son Scott’s big 2006 dreadnought Yamaha acoustic guitar.

To be honest, and why not be, I am not the world’s greatest guitar player. But, in the evening at home I can get on “stage” and strum the C chord (that is about all I know) at maximum 10 level and all of a sudden the world seems like a much better place: peaceful, tranquil, focused; I am at one with the 6 strings. What is it about the guitar that causes that transformation? Please don’t tell me that playing the oboe real loud after a hard day at work will do that. Dude, NOBODY will believe you.

Even now, I often dream of playing like Jimmie Page or Eric Clapton or even Rob Hackney (a fraternity brother of mine from college). Well, ain’t none of that ever gonna happen! It is what it is. Still, there is some kind of magic in the guitar to which even a player like myself can attest.

So, recently when I heard of a movie called, “It Might Get Loud”, a documentary of Jimmie Page, The Edge and Jack White, I knew that one Saturday night real soon, I was going to fork over the dough to see that flick. My expectations were low…who would want to be hurt, expecting a diamond but getting a dud. I bought my ticket, strode the dark corridor to the auditorium, took a seat dead center and waited for the flickering moment.

What to say, hmmm…what to say? Well, how about this: I was BLOWN AWAY! From the first moment of watching Jack White “build” a guitar in his back yard, to watching archival footage of Jimmie Page playing “Stairway to Heaven” with the Zep, to listening to The Edge give a tour of his personal, kind of bland and creepy, studio overlooking some river (I assume the Liffey River) in Dublin, to hearing Jimmie Page say he couldn’t sing!, this movie had me from hello.

Of course, I cannot predict your reaction to this greatness. You could be an insensitive, ignorant, drooling bore, unmoved by the transcendental mysteries of “Stairway”, but, hey, who am I to judge. But how could you not be moved by hearing Jimmie say that he is what he is today because, when he was a small boy, his family moved into a rental house, and the former occupants of that house left behind in a small, dark closet a cheap worn-out guitar. That was the guitar that he learned to play on, the guitar he used for years, and, ultimately the guitar that gave us Led Zeppelin. Pause here for prayer and thanksgiving.

For those empiricists among us, all I can say is “ go…see…believe”. As a special treat, let me offer up the movie’s trailer.

So, excuse me now, I’m going to go talk with some friends. It might get loud.

Imagine walking into a Bentley dealership and saying, “Gee, I sure like that $375,000 Azure, but I only have $30,000 to spend. Do you think you could accept that?”

This an interesting excerpt from a book by Tom Petty’s publishing manager- Randall Wixen. (The Plain & Simple Guide To Music Publishing.) Wixen hits on how everyday, music is becoming “devalued” and how important it is for us (writers and publishers) to ”Stand Tall”

He also says:

In a film it might take minutes of dialogue or video to create a mood or tell a story while music can instantly convey a mood and communicate the directors vision. Imagine “Apocalypse Now” without “The End” by the Doors. When was the last time you saw a film with no musical score?
Likewise, some sports, figure skating for instance would not be possible without music. Imagine a college football game without a marching band. Restaurants and stores set ambiance by playing background music.

Yet- in the music industry, not a day goes by without someone who recognizes the value music brings to a project, but nonetheless belittles it’s value, complaining about the cost and pay a fee that is less than fair.” (Wixon p13)

Sound familiar? Ever had a client work you over on price? Here’s a clip that says it all (Thanks Bob Singleton):

According to Wired, the Maasai people are taking the first step to copyrighting their tribal tunes and twirls. The World Intellectual Property Organization, or the WIPO, gave the East African tribe a “laptop, camera and digital recorder” worth $11,000, believing the idea to be a “huge potential for communities to record, archive and also draw income from their cultural richness.”

The Maasai are as much a part of East Africa as the Serengeti or Mt Kilimanjaro, and their tribal music has been used for song samples, beats, audio recordings and even film scores (think Out of Africa) without any compensation. That doesn’t even breach all the dance performances, photographs or documentaries.

If it works, could fancy tourist hotels in Kenya have to start paying royalties to the Maasai for the “Lion Hunting Dance” they use to attract guests? After all, who would want stay there if they were dancing the Macarena?  Or if the price of licensing a traditional Maasai dance routine were to rise, imagine the artistic director of Carnegie Hall flying a hunting party from the Ngorogoro Crater straight to the stage, then trying to convince them not to kill the “lion” because it’s just an unfortunate guy in a really lifelike costume.

I may be getting carried away according to the article: “While cultural expressions themselves cannot be owned… digital recordings of them could eventually produce valuable royalties for the Masai people who control their distribution.”

In that vein, imagine all National Geographic photographers as their subjects’s next-hut neighbor. Indeed, the world is changing…