Wednesday News: Law, music, race, and gender
Publishing Newscolonialism / diversity / Fantasy / feminism / Gloria Steinem / Jay Z / lawsuit / music / neuroscience / Osama Fahmy / Regency Romance / sampling / Timbaland / Zen Cho17 Comments
Jay Z, Timbaland Win ‘Big Pimpin” Sample Trial – Timbaland was sued for sampling some flute music from the Egyptian song, “Khosara, Khosara,” by the composer’s nephew. The lawyer for the defense argued that Baligh Hamdi, the song’s composer, sold his rights, before he died, to his record company. That company, in turn, sold the rights to EMI, which ultimately licensed the music to Timbaland when it became clear that the song’s hook was not public domain, as he originally believed. the Jay Z produced song is called “Big Pimpin,” and the composer’s nephew sued for a violation of “moral rights.” However, due to the fact that the rights had already been sold by the uncle, the judge held that the nephew had no legal standing to sue, meaning that he did not have the right to bring a cause of action. So the court never actually had to rule on the legitimacy of the song’s use of the flute hook, although the standing issue is also important because it highlights the extent to which selling one’s IP rights can have unforeseen consequences.
The composer’s nephew filed the lawsuit in 2007. Although Timbaland, who used the hook believing it to be public domain, paid $100,000 to EMI when he learned that the hook originated in the tune – itself a song in the 1960 Egyptian film Fata ahlami – to continue using it, Fahmy sued the producer, rapper and several other associated music companies for violating moral rights. Those rights govern how a work can be altered with respect to an author, who, in this case, died in 1993. – Rolling Stone
The Neuroscience of Bass: New Study Explains Why Bass Instruments Are Fundamental to Music – Speaking of music, it is apparently the case that bass instruments play a critical role in keeping time in songs, in part because of the way the human ear (and body) respond to the register at which they play. When combined with higher pitch instruments, there is a balance between pitch and rhythm that structures our ability to comprehend, experience, and enjoy music.
Trainor and her colleagues have recently published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggesting that perceptions of time are much more acute at lower registers, while our ability to distinguish changes in pitch gets much better in the upper ranges, which is why, writes Nature, “saxophonists and lead guitarists often have solos at a squealing register,” and why bassists tend to play fewer notes.. . .
The study’s title perfectly summarizes the team’s findings: “Superior time perception for lower musical pitch explains why bass-ranged instruments lay down musical rhythms.” In other words, “there is a psychological basis,” says Trainor, “for why we create music the way we do. Virtually all people will respond more to the beat when it is carried by lower-pitched instruments.” University of Vienna cognitive scientist Tecumseh Fitch has pronounced Trainor and her co-authors’ study a “plausible hypothesis for why bass parts play such a crucial role in rhythm perception.” – Open Culture
Zen Cho: Tackling questions of race, gender and social justice in fantasy fiction – I missed this interview with Zen Cho when it came out, so perhaps you did, too. I like the way Cho talks about her book, Sorcerer to the Crown, and her decision to write it as a Regency Fantasy. Cho is very interested in all of the underpinnings of the Regency period we don’t often see in historical Romances set in that period, and yet she is also well read in Austen and other authors of the period, so she is working from within a complex fictional paradigm. I also appreciate her willingness to discuss and tackle these issues without wanting to make her fiction merely a vehicle for their delivery. And the interview definitely had me thinking about literary sampling:
“Zacharias isn’t just a metaphor,” she says. “He’s a character. The same for Prunella. But obviously I wanted to write about the centrality of the colonial territories to the British at that time. Colonialism was fundamental to the way Britain worked. London was built on slavery and imperialism, and I wanted to explore how that worked through a fantastical Regency romance.” . . .
“I do enjoy pastiche,” she says. “I started writing fan-fiction. I’d do Discworld [Terry Pratchett] and Good Omens [Pratchett and Neil Gaiman] fanfic. Then I would do mash-ups of books and styles – I wrote Good Omens stories in the style of Rudyard Kipling.” She pauses, then says, “Kipling used to do pastiches of Robert Browning poems, you know.” — The Independent
Gloria Steinem: On her life on the road, Donald Trump, and how she got her feminist mojo – It’s interesting that Steinem talks about how she was inspired by her “dreamer” father, as well as the limitations of her mother’s life. At 81, Steinem belongs to a generation of feminists that are remembered, in turn, as both “radical” and, “conservative.” It’s indicative of how complicated and multi-layered feminist theory and politics are that these perceptions can exist together. At any rate, Katie Couric’s interview with Steinem is interesting as both a personal narrative (her remarks about what her mother could have accomplished had she not married Steinem’s father are poignant) and an oral history. And her comment about how Donald Trump “was born on third base and thinks he hit a home run,” ignoring the fact that he had a rich father, is an acute critique of bootstrap Republicanism.
Couric asked Steinem what she thought about prominent women from Lady Gaga to Madonna not wanting to be called feminists. Her answer: “People don’t know what it means. So I would first send them to the dictionary and then challenge them, male or female, to say if they are or are not a feminist.”
On the biggest advancements for women today, compared to when Steinem first began her career, she told Couric: “We know we’re not crazy. We know that we could be in a world in which men and women are allowed to be unique individuals, who are also equal to each other. We know it’s possible.“ – Yahoo News
Zen Cho wrote about her novel on Scalzi’s blog: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/09/09/the-big-idea-zen-cho/
I think this adds nicely to the later interview (though her suggestion that war with France only impinges slightly on Heyer’s characters is a bit dubious).
Copyright laws have completely left the sphere of common sense. They are actually by now stifling rather than protecting anything.
@Mike:
Where does the political reality and background of the Regency form more than a harmless tapestry for Heyer? She may have placed import on getting clothes, dances and language right, but everything else was conveniently discarded in her Regency fantasy land.
Marriage by Susan Ferrier (one of Zen Cho’s favorite books) is now on my to-be-read pile. I had not heard of “the Scottish Jane Austen”!
@Drano: An exception to test the rule would be Heyer’s An Infamous Army, which features the events leading up to Waterloo.
I take a childish pleasure in the fact that the lead author of the bass study is named Trainor. Too bad she had to give it an explanatory title instead of “It’s All About that Bass.” Yesterday at work I parked beside someone with a bumper sticker reading “Like most musicians, you’re following a bass player.” I guess they are right!
I’d say the Napoleonic Wars shape a number of Heyer characters, though I’d agree they are mostly in the past/background (An Infamous Army is one exception). Hugo in Unknown Ajax and Sophy in The Grand Sophy come to mind.
@Liz Mc2: A Civil Contract too.
Primogeniture and the laws of inheritance figure pretty largely in Heyer plots, and the Napoleonic Wars (and empire more generally) shape a number of those; war could undercut the usual autonomy and power rich aristocratic men possessed. Some of her heroes feel required to marry because their younger brothers are killed in war, and that sets courtship/marriage plots in motion. Adam in A Civil Contract is permanently injured and his brother killed, which alters his choices and outlook on life. The smuggling plot in The Unknown Ajax derives directly from the war blockade. There’s a refugee from the French Revolution in A Talisman Ring. And of course, she did write The Spanish Bride.
ETA: And of course Conway’s marriage is a result of meeting his bride while stationed in France. Had he stayed in England, he probably would have just married the Denny daughter, and Venetia’s life would have been different as well. It’s integral to the plot.
Of the political and social upheaval, the massive problems caused by the wars, the famine of the year without a summer, and the beginning industrialisation you see little to nothing. These things influenced class relations and the upper class quite a bit, though. I will never understand how anyone can cite Heyer, of all people, for her historical accuracy. She wasn’t accurate. She was playing house with a much idealized ton. Insofar I agree with Zen Cho. I’ll read her book for that alone.
Bass player here. Parents insisted on classical piano lessons, but after I got my first real job I saved up enough money to purchase a Fender Precision (left handed). Bars and road gigs came next . . . ah, those were the days.
So thanks for the article on why the bass is fundamental to music!
@Liz Mc2: In the discipline I’m in, it’s 99.9% certain that the article really would have been titled “It’s All About That Bass: insert explanatory title here”. What a missed opportunity, especially given the author’s last name!
@Drano: You are of course correct that “the political and social upheaval”, etc. does not figure in Heyer’s works, and my initial comment was not intended to suggest anything more than that the war played a not insignificant background role in many of her books (in contrast to the non European world which, as Zen Cho noted, is almost entirely ignored).
Heyer wrote romantic comedies – sometimes near farces – often with a mystery element and I think her aim was to give pleasure to her readers and thereby make money rather than produce the kind of realism you seem to desire.
Historical accuracy is a rather slippery concept and it can surely be applied to part of a work even when the whole may be a comforting fantasy? My impression is that Heyer was pretty knowledgeable when it came to the war: one of my favourite examples is the realism of the espionage plot in “The Reluctant Widow” (which is otherwise, the killings excepted, pretty close to a farce).
The heroes of The Quiet Gentleman and The Toll-Gate are also veterans, while the heroine’s brother in April Lady desperately wants to join the army (and I dimly recall, the hero eventually is persuaded to support him in that). And of course the spy plot of The Reluctant Widow also has a strong connection to the war.
Amanda in Sprig Muslin also is determined to marry a soldier (a particular soldier, that is, not just any one) and follow the drum.
This is really weird. I posted two comments and I don’t see either of them here. Sorry if I am clogging up the system repeating myself. What I wanted to point out, in addition to the ones in Sunita’s comment, is that the heroes of The Quiet Gentleman and The Toll-Gate are veterans, the spy plot of The Reluctant Widow is closely tied to the war, the heroine’s brother in April Lady desperately wants to join the army (and I dimly recall the hero eventually is persuaded to support him in that), Amanda in Sprig Muslin is determined to marry Neil, an army officer, and follow the drum, and Kit Fancot in False Colours is a diplomat who has just returned from the Congress of Vienna. These are just the examples that come to me off the top of my head.
In case anyone hasn’t already seen it and might be interested, Sunita and Janine did a joint review of Sorcerer to the Crown here.
@etv13: I see three comments from you here. Are they all accounted for (someone may have released them from moderation or spam, although I got them all on email, so assumed they posted).
@Janet: Yes, all accounted for, thanks. The first two did not show up after I closed Google, checked some e-mail, and came back, reopening Google and entering the site’s address anew. They did show up after I posted the third, and then hit the “refresh” button. The Internet. Go figure.