# Inspiration vs plagiarism



## webdesigner91 (Dec 25, 2011)

I am still not sure about inspiration vs plagiarism. I am aware about composers who took musical material exactly from other composers and passed of as their. Is this a form of learning or what is this called. 
How about taking other composers work and editing their work with key changes and melodic decoration eg passing notes. 
What does inspiration from other composers mean.

Still very confused, please help this young composer, I am still learning and I am afraid I may be accused of the activities above


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## Resoded (Dec 25, 2011)

webdesigner91 @ 25th December 2011 said:


> I am still not sure about inspiration vs plagiarism. I am aware about composers who took musical material exactly from other composers and passed of as their. Is this a form of learning or what is this called.
> How about taking other composers work and editing their work with key changes and melodic decoration eg passing notes.
> What does inspiration from other composers mean.
> 
> Still very confused, please help this young composer, I am still learning and I am afraid I may be accused of the activities above



As I see it mimicking what others do is very natural when learning. We hear something we like and want to learn how to do something similar. More often than not you can't do it exactly the way they do it, so you end up getting your own touch on the whole thing. Lots of great bands started out trying to sound like someone else and then end up with their own unique sound.

Whenever I hear something I like, I make a mental note of how it sounds and how they did it. In my experience it takes time to develop a sound of your own, and that's a combination of your own expression and many years of collecting these notes.

Your last question is pretty complex. On the one hand, you can take someones melody and change a couple of notes and call it your own. I have never done this and never will. On the other hand, you can be inspired by a genre and write something of your own, and unknowingly it ends up being almost exactly the same as something else with only a couple of notes difference.

The end result in both examples is the same. But I'd say the first one isn't really okay because the expression doesn't come from you. In the other case, your expression is real, there just happens to be a lot of music out there and some pieces are bound to sound similar to others. For example, it would be silly to love Vivaldi and then write everything the exact opposite way just out of fear of copying. You love Vivaldi for a reason. His music speaks the same language as yours.

Though I understand your fears. The worst thing you can hear after spending countless hours working on something of your own is "this sounds like...". Or coming up with something fantastic and then realize halfway through that it comes from a song you've heard somewhere. Though I've noticed this happens less and less the more I learn. 

I guess after a while you've collected so many notes and have learned to interpret your expression so well that the number of people with the same setup as you are scarce.

My post is supposed to end here (way too long already) but I've got to mention one more thing that I've been thinking about. People seem to have very different definitions of what "similar" means. Some people can say that all modern metal bands rip off Zeppelin. Others could say that Zeppelin created a new genre. Some people can say that simple spiccato ostinatos combined with drums is a Zimmer rip off. Others can say that Zimmer created a new genre.

And then we have the legal definition of plagiarism. It's a good idea to read up on that.


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## Strange (Dec 25, 2011)

webdesigner91 @ Sun Dec 25 said:


> I am aware about composers who took musical material exactly from other composers and passed of as their.
> Is this a form of learning or what is this called.



I think that's just plagiarism, if one's actually releasing that material and claiming it one's own. For learning purposes one doesn't have to release anything to the public and claim it one's own.

BTW, does "taking musical material" concern unmodified and unoriginal loops/samples/presets?



webdesigner91 @ Sun Dec 25 said:


> How about taking other composers work and editing their work with key changes and melodic decoration eg passing notes.



Depends on how far you take it. If people are still able to recognize it to be too similar to another song, then it can be considered as a "cover" or just a rip-off. If it's edited beyond recognition, then I see no problem and it's of course not the same song at all anymore.



webdesigner91 @ Sun Dec 25 said:


> What does inspiration from other composers mean.



Stylistic references and using them as a part of one's own work, because it's a "validated solution" i.e. has worked in another context and seems to fit, it can be also subconscious. Lightweight form of copying (sort of similar to the previous), lending something from another composer just for sake of wanting to use the same idea. Or just inspiration to create something, being inspired to create something by someone else's work.


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## David Story (Dec 25, 2011)

All music sounds like other music in some aspect. Our brain hears patterns in random computer music. Our most original composers use ideas and quotes from other composers. Resoded is right, doesn't matter if it's intentional or coincidence, similarities are there.

This is only an issue with litigious copyright owners. And in US court, if you can convince a jury that part of song A sounds like a part of song B, you have a case. It's worth having someone you trust listen to your work to make sure you haven't gotten too close to something. At least in high profile projects.

Often composers on commission are told to copy another piece.This is a tricky situation and you have to get it clear in writing what your instructions are and who has liability. Or bow out. 

And of course there's parody, that's protected by law.

At the end of the day, music builds on the past. It's not all new. And all of us are inspired by a masterpiece we wanted to emulate.

mature poets steal
TS Eliot


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## José Herring (Dec 25, 2011)

webdesigner91 @ Sun Dec 25 said:


> I am still not sure about inspiration vs plagiarism. I am aware about composers who took musical material exactly from other composers and passed of as their. Is this a form of learning or what is this called.
> How about taking other composers work and editing their work with key changes and melodic decoration eg passing notes.
> What does inspiration from other composers mean.
> 
> Still very confused, please help this young composer, I am still learning and I am afraid I may be accused of the activities above



Steal other composer's techniques. Don't steal other composer's music. When I was starting out that's the distinction I made and it has served me well for learning purposes and "inspiration"( whatever that means. I dunno.)

For example. Mozart Requiem. One of the movements. I analyzed recently to its fullest possible extent. How was it put together? What was he thinking? Once I discovered that, I found that you can use those techniques in just about anything. For example, in one section he goes up a d natural minor scale, harmonized by triads where the lead note acts as a common tone harmonized chromatically. Sounds totally natural, but the resulting chords can't be explained as belonging to the original key. Its cool. You can take that and use that idea in any scale you want to. The parts are also very clever. SATB choir 1/2 notes, accompanied by 16th in the strings and ww and 8ths arps in the bass part. Turbulent yet powerful because of the full choir sustains. simple and works well. Use it. But, you can use it in a thousand different combinations, so, don't copy. Just use the techniques in other ways.

I think that the last thing you want to do is totally rip other stuff. I know a lot of people making a lot of money doing that. It's lazy, cheap, and serves no purpose other than to mimic what's currently hot to make money. Composers that do that may be making more money than me right now. But, they have no soul. And in speaking with many people who do do that, I realize that they have no creative impulses spark other than to rearrange what's already been done 1000x.

Of course we are all called upon to rip other music. But usually I just try to do something that expresses the same things in another way and take my lumps if they get bent out of shape. I just say that, if I get too close I'll get sued or something. Highly unlikely, but it's something that everybody seems to understand. But, if you are called upon the rip, and choose not to, then make sure what you are doing comes off better than what you're being asked to rip. I had a friend that got called upon to rip a tune. He got so close to it, that they decided that it would be just cheaper to buy the rights to the original. :lol: so that tells you that even when they want a knock off, they really don't want a knock off. They just want something like it. It's up to you to make it even better.

In the end, it's up to you. many people rip off other's music and make a good living doing it. To some only the money matters. But, for me. I have to look at myself in the mirror every morning and ask myself if I did the best I could do. Not the best somebody else already did.

Jose


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## Guy Bacos (Dec 25, 2011)

Couldn't have this thread without this quote:

*"Good composers borrow, Great composers steal"*

This Stravinski quote should probably not be taken literally, but for what it's worth.


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## David Story (Dec 25, 2011)

+1 Well said Jose!


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## Resoded (Dec 25, 2011)

josejherring @ 25th December 2011 said:


> Not the best somebody else already did.
> 
> Jose



So true. You can spend a lifetime trying to sound like Williams or Zimmer, but there is only one. Williams is best at being Williams and no one can be better than him at it. And it goes both ways, there is only one Jose and one webdesigner 91, and Williams couldn't sound exactly like either of you no matter how hard he tried. He could probably pull of a great and convincing soundalike but it would never be exactly the same.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 25, 2011)

The best thing about temp score replacement is that it often sends you in directions you might never take, like odd-time signatures or new sounds/styles.


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## José Herring (Dec 25, 2011)

Guy Bacos @ Sun Dec 25 said:


> Couldn't have this thread without this quote:
> 
> *"Good composers borrow, Great composers steal"*
> 
> This Stravinski quote should probably not be taken literally, but for what it's worth.



Also worth noting that the pieces where he outright stole were perhaps not his best pieces. Pulcinella Suite comes to mind. Where as there was nothing that sounded much like The Firebird or The Rite and those are among his finest works.

So I always take that quote as a composer who was pretty much giving up at that point.


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## rJames (Dec 25, 2011)

josejherring @ Sun Dec 25 said:


> Steal other composer's techniques. Don't steal other composer's music.
> 
> I think that the last thing you want to do is totally rip other stuff. I know a lot of people making a lot of money doing that. It's lazy, cheap, and serves no purpose other than to mimic what's currently hot to make money.
> 
> ...


Somewhere between technique and the actual notes is STYLE. IMHO, it's important to be immersed in music every day if you want to live music. One way to do that is to find out what clients want, figure out how to give it to them and make a living. It's a learning process. It's not that easy. Always stay true to yourself too!

I consider Jose a friend and basically agree...except for the part about "it's lazy, cheap and serves no purpose..."

I am a student of EIS and LOVE to make music. But EIS is pretty much devoid of STYLE.

What a revelation the music market was. It's just my personal experience, but I realized that I needed emersion in current STYLE.

And that means learning to put your spin on the current thing.

No, it's not the only way..but haven't all the great composers through time worked in the current style and then pushed the envelope?


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## José Herring (Dec 25, 2011)

If you have the technique you just apply it to whatever style you want to do. I'm sure that's true of EIS as it is with any technique ever developed. Damn I just used Beethoven techniques in 4 Latin pieces I just finished. Kind of fun.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 26, 2011)

Isn't style so much like fashion? It's how you wear it, what you can get away with - it has to feel legitimate, organic, not Romney... Huh, I mean insincere.


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## re-peat (Dec 26, 2011)

josejherring @ Mon Dec 26 said:


> (...) the pieces where he outright stole were perhaps not his best pieces. Pulcinella Suite comes to mind. Where as there was nothing that sounded much like The Firebird or The Rite and those are among his finest works. (...)


"Pulcinella" is actually one of his great and most remarkable achievements, in my opinion. Listen to it closely and be amazed by the way in which he assimilates/integrates the 18th century idiom, adapts and moulds it so that it works perfectly with his own musical instincts, and manages to make the result sound totally authentic, fresh and convincing. (And the rhythmic and harmonic richness in "Pulcinella" is, at times, quite perplexing.) Even though it's using melodic material from several other composers (not just Pergolesi, as it later turned out), "Pulcinella" is, I strongly believe, 100% pure Stravinsky, on almost every significant level. And I rate it, without hesitation, as high as any of his other masterpieces (and much higher than "The Firebird").

If you want to hear a, in my opinion, much more superficial and weaker blend of renaissance/baroque and 20th century compositional styles, listen to, for example, Respighi's "Ancient Airs and Dances": most enjoyable and entertaining music, sure, but nowhere near as creative, adventurous and exciting as "Pulcinella" is, I find.

By the way: Stravinsky didn’t steal. (And the lazy ignorance of your rather stupid insinuation is a bit annoying, I find.) 'Stealing' implies dishonest appropriation and, often, a certain covertness as well, no? A certain sneaky “I-hope-they-don’t-find-out”-ness. In the case of "Pulcinella" however, the musical source (or what was, at the time of its creation anyway, believed to be the musical source) was fully disclosed from the very beginning. In fact, the name of Pergolesi is mentioned clearly in the full title of the work (_Pulcinella - Ballet in one act for small orchestra with three solo voices. After Giambattista Pergolesi._). Hardly 'stealing', it seems to me. Or do you consider, say, Brahms' "Variations on a theme by Haydn", to name just one of countless possible similar examples, to be stealing as well?

As for there being nothing sounding quite like "The Firebird": I have to strongly disagree with you on this point as well, I'm afraid. "The Firebird" is an entirely logical and not particularly ground-breaking development of the Rimsky-Korsakov style, to which some seductive French delicatessen (Debussy, Ravel, Dukas, ...) were added. Nothing particularly new or unique about it at all, orchestrally and compositionally speaking. (Even its famous natural-harmonic string glissandi, long believed to be 'discovered' first by Stravinsky, were already present in Ravel's "Rhapsodie Espagnole", a work which predates "The Firebird" by a few years.)
As it happens, "The Firebird" is in fact, paradoxically perhaps, much _less_ Stravinsky than "Pulcinella" is, even though the latter uses many important building blocks which were, strictly speaking, not entirely of his own invention. And, equally paradoxically, despite the age of much of its source material, "Pulcinella" is a much more pioneering and forward-looking creation (not that this, in itself, makes the music any more fascinating or important, but historically, it is not without relevance). "The Firebird" was an ending of sorts, whereas "Pulcinella" is very much a beginning.

_


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## rJames (Dec 26, 2011)

Well, my ever-so-slightly cynical view is that all any of us really do is regurgitate other people's music.

So, as Ned has said, it is just a question of how well you wear it.


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## Guy Bacos (Dec 26, 2011)

I agree with Piet about nuances we should make here, especially when it involves giants who fully earned their reputation through their originality and exceptional craft. Let's not toss the word "steal" around carelessly.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 26, 2011)

josejherring @ 25/12/2011 said:


> ... they really don't want a knock off. They just want something like it. It's up to you to make it even better.



Agree... and yet, sometimes you can't, because what they used works so well, is exactly the right cue, and a gorgeous one at that. I guess I'm just saying that it's hard sometimes, to be up against another composer's jewel that was used as temp, maybe the best piece in that particular soundtrack.


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## david robinson (Dec 26, 2011)

movie music is limited by the movie it's in.
j.


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## david robinson (Dec 26, 2011)

re-peat @ Mon Dec 26 said:


> josejherring @ Mon Dec 26 said:
> 
> 
> > (...) the pieces where he outright stole were perhaps not his best pieces. Pulcinella Suite comes to mind. Where as there was nothing that sounded much like The Firebird or The Rite and those are among his finest works. (...)
> ...



a huge and accurate knowledge of Stravinsky's thought patterns.
kudos to you re-peat.
and u r are right.
i've studied Pulcinella and totally agree with you.
one of his very best.
j.


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## José Herring (Dec 26, 2011)

Guy Bacos @ Mon Dec 26 said:


> I agree with Piet about nuances we should make here, especially when it involves giants who fully earned their reputation through their originality and exceptional craft. Let's not toss the word "steal" around carelessly.



It was Stravinsky that used the word steal! You guys piss me off sometimes. Argument just for the say of being contrary. It's asinine.

Look there are some movements in Stravinsky's Pulcinella (a piece I know like that back of my hand, having arranged the entire thing for string quartet for my wedding) that are barely changed from the original. Perhaps a bar or two were altered. What would you call that? Gently borrowing. :roll: I know what i call it. Copy and pasting! Not to bash the whole suite. As there is some really original stuff in there. But to call that piece anything other than a clever arrangement would be misleading.

Case and point:

Pergolessi
http://vimeo.com/10135798

Stravinsky
http://youtu.be/X4KYuhfag5I?t=5m9s


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## Guy Bacos (Dec 26, 2011)

I'm not familiar with this melody, but I listened to both excerpts several times, and made an honest effort. Are you sure these are the right excerpts? Sounds pretty different to me.


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## re-peat (Dec 27, 2011)

Jose,

Forgive me, but when the josejherrings of this world, of which there are many, many millions, start accusing the Stravinsky’s of this world, of which there are only precious few, of ‘outright stealing’, 'copying and pasting' or 'giving up', someone _has_ to say something. This argument isn’t for the sake of being contrary (this is not the time of the year to indulge in contrary-ness), this argument is only submitted to put a stop to your unbearably petty drivel. Because what you’re insinuating is wrong and ignorant, and as far as I’m concerned, indecent as well. If only the josejherrings of this world had the insight to either stay humbly silent on subjects they obviously know nothing about or, at the very least, discuss them with a respectful minimum of intellectual honesty, it would avoid a lot of blatant stupidity and irritation.

Accusing composers like Stravinsky of stealing is, I think, one of the most small-minded and musically absurd observations one can make, and it seems, more often than not, to be the favourite pastime of insecure and frustrated mediocrities, usually in a pathetic attempt to bring the art of musicmaking down to the uncreative, unimaginative level on which they themselves operate. (The level where the musical creativity is so poor and banal that the idea of stealing actually matters.) I’m not suggesting that you belong to this dreary group of musical insignificado’s, but your comments on “Pulcinella” certainly remind me of them.

Stravinsky _never_ ‘stole’, nor mentioned the term ‘stealing’ in the way that you’re implying. So, if you insist on using the word ‘steal’ in the sense that Stravinsky himself used it, then please, make an effort and do it correctly. By ‘stealing’, Stravinsky never meant: taking someone’s else music and passing it off has his own. Any such implication or condemnation on your part only shows that you have no understanding at all of Stravinsky’s music, and that you also appear to be rather uninformed about the concept or nature of specific compositions, "Pulcinella" in this case. Being uniformed is not a flaw in itself, if only you didn't pretend 'to know it like the back of your hand'. Because then it becomes quite ridiculous.

By 'stealing', Stravinsky always meant: the assimilation/integration of musical elements — that he found in all of music, from all ages and styles — which he felt he needed to fully explore the musical paths which his musical instincts made him follow. (And, believe me, this is more than mere semantics.) Stravinsky constantly fed on the music which came before him and/or happened around him. Sure, he ‘stole’. He ‘stole’ from Rimsky, Glazunov, and the French impressionists, from Russian orthodox church music and Russian folk music, from jazz, from 'light popular' music, from Bach, Mozart, Rossini and Tchaikovsky, from medieval and renaissance music, and towards the end, from the 2nd Viennese school. But _never_ in the way that you suggest. With childlike curiosity, he sucked up all that material like a musical sponge, but always ended up with 100% pure Stravinskian music, after transforming/recreating whatever he picked up, be it jazz, or classicism, a Schubert tune, or serialism, or folk music, or the American national anthem.

When Picasso uses existing design patterns, or existing typography, or a fragment of a newspaper or whatever, in one of his collages or sculptures (for example: the toy car which he, quite brilliantly, turns into http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/16900749.jpg (a baboon's head)), or when he refers to an artistic idiom outside his own, that’s never theft. That’s importing an existing pictorial or visual element (with or without all of its intrinsic references and connotations), and transforming it into something with has a completely new meaning and identity, something to which _only_ Picasso can lay artistic and creative claim. Same with Stravinsky. When he imports and adapts a Rossini-phrase in “Jeu de Cartes”, the function of that phrase in his music and the new meaning and identity it acquires within the fabric of that music, is entirely Stravinsky’s. We all know the source of the abstract musical idea — Rossini — but the moment this idea enters the orbit of Stravinsky’s music, it gets transformed into something which can have only one artistic signature: Stravinsky. 

“Pulcinella” is one of relatively few pieces among his works which are somewhat different in concept, in that significant parts of this work are _adaptations_ — some fairly straight, others less so — of existing music. But the work was also _never presented as a wholly original composition_, its title page cleary referring to it being an adaption. Any accusation of it being ‘stolen’ is therefore totally invalid and absurd.
But even here: the results can not be mistaken for anyone else’s than Stravinsky’s. Saying that “Pulcinella” is ‘stolen’, is, apart from being utter nonsense (given the nature of the work), only proof that one hasn’t got the faintest idea on how to approach this music and what it is about. Saying that “Le Baiser de la Fee” is ripped from Tchaikovsky, of "Jeu de Cartes" copied and pasted from Rossini, is missing the point and meaning of this music, and its true originality, altogether. Reducing any of these works to being ‘acts of theft’ is, to me, in fact the summum of musical idiocy. And yes, this time I'm very much suggesting that you are guilty of this. In this particular context anyway.

Talking sense about Stravinsky is not: establishing that he ‘stole’ — because we all know that he did, and he himself was the first to share all the details with us, and document his many sources — no, talking sense about Stravinsky means observing and understanding what he actually did with all that imported material and how he turned every single 'adapted idea' into a completely unique and unmistakeably Stravinskian expression, with a creativity, passion and imagination which are, in my view, unmatched in the entire history of music.

_


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## Lke (Dec 28, 2011)

re-peat @ 28th December said:


> When Picasso uses a shred of newspaper, or a piece of postcard or whatever, in one of his collages, that’s not theft. That’s importing an existing visual element (with all its intrinsic references and connotations), and transforming it into something with has a completely new meaning and identity, a result to which only Picasso can lay artistic and creative claim. Same with Stravinsky. When he imports and adapts a Rossini-phrase in “Jeu de Cartes”, the function of that phrase in his music and the new meaning and identity it acquires within the fabric of that music, is entirely Stravinsky’s. We all know the source of the abstract musical idea — Rossini — but the moment this idea enters the orbit of Stravinsky’s music, it gets transformed into something which can have only one artistic signature



Probably T. S. Eliot's style is even more similar to Stravinsky's music. His poetry shows a deep culture and a deep and full knowledge of what he's quoting. He also clearly shows a great respect for other's works.



> Sources from which Eliot quotes or to which he alludes include the works of: Homer, Sophocles, Petronius, Virgil, Ovid,[27] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Gérard de Nerval, Thomas Kyd, Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Middleton, John Webster, Joseph Conrad, John Milton, Andrew Marvell, Charles Baudelaire, Richard Wagner, Oliver Goldsmith, Hermann Hesse, Aldous Huxley, Paul Verlaine, Walt Whitman and Bram Stoker.
> 
> Eliot also makes extensive use of Scriptural writings including the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, the Hindu Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, and the Buddha's Fire Sermon, and of cultural and anthropological studies such as Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough and Jessie Weston's From Ritual to Romance (particularly its study of the Wasteland motif in Celtic mythology).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land



> Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets *make it into something better, or at least something different*.


As David Story said before, but without mentioning the second sentence, which is very important, since it explains the first one.


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## re-peat (Dec 28, 2011)

You know, I was about to mention T.S. Eliot (but decided not to as it seemed a little bit pedantic), because the aforementioned quote "good composers borrow, great composers steal", often reported to be Stravinsky's or Picasso's (using the word 'artists' instead of 'composers'), is indeed originally his. Which has a nice irony to it, because if Stravinsky ever said it, than he 'stole' a quote about 'stealing' from someone else.

Here's the original Eliot version (as it appeared in a critical essay on the works of the poet P. Massinger): _"One of the surest tests of the superiority or inferiority of a poet, is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion."_

_


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## Udo (Jan 1, 2012)

Is pastiche considered plagiarism?

It's ironic that "pastiche" sprang to mind while reading opinions in this thread about plagiarism (realising I'd read sections of some opinions literally somewhere else before, but by someone else). This is not a criticism; I just thought it funny.  

How is musical pastiche treated under copyright law? I know parody is broadly accepted in some countries (e,g, Australia, USA) and somewhat or severely restricted in others. How is that with pastiche?


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jan 1, 2012)

Piet, it's really too bad that you're such a rude man. It's really making me regret having defended your stay here. I sure wish you would get off your high horse and stop insulting our members, and making me/us work on this day. You're really a lot of work for us Mods.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 1, 2012)

Stravinsky's quote about Pulcinella: "The only thing I'm interested in of Pergolesi is Pulcinella."

If I remember right he was even commissioned to arrange those particular melodies. They were expecting a polite baroque arrangement. Instead they got a freaking masterpiece.


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