Everyone who listens to music needs to READ THIS!

[JDPriestly]

77. This is a fascinating issue.

I have a lot of education/experience in music, and when I hear an artist's music, I hear influences, sometimes even obviously borrowed melodies, riffs or harmonic progressions -- musical ideas that were original or at least that I thought of as original to an earlier musician.

Think of Beethoven. How much of his music, of his creative ideas, did he owe to his predecessors -- Mozart for one, and his teachers.

Virtually every artist borrows and owes a big debt to those in his art form who preceded him and inspired him.

Yet, no one would expect a person who composes, let's say a movie score, to acknowledge Berlioz or Mozart as the source for a melody. Musicians hear the source -- but you'd think that the composer of the score just created it out of nothing. That is often not the case.

So, when someone steals from you, remember how much you owe to the many musicians who preceded you -- and probably some who are your contemporaries to whom you give no credit whatsoever and yet who help you in all your work.

I wish there were some better way to compensate artists. I try to remember that artists need to earn a living like everyone else, but then, as a retired person, I use Rhapsody because I see no point in accumulating a huge collection of CDs and other physical forms of music that I my children will have to sort through and throw away one of these days.

Do you want to have your music heard, or do you want people to listen to someone else's music for free? A lot of people are just giving good music away. These are really hard times. It is a privilege to be a performing musician. Be thankful for what you have.

And, no, I don't download or copy your music. I use Rhapsody and mostly for old stuff.