Talk:Gavin Bryars

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Concerns over article content[edit]

I (joekafka) have been trying to make an edit to this text for some time, but my edit gets reversed, and I recently got blocked by an administrator for 'Edit warring'. My point is simply that Gavin Bryars arranged rather than composed the work 'Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet'. It is universally accepted that Bryars used a recording of a homeless man singing as the basis for his work. That recording is of a work by an unknown composer. Bryars looped part of this work and did a (wonderful) arrangement of it, but he is not responsible for writing any part of the melody or text. Bryars himself does not claim to have composed melody or text. Without the recording of the homeless man there would be no corresponding work by Gavin Bryars. Bryars' work was inspired by - and built upon - someone else's composition and someone else's performance. The composer of the piece and the man who sang it are almost certainly no longer alive, and if they were, it is improbable that they would try to correct this error here, but I would like to do so on their behalf. Joekafka (talk) 12:05, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, in classical music a setting of someone else's melody does not automatically reduce the setting down to a mere arrangement. Moreover the melody in question is unatributed FOLK item. Johann Sebastian Bach routinely used someone else's melodies for his COMPOSITIONS. 'Nuff said.--Galassi (talk) 12:40, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The work in question is in no conventional sense a piece of classical music. Bach routinely made use of folk melodies, but he didn't make an audio recording of a folk melody, loop it, and claim it as his own composition. The magical qualities of 'Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet' are down to a) The nature of the original composition (so what if it's unattributed?), b) The text, c) The quality of the performance on the orginal recording, and d) The arrangement. Bryars is responsible for just one of those four elements. He did not compose the melody - not one note of it. He did not write one word of the text. I do not believe he should be credited as the composer of the work. (Your 'Nuff said' merely says how arrogant you are.)Joekafka (talk) 13:29, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It is not that unconventional. In any event you would have to demonstrate a reliable source arguing that it is a mere arrangement, in order to get it mentioned here. --Galassi (talk) 14:38, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"But 'compose' doesn't mean 'arrange'," Alice objected.

"When I use a word," Galassi said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Galassi, "which is to be master-that's all." Joekafka (talk) 12:55, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]