Klarinet Archive - Posting 000027.txt from 1998/04

From: Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.Net>
Subj: Two copying questions
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 12:23:11 -0500

Here are a couple of questions for one of the copyright mavens on the list:

Besides clarinet and sax, I play the piano and the organ, the latter in two
different churches. Turning pages is the most difficult part of playing a
keyboard instrument, particularly the organ, which fully involves both
hands and both feet. Big-time organists sometimes have two assistants, one
to turn pages and one to change the registration. I work alone, and I
oftenphotocopy music and tape the sheets together end to end.

Now, in some cases I know the music is currently copyrighted. I don't
re-sell the copies I make, or even pass them around, and I need them to do
my job. I know what I'm doing is a violation of the law. So okay, put the
cuffs on and I'll go quietly. (And let the one among you who has never
committed this sin, cast the first stone.)

In other cases, I know that the tune, and the arrangement, have been around
for decades and often for centuries. First, let me offer a case in point.
Bear with me.

J.S. Bach, who died in 1750, wrote a four-part harmonization of a hymn tune
by Hans Leo Hasler, who died in 1512. It has had various texts set to it,
but the commonest is O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded. That text was translated
from the Latin Salve Caput Cruentarum, by Henry Baker, who died in 1877,
The original Latin text is ascribed to Bernard of Clairvaux, who died in 1153.

Bach used Hasler's melody in his Passion Chorale, and it's known to
hymnologists by that name. Bach's vocal arrangement, by the way, has one of
the gorgeous moving bass parts that basses love him for, and that sound
great on the pedals if the people are as usual only singing unison. The
arrangement and the translated text are in nearly every hymnal I have ever
played from

At last we get to the first question: Is the arrangement securely in the
public domain, and can I copy it, even for a paying gig, without looking
over my shoulder for the intellectual property police?

And the second question: I don't like to try to transpose at sight in front
of an audience, or a congregation. So I frequently transpose hymns, because
they are usually written from a second to a minor third too high for
untrained voices to manage the top notes. (I think it's done because up to
five or six lines of text are sometimes printed between the treble and bass
staves, so using leger lines would make the staves too far apart to read
conveniently.) When I'm transposing, I usually make major changes in the
voicing, and often simplify the harmony, because the organ does not always
like the full, close voicing found in piano arrangements. The church has
bought the hymnals, and is entitled to use them. Am I violating any
copyright law with what I do?

Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.net>