Striking Your Own Chord

Striking Your Own Chord: Journeys into Musical Plagiarism

George Harrison was found guilty of ‘unconscious musical plagiarism’ in relation to his number-one hit song ‘My Sweet Lord’ - a misdemeanour that cost him $1 million. Speaker Klaus Frieler can sympathise: having written what he thought was a brilliant pop tune, he later realised it was in fact a well-known Frank Zappa song. The experience led him to develop ‘Creative Karaoke’, a way to measure the likelihood of two songwriters coming up with the same song independently.

Tonight’s event will consider how such independent creation can occur and the tricks our memories can play on us. We’ll look at the psychology of creativity versus plagiarism and the brain science of memory. Songwriter Nigel of Bermondsey will demonstrate how he comes up with new musical ideas when writing for the big fishes of the pop scene.

Test your own musical creativity and write a hit in our Creative Karaoke workshop by laying down a melody over a backing track. Don’t worry, no musical knowledge is required, but melodies will be analysed on the fly for their originality. If you want to have a go before the event, visit the official Creative Karaoke site

Or share the creative process in our United Voices workshop with singer and improviser Memzee. His joint vocalisation exercises will turn you and the other participants into a creative collective in no time!

Speakers:

Klaus Frieler, Lecturer in Systematic Musicology, University of Hamburg
Nigel of Bermondsey, Songwriter and Composer
Daniel Müllensiefen, Music, Mind and Brain Group, Goldsmiths, University of London
Albrecht Schneider, Professor of Systematic Musicology; University of Hamburg
Hugo Spiers, Wellcome Trust Research Fellow; University College London

Facilitator:

Lauren Stewart, Music, Mind and Brain Group, Goldsmiths, University of London

This free event is organised by the Music, Mind and Brain group at Goldsmiths, University of London, and is part of Brain Awareness Week and National Science and Engineering Week (12–21): March 2010