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Posts: 1740
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
El Legado Oculto de Paco de LucÃa 🎸
I didn't understand all of the Spanish but this is largely about Paco's heirs finally getting a legal decree that Paco composed all of his music and Torregrosa was only a transcriber of it, contrary to Torregrosa's claims and those by his family after he died.
In hindsight, it was this infamous "Music exam" preventing composers like paco from receiving his fair share of authorship. Like the gov. saying "sorry if you can't read and write your own music, you are NOT a real composer". What torregrosa SHOULD have done, is recognize this issue and, although legally claiming 50% co-authorship, drawn up a separate agreement where he transferred those portions over to PDL, minus some standard or flat fee for having put pen to paper. The exclusivity of this "music exam" to filter people out of their fair share makes me wonder about USA law, and wonder if that thing was EVER an issue.
I learned in school a transcriber is a special job, and even if you COULD write your own music on paper, the Publisher would likely want that guy doing his job anyway, and likely reject your personal hand copy score, or provide it to the pro transcriber as a guide, but it is unlikely you the composer could also collect that extra transcriber money on top of your author royalties. It is why you end up with pop music for guitar players, like Van Halen etc., turning out similar mediocre scores that misrepresent the guitar playing as we see with PDL early material.
I remember the very rare examples like Steve Vai and Jason Becker providing scores to the guitar magazines that published their pieces. It is a curious problem. But moot at this point with most music being "free streaming" anyway with AI transcriptions fairly accurate.
At the end of the day I view this situation of his heirs fixing the royalty split away from the wrong heirs of Torregrosa, (if about $, that would be very petty), is mostly about the cultural issue resulting from that "music exam" and the way flamenco was viewed as "low class". We see that Paco managed to change this stigma via Teatro Real, the Falla and Rodrigo recordings and performances, cancelling the Iglasias and Domingo engagement where his name was put down in small print, having a hand in the acknowledgment of flamenco by the gov in GENERAL as a cultural heritage (2004 I think), getting that honorary PHD, and now this authorship recognition as part of all that.
I can literally picture Paco smoking and playing his guitar in his pyjama while this Torregrosa guy shows up in a suit, puts on his glasses and starts explaining and convincing him of some bullshiit rip off contract, and Paco after couple minutes is already like "amigo, whatever, just do it. por favor, I'm getting headache,I don't wanne hear this crap no more...... check out this falsetta bro ..." Anyways, good for them. Leaching off Maestro is no bueno ...50%, jesus
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