Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Mike Candelaria asks, “Do you plan on doing episodes that are music centric? Whether the evolution of specific instruments or music types, like the blues or hip hop or jazz?”

I’ve done some music-related episodes before. I’ve done an episode on the history of the piano, and I’ve done episodes on particular pieces of classical music like the 1812 Overture and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. You will note that all of these have to do with classical music. One of the problems with doing episodes on music is that it really helps actually to play music during the episode. For certain old pieces of music that are close to 100 years old, this is not a problem. However, for newer music, it becomes a big problem. If I put even a short clip from anything recorded in the last 60 years, I’ll probably get a copyright notice. Some of you who are familiar with copyright might be saying that there is a fair use exemption, and an educational podcast such as mine would be a clear case of fair use….and I agree with you 100%. However, it doesn’t matter. The fact that I would have a valid fair use claim doesn’t mean that I still won’t get a takedown notice from the owners of the rights to the music. Once I get that, it is an enormous hassle that I’d have to deal with, even if I was in the right.

That being said, I’d love to do some episodes on the origins of contemporary music. I was listening to an interview with record producer Rick Rubin several months ago, and he talked about the origins of hip-hop. Because hip-hop is relatively new, we know its history in greater detail than we do for other older forms of music. It is a fascinating story that starts in the Bronx in the early 1970s, and one way or another, I’ll do an episode on it someday.