Notes and Lyrics

[molee]

From what I can tell, quite a number of posters to this forum are musicians. Has there been any effort to collect written music (with lyrics) of the Carpenters and post them here? I'm fairly new to the forum so forgive me if this has already been suggested/done. In any case, I think arrangements from simple guitar chords to advanced multi-instrument arrangements is something many could contribute to and all the musicians would enjoy.

Mo Lee

[enigma]

Its a good idea but there may be issues with copyrights and permissions I am not certain of the ins and outs of this but usually lyrics are OK (I am not even sure this is OK) but chords arrangements etc may get one into trouble copyright wise. I believe they all carry some kind of copyright. Rick may be better able to clarify this.

[YesterdayOnceMore]

You are exactly right, E! I've been researching a lot about copyrights in the past 3-4 months, and everything is copyrighted. Most musicians don't pay any attention to a lot of the copyright restrictions, but they do post them, and the music, and the lyrics are all copyrighted. I was pretty amazed at all that I have discovered. Everytime one performs a song, like I did for many, many years, where there is money involved (i.e., it was my job as I did a single for 20+ years), there were royalties due for each of those tunes because of the copyright law. I never knew that, and of course, most any songwriter would turn his/her head at that one; they are more interested in the royalty payments from the actual recording of their tune.... but it's true....and licenses are supposed to be obtained in order to "legally" sing them. Different licenses are necessary for recording them. It's quite complicated, really. But it's been a lot of fun to research. I've learned more than I could have ever guessed about this topic.

[Rick Henry]

I think that an artist is going to be more concerned with a known artist performing their songs in concert.

If someone on the level of say myself (or a local "covers" band) sings "Only Yesterday" at a gig I am not infringing on any rights because I'm not making any money from it. But if someone like Norah Jones or Diana Krall performs the song believe me she most likely will be hearing from Richard Carpenter's lawyers if she hasn't paid the royalties and secured the permission to perform the song.

Mostly though the whole royalty thing is focused on the recording of a song. A lesser known songwriter can sell one time rights to an artist to record a song and give up royalties from that particular artist especially if the artist recording the song is not a known name and sells maybe only 10,000 copies of the recording.

As for posting guitar chords, keyboard notes or drum notation to a song I've seen entire sites devoted to that and they do not own the rights to the songs nor are they infringing on anything so i think it is okay to post notes and lyrics to songs... you just can not be on the internet selling them.

Here is a good site which has notes and lyrics to Carpenters songs.

Guitar chord
www.e-chords.com/tabs.asp?idartist=1345

[timo]

For my part I can say that the C's music is not easy to play on an acoustic guitar - that's just me, the hopeless beginner after 30+ years of learning a chord. But it's written and arranged with a piano originally, so those with that skill (hello Tim!) probably get much more out of playing those songs.
Btw. I loved the new titles on that e-chord page: "I can't dream can I", "Breaking us is hard to do", "Rudolph the red noser reindeer" and "There's a kind of rush"!!

[Rick Henry]

Jan 28, 2009 0:52:50 GMT -5 timo said:

For my part I can say that the C's music is not easy to play on an acoustic guitar - that's just me, the hopeless beginner after 30+ years of learning a chord. But it's written and arranged with a piano originally, so those with that skill (hello Tim!) probably get much more out of playing those songs.
Btw. I loved the new titles on that e-chord page: "I can't dream can I", "Breaking us is hard to do", "Rudolph the red noser reindeer" and "There's a kind of rush"!!

My friend Jose (an accomplished guitarist of 35 years plays Carpenters songs quite well on his acoustic guitar. His favorite to play is "It's Going To Take Sometime".

Some of the errors on the song titles are very funny. A good percentage of the songs are added by the public... so that makes spelling typos common. Especially if it's being added by someone who's first language is something other than English.

[timo]

I'd love to hear Jose playing that song! To me it sounds impossible - but ofcourse I know that there is talent in this world that can do almost anything.
Nice looking chords there in e-chords - must try 'em when I get home!

[Rick Henry]

Jan 28, 2009 2:24:10 GMT -5 timo said:

I'd love to hear Jose playing that song! To me it sounds impossible - but ofcourse I know that there is talent in this world that can do almost anything.
Nice looking chords there in e-chords - must try 'em when I get home!

Another friend Gerry (a multi-instrumentalist) was able to take a Carpenters songbook (I have) and play any of the songs on keyboard, organ and guitar and make them all sound great. One afternoon he did a few variations of "Rainy Days And Mondays". I have a recording ( a very short snippet) of him playing RDAM on a synthesizer/keyboard and I am doing the vocal. It turned out quite nice... anyway Gerry's part did.

Timo... Although as you mentioned the arrangements were originally written on keyboard so it would only make sense that the songs are going to be easier performed by a keyboardist (such as Tim)... but not impossible for a guitarist to do. I'd love to hear a good trumpet player do some of these songs. Trumpet is one of my favorite instruments. Been listening to a good amount of Herb Alpert lately esepcially his 1980 album "Beyond".

[YesterdayOnceMore]

Jan 28, 2009 0:52:50 GMT -5 timo said:

For my part I can say that the C's music is not easy to play on an acoustic guitar - that's just me, the hopeless beginner after 30+ years of learning a chord. But it's written and arranged with a piano originally, so those with that skill (hello Tim!) probably get much more out of playing those songs.
Btw. I loved the new titles on that e-chord page: "I can't dream can I", "Breaking us is hard to do", "Rudolph the red noser reindeer" and "There's a kind of rush"!!

Timo, when I read your post, I couldn't stop laughing. "I Can't Dream, Can I?" - what a HOOT! Breaking US is hard to do (depends on how you look at it).....and somedays, There's A Kind of Rush, me thinks.

Thanks for your nod, too. Most songs I played "by ear". That is, I heard the chord changes pretty clearly. Same is true with Carpenters, but I bought all the books I could find - I loved having the photos as well as the music - so sometimes it would be the sheet music and the book to follow. Sometimes Richard's chord changes were tricky, so I was happy I had purchased the lead sheets provided. His little riffs and runs were so important to the song, that I wanted to be sure and add them, when/if I could.

Rick, I'm sure your friend Jose plays a mean guitar. I would think some songs would lend themselves more to guitar than others. For example, I would think SOMETIMES would be a great song done on guitar.

Thanks for a good guffaw, Timo! Brilliant.

[Rick Henry]

Jan 28, 2009 21:58:16 GMT -5 YesterdayOnceMore said:

Jan 28, 2009 0:52:50 GMT -5 timo said:

For my part I can say that the C's music is not easy to play on an acoustic guitar - that's just me, the hopeless beginner after 30+ years of learning a chord. But it's written and arranged with a piano originally, so those with that skill (hello Tim!) probably get much more out of playing those songs.
Btw. I loved the new titles on that e-chord page: "I can't dream can I", "Breaking us is hard to do", "Rudolph the red noser reindeer" and "There's a kind of rush"!!

Rick, I'm sure your friend Jose plays a mean guitar. I would think some songs would lend themselves more to guitar than others. For example, I would think SOMETIMES would be a great song done on guitar.

Thanks for a good guffaw, Timo! Brilliant.

Yes, Jose is excellent... he is self taught. He says that one day he picked up the guitar and he just knew how to play it. Jose can make it sound like there are two guitars playing at the same time... I don't know how he does it. His specialty is playing the twelve string guitar... it's totally amazing. He generally doesn't care for Carpenters... but me being the C's fan that I am of course had him play some songs just to practice with and he always liked playing the one's he found the most challenging. "Sometimes" was not in any of the books I have... so Jose never played that one.