sound Recording Holst's music myself for use in film?

[Yodaman]

Hey everyone,

I have loved Gustav Holst's "The Planets" suite for ages, and it always sounds like it'd be a great soundtrack to a sci-fi film my brother and I have wanted to make for ages now.

My question is, since I can find the music sheets online (and can read them fairly well), if I re-recorded the music, would it still be legal to use in my movie if I wanted to show it at a festival?

This is mostly a hypothetical question - I know I could never reproduce the scope of Holst's music all by myself (despite GarageBand being fairly awesome), but I'm more concerned with legal issues. I think all his music is public domain by now, so theoretically I should be fine, right?

 

[Zensteve]

since I can find the music sheets online (and can read them fairly well), if I re-recorded the music, would it still be legal to use in my movie if I wanted to show it at a festival?

If the musical arrangements you are finding online are also in the Public Domain, you should be fine. They may or may not be, so unless you're using Holst's original manuscripts you need to be checking.

 

[Alcove Audio]

Just to expand upon what Zen said...

You should always get your legal information from a legal professional.

Technicalities are the soul of law. Technically, you MAY NOT buy the Shirmer print edition (for example) of the arrangement of Holst's composition and use it for your film. TECHNICALLY you would be basing your recorded arrangement upon their copyrighted printed arrangement; so technically you would need to search for a Public Domain printed edition. As another example, if you bought a Nonesuch recording of an orchestra performing the piece and by ear & hand transcribed it note-for-note you would still, technically, be basing your arrangement upon copyrighted materials and in violation of copyright laws.

However, completely off the record and not for attribution, who's going to know or even question how or where you got the written arrangement to perform your audio version? Who is going to care?

 

[Yodaman]

Technicalities are the soul of law. Technically, you MAY NOT buy the Shirmer print edition (for example) of the arrangement of Holst's composition and use it for your film. TECHNICALLY you would be basing your recorded arrangement upon their copyrighted printed arrangement; so technically you would need to search for a Public Domain printed edition. As another example, if you bought a Nonesuch recording of an orchestra performing the piece and by ear & hand transcribed it note-for-note you would still, technically, be basing your arrangement upon copyrighted materials and in violation of copyright laws.

That's exactly what I was worried about. I can't seem to find any samples of sheet music that are actually public domain (not to mention piss-poor image quality).

However, completely off the record and not for attribution, who's going to know or even question how or where you got the written arrangement to perform your audio version? Who is going to care?

Good point. I just don't want to get into trouble with anybody. I will contact some legal people and see what they can tell me. Otherwise, I might just modify the music a bit, and try to come up with my own unique rendition... that could take ages but might be better in the long run anyway.

 

[Alcove Audio]

Here are a couple of unique interpretations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lHqcxcDhfc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsZqXdPZb8s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jy927MOS2U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSo0ss7KtPQ


Sorry, couldn't resist the old prog-rock versions.....



I'm sure that they all just bought some sheet music, although I don't really know.

 

[gorillaonabike]

Hey everyone,

I have loved Gustav Holst's "The Planets" suite for ages, and it always sounds like it'd be a great soundtrack to a sci-fi film my brother and I have wanted to make for ages now.

My question is, since I can find the music sheets online (and can read them fairly well), if I re-recorded the music, would it still be legal to use in my movie if I wanted to show it at a festival?

This is mostly a hypothetical question - I know I could never reproduce the scope of Holst's music all by myself (despite GarageBand being fairly awesome), but I'm more concerned with legal issues. I think all his music is public domain by now, so theoretically I should be fine, right?

I looked at this myself and found three solutions.

Firstly, finding a public domain recording of The Planets might be possible. I did this with a piece of Vivaldi.

Secondly, using a copy of Holst's original manuscript and performing it would be fine. For example, I did this with a piece of Rachmaninov (Prelude in C sharp minor) where I just played it myself. It's a fairly short, simple piece of music which I've been playing since the age of 13 and bizarrely, pretty much have it memorized but who is going to challenge this?

Thirdly, you could write your own arrangement.

Otherwise, the caveat is you should see a copyright lawyer as any advice from the interweb should be taken with a massive barrel of salt.