Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
Stairway to Heaven Chords and Analysis
http://www.songwriting-unlimited.com...#axzz45oVGpThU
When you analyze the Stairway chords you see that Jimmy Page used both natural minor and the dorian mode. The D is a chord substitution borrowed from the relative A major scale. This gives the song it's harmonic lift.
INTRO
[B]Am G#aug | C/G D/F# | Fmaj7 | Am/B Am
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This is good analysis. Major-minor modal shifts were much more popular in the 60's and 70's and used especially to great effect by the Beatles. 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' has a similar descending line in Am and also uses the D major chord as a transition into the chorus which is in A major. It's a brilliant use of modes / substitution that lifts the song in a way that diatonic chord changes often don't. For some reason this has fallen out of common use in popular music.
Song copyright has always been melody and lyrics. Melody being a distinct sequence of notes and intervals and lyrics obviously being a unique set of words. Anything else is fair game - chords, tempo, rhythm, form, arrangement, style, etc. I think this aspect of copyright law is actually integral to the development of music as a transcendent art form. Every musical artist in history has studied, borrowed and been inspired by other artists and this has led to a creative explosion (over hundreds of years). If restrictions were so tight that you could copyright chord change or musical style it would be crippling for music in general. There are literally millions of songs with the I-VI-IV-V progression for instance and most of them don't really sound enough alike that the general public even notices. The entire genre of blues is based around variations of one song form.
The Blurred Lines copyright judgement kind of muddled the waters a bit because the claim didn't fit the criteria of melody and lyrics as they were not the same in the two songs. There were however strong stylistic similarities and Pharrell quite possibly did use the Gaye song as inspiration as he is a huge fan.
To win this type of case you also have to prove that not only you wrote the song first but that the thief had the chance to hear it which is harder with an obscure artist. Sounds like that opportunity was there in the Zeppelin case. I would say the guitar intro melody is quite similar and if they can now argue the style aspect they could have a chance at winning a small percentage of the writing credit which could still be a huge amount of money.
Further complicating the matter is that there are 3 separate copyrights within any piece of recorded music with 3 distinct ownerships and revenue streams. I could divulge on that to mind numbing length but I won't haha.
