Sir Isaac Newton wrote, in a letter to Robert Hooke, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Creative people constantly strive to produce something original, but we are inevitably influenced by what has gone before us. I have posted before about a book that influences me, The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker. Successful stories also have an arc. Aristotle said that a story should have a beginning, middle and end, or protasis, epitasis and catastrophe. They build to a climax then a resolution.
We strive for originality, whilst employing a formula for satisfaction. Sometimes when I listen to a piece of music, there will be a section that reminds me of something else. There’s a classical piece, I can’t remember which one, but I turn to Claire and say, “that’s taken from Gracie Fields’ Sally!”
We were in the car a few months ago, listening to ClassicFM, when I said, “that’s from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves!” This one I can pin down, because I heard it again this morning, and rushed over to the tuner to see what was playing. Try it yourself. Stream Sir Edward Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture Opus 40, played by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, conducted by Vasily Petrenko. Listen to the section between 8 minutes 24 seconds and 9 minutes. Then tell me that isn’t very, very similar to (Everything I do) I do it for you, by Bryan Adams.
When writing we have a vast armada of words to assemble into grammatical, pleasing sentences. We might choose a word for alliterative pleasure. Nevertheless, we will inevitably use sentences that another author has used before. In music the available notes are fewer, and the sequences and combinations that are pleasing to the ear, are also limited.
If a musical phrase of Elgar had lodged in the subconscious of Bryan Adams, then it is truly a case of standing on the shoulders of a giant, and seeing further. I love every note of I do it for you, but only 36 seconds of the Cockaigne Overture. I shall close by recalling something from The News Quiz many years ago. A bride to be had met the vicar and asked that she walk down the aisle to the theme from Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. Unfortunately the instruction to the organist got a little scrambled and she had to skip down the aisle to, Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen.