Quote:
Originally Posted by secret love
Now can you tell me, this sheet music I have on my piano tonight... it says Landslide - Words and Music by Stevie Nicks. So did she write the music I have been reading or did she not? Has she just chosen the four chords listed in OP and had Lindsey arrange them? Or did she write the entire complicated score?
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I hesitate to stick my head in here, but I finally decided to add my limited 2 cents... I am not trying to stir anything up... I'm new around here!
I am no expert but my #1 musician that I was (am?) ridiculously obsessed with for years in my youth is Tori Amos, and I also have 16 years of professional piano lessons (including collegiate) under my belt... so I feel I have a little bit of knowledge as to piano performances, musicianship, etc.
First: Stevie can play the basics on the piano to write a song. Sure. She does better than the average person, no doubt. I can't claim to be able to write songs on the piano despite taking so many years of lessons.
That said, it's still very remedial. She does fine for what she needs: to write songs, demos, and intimate acoustic performances with few people in the room (like the ones linked above). Totally fine, good.
Would she be able to hold a larger room or concert with that? I do not believe so. Not only is her playing extremely limited (primarily restricted to easy chords with basic beats; as someone pointed out earlier, she rushes her lyrics to keep it in time, which is much easier), but also
she simply doesn't seem to have the confidence in it herself. She is concentrating
hard to not mess up and does not look in her element.
I realize that sounds silly given I think Stevie is EXTREMELY confident in her stage performance... just not on the piano. She does not look like she is at ease or in her element in those links above; she seems stiff. I don't think she would ever be comfortable in a situation you described: an arena with just her at the keys holding the room. She's far more in her element standing at the mic, twirling and walking the stage, etc. This scenario would put too much pressure on her and I don't think she's into that at this stage in her life and career.
I did a quick search for Tori Amos covering Landslide (which she does often) and found a few here. Not that these are the end-all-be-all because this cover is actually one of Tori's more simple ones and does not show her prowess, but it shows a different level of confidence at the keys (Tori was a piano prodigy at a young age so I realize it's unfair to fully compare the two; they have different strengths):
https://youtu.be/_wl6ZtQKO1M
https://youtu.be/oYBb0jwj1C8
Lastly, all of Tori's albums have been transcribed to piano books. I have all of them and they are definitely not the same as what she actually plays: she likes to say she doesn't read or write sheet music since she was a kid, and these are reduced down to the most basic melodies by someone else and none of her layered, difficult original playing. She has stated that for many of her songs, she had to go back and learn them because she spontaneously performed in the studio and didn't realize what she was playing (Marianne is the prime example)... had to re-listen to them from the recordings in order to reproduce them for live performances. The sheet music in the piano books is therefore hardly her own but of course the actual creative product of the song is still her own and written by her.
I don't know if I'm making much sense through my rambles, but to summarize, since Stevie wrote the lyrics and the basic melody of Landslide, she would be given credit even if LB expanded it. It's at the core her song.
Ok I'll stop! Sorry for the long rambling post.