Talk:Contrafact

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Reference[edit]

[1] is a possible reference for contrafacts. --Ravelite 17:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

done. Maksim Otstavnov 22:39, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merge: Borrowed chord progression[edit]

I have always understood the word "contrafact" to mean, literally, "borrowed chord progression." If someone else can produce a rock-solid source to the contrary, than perhaps I may be convinced otherwise. Here is what Grove New Dictionary of Jazz has to say:

Contrafact. In jazz, a melody built upon the chord progression of another piece

BassHistory (talk) 09:45, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Then contrafact literally means the melody, not the chord progression. This would still make them highly related topics. Hyacinth (talk) 16:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, you got me on semantics. Still, I don't see why borrowed chord progression needs its own article. The concept is clearly covered here. The "borrowed chord progression" is the major aspect of a contrafact. Can you see the possibility that some info wont overlap?BassHistory (talk) 01:03, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you are proposing "duplicate" or "overlap" as a reason to merge per Wikipedia:Merging#Rationale, then I am in support. Hyacinth (talk) 16:08, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I moved the Monk references over. If you want to double check go ahead. As far as I'm concerned, we can just make borrowed chord progression into a redirect.BassHistory (talk) 07:03, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Distinction between contrafact and contrafactum[edit]

According to Grove, "contrafact" is a jazz term. Contrafactum, as far as I am aware, refers to borrowing everything but the words (ie. melody stays the same, text is changed). Is anyone aware of the exact term "contrafact," not "contrafactum" or "contrafacta," being used outside of jazz? If so, what exactly is meant by the term in a non-jazz context?BassHistory (talk) 06:33, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Contrafacts in non-jazz[edit]

Maybe not so often encountered, but they exist. "Mr. Blue Sky" by ELO (same chords as "Yesterday" by the Beatles) is one example. And Manfred Mann has done this quite a lot (not so surprising given his jazz background) - "You Are, I Am" is one of "Hollywood Town" (both songs are on the same album), and so on. Jules TH 16 (talk) 20:07, 2 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Jules TH 16 I wonder if it is worth mentioning that Israeli singer-songwriter Itzhak Klepter used the chords of Hotel California for a contrafact. 93.173.47.81 (talk) 02:47, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright[edit]

I'd really like to see some solid references for the bold claim "while melodies can be copyrighted, the underlying harmonic structure cannot be". While I agree that's been the dominant attitude in courts in different countries, mostly because legal professionals know little about music, I haven't yet seen any actual codified basis for it. Hence, "cannot" seems far from evident. --Ehitaja (talk) 15:27, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]