Attention musicians: Did Jim Croce quote Chopin?

Post Reply New Topic

We used have a funny geeky coworker- actually he was probably an aspie(but that a subject for another time) in my inventory counting company who happened to be classical music fan.

One evening when were counting an upscale clothing store he announced that "
hey-theyre playing the "minute waltz".

I thought "whats he talking about- theres no classical music playing anywhere in earshot- all we can hear is the store intercom piping the local softrock station"- the song happened to be Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle".

But later it occurred to me that maybe he was right- there are passages in the Croce hit song that are rather waltz-like. Thematically it would make sense that Croce would quote a passage from whats come to be called the 'minute waltz' by Chopin in Croce's hit lament about the fleetingness of time. Maybe my crazy cowork was on to something.

IVe listened to both pieces- cant really tell- dont have access to the sheet music for either piece and I cant read music anyway.

So- does anyone either (a) know about croce sampling chopin, or (B) able to deconstruct "time in a bottle" to see if does have some of the DNA of Chopin's "minute waltz"?

When it comes to music and writing, there are no original ideas. There are just different ways of arranging old ideas. But by combining what is out there you can come up with something unique.

Depends how big you consider an idea to be.

This is a band with a deep hatred of bach, which means they tend to sound a bit harsh to most people.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Ef_YfqvFs[/youtube]

This piece of music had never been written before (except by GWAR) so as an idea, this piece is original.

But if you go back to the notes being used, then nothing is original - not even the first piece of music, because the notes would have occurred before the idea of music existed.

I think Barry Manilow did a rip of some Chopin for his first hit (long, long ago). Come into my world, or something like that.

Billy Joel did some Classical-themed songs here and there, but he's written actual Classical music (don't know if anyone's listened to it)

EL&P (and the Nice before that) were the band with the rep for Classical rock