I’m currently in the process of writing a song. I’ve got a tune and I’m putting the lyrics together but I’m always concerned that any tune I think of might just be another song I’ve heard somewhere randomly that I don’t remember hearing.
Do I just have a shitty memory or is this a problem that other people have too?
Not sure how to help you out with it, but you’re at least not alone. Robert Smith from The Cure had the same problem with the song “Friday I’m in Love”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_I%27m_in_Love
“During the writing process, Robert Smith became convinced that he had inadvertently stolen the chord progression from somewhere, and this led him to a state of paranoia where he called everyone he could think of and played the song for them, asking if they had heard it before. None of them had, and Smith realised that the melody was indeed his.”
Similar story with Yesterday by the Beatles. Paul McCartney was convinced he had unconsciously plagiarized the song after he’d supposedly heard it in a dream.
Is that what inspired the movie?
The same thing happened to John Anderson when he was writing Seminole Wind
No, you see it’s: “dun-dun-dun-dudu-dun-dun dudu dun-dun-dun-dudu-dun-dun”
not
“dun-dun-dun-dudu-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dudu-dun-dun”
Stop…
collaborate and listen?
Ice is back with a brand new invention?
Hammer time?
Stop.
In the name of love?
No joke but I remember many years ago seeing vanilla ice basically do that to explain why ice ice baby is nothing like under pressure
Ice counts the dings “not the same”
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Nope, happens a lot to me, too. Worst part is that whatever you’re accidentally plagiarizing, will immediately sound great and will be really easy to write, because of course, you’ve listened to it before. And it can be nigh impossible to distinguish between accidental plagiarism and just being in a flow.
Everything is derivative of something else. Thag made that drumbeat on a rock 20000 years ago and it has passed down in oral history to eventually be in a Nirvana song.
This sometimes results in songs like Dani California that are almost certainly overt or unintentional copies of another song. When you find out your song is subjectively too close to another song you do the right thing, whatever that may be between you and the original musician.
Crug hit rok fist.
Art is theft
All art is inspired by other art, it grows, evolves, eats itself, parodies life, informs living.
I wouldn’t worry about it
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=jcvd5JZkUXY
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Don’t worry about it. There are only so many progressions. Everything else is just variations within them, with bass lines, melodies and rhythms.
I simply don’t think about it. If Chino Moreno can get away with using the chorus chord progression of “Hit Me Baby” in one of his songs and the most that happens is laughter about it in the comment section, it’s not an issue.
Alternatively, there is nothing new under the sun. Music has seven fundamental notes that can only be arranged so many different ways and still sound pleasing to the ear. It’s an inevitability that somewhere, you’re going to use the same chord progressions as thousands if not hundreds of thousands of other composers, you’re gonna write the same licks, you’re gonna play the same riffs. The difference is in atmosphere, genre, and performance. Don’t stress it too much.
Deftones have so much staying power, like they keep making good stuff after 30+ years now. I know Koi no Yokan is like over a decade old, but it’s so good, and that was wayyy after their popularity peak.
Run it through shazam (or a foss alternative if there is one) and check?
I’ve done this. Yes, they did exist. That’s one of the risks of creating songs from melodies stuck in your head
What was the song?
You don’t. I used to write music, and I would frequently think I’m writing a melody only for it to turn out to be something I heard in the background of a TV show or something.
No you see, that’s the secret. All my songs are just me Weird Al-ing every aspect of them.
Eventually they’re different enough that they’re truly mine.
Copyright bullshit has made artists paranoid.
Why worry when you are just writing a song ?
Write the song about the song sounding like another song.
This is just a tribute
a tribute song is still a song
You gotta believe it, I wish you were there
It’s just a matter of opinion
It’s normal.
Especially if you’re writing in a popular style, tons of musicians just use the same chord progressions over and over .
Once you start layering things on the melody, it’s pretty unlikely that it will resemble anything too closely.
As long long as you’re just using your own creativity, I think it’s very unlikely you’ll just clone a song.
If you’re really worried about it, you can just change a few notes in the melody on the page in a way that you wouldn’t think to sing “naturally”
It might be similar to a song you’ve heard but you’re misremembering the notes of the existing song.
Maybe try playing it for an app that recognizes the song that’s playing and then listen to any songs it guesses might be the song.
