Contriving Melodies...

[richardmac]

We all have our "melodic phrases" that we like... a certain string of notes that form a melody that appeals to us. We all have probably a great many phrases we like to hear, and maybe we like to use.

 

So here is the question. When you are writing a vocal melody, so you:

1. Consciously pull up some of your fave phrases and use them

2. Sing the first thing that comes into your head and see how it fits

3. Calculate the method based on the chord changes you wrote

 

Here's what I'm getting at. I tend to write using method 2... I'll improvise a melody that tries to capture the feeling of the lyric, and if I don't like it, I'll improvise another, and I'll repeat until I get one I like. But most of the time I'll end up inadvertently tossing in one of my favorite little musical phrases. Could be as short as three notes together, or could be longer. If I were to sit down over the course of a few days or weeks and catalog all of my fave little musical phrases, and then purposefully try to use them in my songs, would that be "cheating?" Further, if I were to listen to some of my all time favorite songs and pull out the little phrases I like from them, catalog them, and then make a conscious effort to use those phrases in my music, would THAT be cheating?

 

People talk about the "craft" of songwriting... how far would you go to "craft" a good song? Would analyzing hit songs and figuring out the little melodies that make them great and reusing those melodies be part of the craft, or would it be calculated and thus less "artistic?" More importantly, could listeners tell the difference?

[grace_slick]

I do the same thing you do - option 2.

 

I don't think it's cheating at all to store away melodies you like, or bits of melodies really...

 

I find I keep being drawn to certain ones, and sometimes I don't even really LIKE 'em that much! They just keep coming back though.

 

I notice in some of my songs, I naturally have found a certain number of notes that I then realise are from a song I like or have heard before (I don't have to actually love the song either...it just may come to mind) and I then feel for that brief moment, the song FLOWS better...cause I guess it's familiar for a few seconds and those few notes have come from a "real" song...as opposed to my potentially crap song, you know?

 

I also kinda think in relation to the artistic vs calculated thing...not so much in terms of storing away bits of songs you like and then using them later...but rather, if you're making up a melody and something that's been from another song you know or like comes to mind and honestly fits with your song, well...unless it's an exact copy (which it wouldn't be), it'd seem to me to be more calculated if you DIDN'T use it...if it's just come naturally to you...it'd be more artistic to use what comes naturally than to consciously and calculatedly avoid it based on it being in another song.

 

As for people being able to tell the difference when they listen, nah. Unless you've done a song that's separated into say, 5 parts, and each of those 5 parts uses a different "stolen" melody...otherwise, generally the melodies bits from known songs are way too short or set against different chords or a different rhythm or with different instruments for anyone to link them or "recognise" anything...

[Cliftonb]

I usually wait for main melodic themes to "strike" me out of nowhere, then I play it out on keyboard. Other times when I'm feeling really down or depressed I go to the keyboard and kinda wring what's in me out onto the piano and a melody happens. Both ways more than get the job done - one's doesn't hurt at all, but the other can be quite painful.

[bee3]

I fall into category 2... if I can't get a good hooky chorus, I tend to move on to something else.

[Oswlek]

I typically fall into category two, though I typically give the melody a pass on the piano and see if some simple tweaks would make it more impactful. I also test for notes that may not sit right or be hard to sing in key for a middling vocalist like myself.

 

I have stolen snippest from other songs, though I can't say it was in a terribly creative way. It was always in a song with similar features that I tossed stuff in as a "tip of the cap" to the original piece.

[Lee Knight]

1, 2 , 3 for me. But first 2. I dream up a melody in my head. If it flies, I begin refining it against the chord progression... or visa versa. Meaning the chords might get tweaked against the melody. Hand in hand.

 

I think the idea of "fave phrases" is a little too limiting though. I think in terms of favorites, but not limited to a strict melody that might go in the fave file. More like a melody concept.

 

I love analyzing music. Then when I write I tend to pull out the things I've assimilated without thinking directly about it. I feed my brain. Then I freestyle...

 

yo.

 

I tend to pivot between purging freely and analyzing/editing. Back and forth. Left brain right brain. Like polishing but not too smooth. Always a rough and raw idea getting rubbed. Refined yet raw.

[rhino55]

2 until it works. Subconsciously, I'm sure some of 1 is involved

[JonChorba]

 

2 until it works. Subconsciously, I'm sure some of 1 is involved

 

 

+1 Same here..

[LCK]

Like a lot of people, I do it all sorts of ways. I might have a title, and sit down with the guitar and noodle around with some chords that fit the mood of what I think the lyric will eventually become. Sometimes I write the entire melody and lyric in my head before sitting down with the guitar. (This is a great way to pass the time on the bus or subway.)

 

Sometimes I write out an entire lyric, then work on the tune afterward. This is always the hardest way for me to write music, and yet I still do it because sometimes it works out really well.

 

I also store up both musical and lyrical ideas that didn't fit a particular song I'd written or half-written. Sometimes I cannabalize unfinished songs -- meaning I "borrow" a favorite lyrical phrase for a song that never seemed to work -- and use them in an entirely new song.

 

LCK

[Matximus]

 

how far would you go to "craft" a good song? Would analyzing hit songs and figuring out the little melodies that make them great and reusing those melodies be part of the craft, or would it be calculated and thus less "artistic?" More importantly, could listeners tell the difference?

 

 

Using somebody else's structure & basic Ideas to make a song ... is the basic description of songwriting as far as I'm concerned. If you keep the melody - maybe even the chorus or some other lyrical hook - but change the musical thrust and lyrical sentiment: it's a new song. Period. Rappers know this. Bob Dylan knows this. Sam Cooke knew this. Weird Al knew this. A lot of people don't.

 

Bob Dylan is Weird Al: They both made careers on writing new words over other people's songs. Only difference is Bob's were old and obscure. But everybody thinks Bob is a genius - and he is. But the genius was in not getting pegged as Weird Al but the father of modern music or whatever BS.

[richardmac]

Yeah, well, there are only 12 tones, as they say, and any combination of notes you can dream up (that sound good) has already been done before many many times. How do we come up with melodies out of our heads? I think we subconsciously and consciously remember phrases that stick with us for whatever reason, and when we try to make up a melody we subconsciously pull from this collection. But to me there's a difference between doing it subconsciously and mapping it all out. And I am wondering if the big name songwriters like Diane Warren... I wonder which way she writes. And I wonder if it even makes a difference. That's sort of what I was getting at.

 

To get to your point, max, if I dug up some old song from the 1950's that no one would remember and stole the chorus melody outright, would that be different than just making up a chorus melody based on me pulling semi-randomly from my old subconscious, which is based on other people's melodies? Yes, to me, that's different. I don't have any interest in literally stealing someone's melody. But the line is hazy, because I might steal a few notes from it. So if you steal the whole melody, you're lazy, but if you steal 4 or 5 notes from it, that's OK, apparently. So I wonder where the exact line is?

 

It's an interesting topic, to me at least...

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

We all have our "melodic phrases" that we like... a certain string of notes that form a melody that appeals to us. We all have probably a great many phrases we like to hear, and maybe we like to use.

 

No. that's not the phenomenon in which original music gets created.

 

One can play 2 by the power of 88 different melodic successions on a piano alone, rhythmical variations and possibilities not included, only what tone can follow what tone.

 

 

 

So here is the question. When you are writing a vocal melody, so you:

 

1. Consciously pull up some of your fave phrases and use them

2. Sing the first thing that comes into your head and see how it fits

3. Calculate the method based on the chord changes you wrote

 

1. There are no favorit melodies for inventive songwriters..

2. Why not.

3. Doesn't work out for Rock/Pop. However some songs are more complex, then knowledge comes in handy, but for a songwriter of Steely Dan, this is just common second nature.

 

 

 

I'll improvise a melody that tries to capture the feeling of the lyric, and if I don't like it, I'll improvise another, and I'll repeat until I get one I like .

 

This is the trial and error method. Usually great songs a composed by people who hear the melody first in their mind, and then sing this melody.

 

Rock/Pop is a naive art form, and often the greatest songs are very simple.

 

 

 

If I were to sit down over the course of a few days or weeks and catalog all of my fave little musical phrases, and then purposefully try to use them in my songs, would that be "cheating?"

 

Write a whole album +50 minutes in two weeks, and all must fit the planned production and musical concept.

 

Tinkering around music is not cheating.

 

 

 

Further, if I were to listen to some of my all time favorite songs and pull out the little phrases I like from them, catalog them, and then make a conscious effort to use those phrases in my music, would THAT be cheating?

 

What is recognizable that you lent depends in what context you "import" "stolen" melodies, harmonic context, pattern etc..

 

 

 

People talk about the "craft" of songwriting... how far would you go to "craft" a good song?

 

e.g. until the record company accepts the master.

 

 

 

Would analyzing hit songs and figuring out the little melodies that make them great and reusing those melodies be part of the craft, or would it be calculated and thus less "artistic?" More importantly, could listeners tell the difference?

 

Making a thru out complete analysis, yes, however songwriter are seldom capable to analyze a song in that way.

 

Singing other people's song, yes. Copying not.

 

Pop/Rock songs happen in a small garden, melodic similarities are often there. But the uniqueness of a song is not only the melody.

 

More important is the timbre of the singer, that's what makes an artist unique.

[Matximus]

 

To get to your point, max, if I dug up some old song from the 1950's that no one would remember and stole the chorus melody outright, would that be different than just making up a chorus melody based on me pulling semi-randomly from my old subconscious, which is based on other people's melodies? Yes, to me, that's different. I don't have any interest in literally stealing someone's melody. But the line is hazy, because I might steal a few notes from it. So if you steal the whole melody, you're lazy, but if you steal 4 or 5 notes from it, that's OK, apparently. So I wonder where the exact line is? It's an interesting topic, to me at least...

 

 

I don't think there is a line - the point I find interesting is taking an old Melody and adding new words to it... is how a lot of what we've come to accept as "great" songs were written. Like I was pointing out - Bob Dylan is the most famous for doing this: Blowing in the Wind is his version of a folk song called No More Auction Block. Girl From North Country is actually Scarborough Fair, before Simon & Garfunkel one-upped him and simply cashed in on the original. There are tons and tons of examples of this - and it's not an unintentional borrowing. Did Bob cross that line? He {censored}ing ignored it - and made a great, new original song that was its own thing.

 

This idea that there's even a line to be crossed... is kind of a silly and newish concept, as far as I can tell.

 

And I actually spend a lot of time digging up old songs from the 40s and 50s and learning them so I can use their melodies and chord structures - there's a lot of great, great stuff that most people have forgotten. The {censored} is way better than anything I could ever come up with. Right now I'm trying to do something with the frame of Big Maybelle's "Oh Lord What Are You Doing To Me" Unbelievable song. I'm speeding it up quite a bit, playing it in the kind of grungey, choppy-sensibility I grew up with. Trying to figure out a fresh set of of engaging words to lay over it.

 

I'm down with the Bob Dylan philosophy - brushing up and putting a new lyrical and musical spin on a song that was made before you were born... That makes a new, valid thing. I mean - he took an old slave song and changed the words... all of a sudden it was cool to sing about serious {censored} in pop songs. A couple of guys in the Bronx - they began having block parties where they'd do reggea calls while spinning and slowing down Disco records. They didn't make that disco {censored} - didn't even play it themselves. But they invented rap. How's any of that any different than what Bob Did? He used a guitar & harmonica. They used turntables - both used somebody else's music they tweaked a bit. Both relied on their own words. Rehashing old R&B's songs is the same {censored} to me.

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

Taking the melody of an older song and making new lyrics to it is of course illegal when you release the song,

 

except you register the song under the name of the original composer.

[richardmac]

 

Girl From North Country is actually Scarborough Fair, before Simon & Garfunkel one-upped him and simply cashed in on the original.

 

 

Huh. I just listened to a minute long sample of each and the vocal melodies are not alike at all, so I have no idea what you're talking about.

[blue2blue]

 

Huh. I just listened to a minute long sample of each and the vocal melodies are not alike at all, so I have no idea what you're talking about.

Huh, indeed. I'm not one to usually get hung up on similar melodies, but the melodies have always struck me as quite similar, with Dylan using some of the lyric from the earlier song. Of course, Dylan has borrowed from old folk songs a number of times, as have many folk musicians across the years. (One of my very favorite Dylan songs is one such borrowing: his "Bob Dylan's Dream" is based on "Lady Franklin's Lament." (http://www.justanothertune.com/html/ladyfranklin.html)

 

Here's Martin Carthy's version (Carthy was the guy who taught it to both Dylan and Simon and who, in turn, learned it from a songbook by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger* but, of course, the song is centuries old)...

 

[video=youtube;aHHrHlRxbqY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHHrHlRxbqY

 

[video=youtube;Y7zm8KFyJHA]

 

Maybe you heard part of the somewhat different version he did with Johnny Cash -- which, in places, almost sounds like a mash-up of the song with Dylan's "Lay, Lady Lay."

 

[video=youtube;2aSLMEKl8E4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aSLMEKl8E4

 

 

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarborough_Fair

[richardmac]

We have to be talking about two different things. I'm talking strictly about the vocal melodies, and I don't see where these are the same or even close. If you transpose them both to C to make things easy, here's a quick summary of the notes:

 

Scarborough Fair

C C C G G G D Eb D C

G Bb C Bb G A F G

C C C Eb F G F Eb D Bb

C C G F Eb D C Bb C

 

Girl from the North Country

C C E E E C G F E C

C C E E G G G E F E E

C C C C E F F E C

C E G E F F E C

 

They're nothing alike. I'm not talking about lyrical content, guitar parts, or chord progressions, I'm strictly talking vocal melody. Do they get similar later in the song?

[blue2blue]

Well, I just listened again. They sound fairly similar in the way sections of the melody flow to me. I'm not saying that they're identical, by any means. But, for sure, I noticed the melodic similarities as soon as I bought Freewheelin' in the late 60s. Ditto "Bob Dylan's Dream" and "Lady Franklin's Lament" (aka "Lord Franklin"), which I heard through Pentangle the first time.

 

 

Of course, Dylan doesn't really do "Girl from the North Country" the same way twice, for the most part. Here's a page that attempts to document some of the ways he did it: http://dylanchords.info/02_freewheelin/girl_from_the_north_country.htm

 

Here's an essay on "Girl" that explores the song's early history: http://hummingadifferenttune.blogspot.com/2009/09/bob-dylan-girl-from-north-country-1963.html

 

In it, the essayist concludes:

 

The melodies of

[Lee Knight]

Same melody rhythm. Different melody pitches. And of course some same lyrics.

[Matximus]

Nevermind..

[Matximus]

 

We have to be talking about two different things. I'm talking strictly about the vocal melodies, and I don't see where these are the same or even close. If you transpose them both to C to make things easy, here's a quick summary of the notes: They're nothing alike. I'm not talking about lyrical content, guitar parts, or chord progressions, I'm strictly talking vocal melody. Do they get similar later in the song?

 

 

I see - you make a good case that hte melodies are different. Or different enough. But I don't make the distinction. Take the same chords and change the melody. Keep the melody and change the chords.... Keep the melody and change the lyrics...I mean... to me that's all the the same thing as saying take one part of the song and change the other part of the song. Keep the other part of the song and change that part of the song. When's it a different song...

 

Well, what Dylan did with North Country was keep the chords and a lot of the lyrical hooks and tweak the melody. But it's an entirely different song that people can't recognize - despite how close it is to another very famous song.

 

Now, if you think a song isn't the same song if it's melody is different... I have to ask you? Have you ever been to a Bob Dylan concert? He pretty much changes the melodies of a song every time he sings it... because his idea of music - famously - is that a song is a fluid thing that only exists at the time you are performing it. It's the same way Jazz people - I believe- think of music. It comes out of the folk tradition. Even when he sings a different melody to North Country, you can tell that, hey! He's singing his famous North Country!

 

Lots of artists mindful of their roots do this. Take Led Zeppelin's {censored}ing sizzling live version of Black Dog here...

 

 

 

WTF! Robert Plant totally sings the melody different than I remember on the record!!! No {censored}. Because he's feeling it! And that is Black Dog, no doubt.

 

When does a song become a different song? You can get bogged down in the mechanics of the thing - change this note; this chord; this melodic lilt! But I believe it's not really about that {censored}. It's bigger than that.

 

Whether it's a different song - to me - mostly comes down to three things: The words; The delivery; and the intent of the person performing it.

 

If you alter all three of those ingredients but keep most of the other {censored} - it's a totally different song. That's why Eat It By Weird Al is a whole other song than Beat it By Michael Jackson. Although what he did - to me - is just the same {censored} as what Bob Dylan did.

 

And I think understanding the the intent of a song is one of the most overlooked ingredients in making and appreciating music. It's the reason a lot of people hate music they're unfamiliar with - they don't try and figure out who and what it was made for. They judge it by comparing it to the music made for them by people they relate to. And that's the stupidest way to listen to music.

 

And you can't overstate how changing the intent & delivery can change a song, and maybe even make it a new song. My favorite examples of this are when you look at how brilliant ARtists reinterpret another brilliant artist's brilliant song... and make a whole new brilliant song out of the same song.

 

I'm talking like Wonderwall by Oasis and Wonderwall by Ryan Adams; Noel's is for chanting along with in a stadium. Ryan's is for sitting alone and thinking in the dark... It's the same song... but they're almost two different songs.

 

Bob Dylan's All Along the Watch Tower and Jimi Hendrix's Watch Tower... Jimi Went the other way - took a nicish folkie song and made it into a blistering Stadium-Shaker.

 

The Fugee's Killing Me Softly; Took a 70s Ballad and made a kicking Club Song....that totally works. I love that {censored}.

 

Change the context of who and where those songs were intended to be enjoyed... and the songs don't work any more. Play the original Killing Me Softly in the club or whatever... People will run screaming. Ryan Adam's take of Wonderwall would get him clubbed by a stadium full of English Football bruisers....

 

And the point of all this is: I feel totally comfortable taking an old old song and keeping most or all of its key ingredients and changing the others. That's one of the ways I come up with melodies and songs in general. Not all of them. But a lot of them.

 

And since I can't sing anywhere near as good as Big Maybelle and my whole life experience and understanding of music iand delivery is differentt than hers... My version of her song is a whole other song. Am I ripping her off? Yeah, sure. Does it matter? {censored} no.

 

Relying only on your "subconscious" to craft melodies & songs from earlier influences... just strikes me as silly. It's like relying on your visual memory of the living room to make it to the bathroom at night in the dark... Why not just flip the damn light switch on? I mean, that's how you get to where your trying to get to best.

[richardmac]

 

And the point of all this is: I feel totally comfortable taking an old old song and keeping most or all of its key ingredients and changing the others. That's one of the ways I come up with melodies and songs in general. Not all of them. But a lot of them. And since I can't sing anywhere near as good as Big Maybelle and my whole life experience and understanding of music iand delivery is differentt than hers... My version of her song is a whole other song. Am I ripping her off? Yeah, sure. Does it matter? {censored} no. Relying only on your "subconscious" to craft melodies & songs from earlier influences... just strikes me as silly. It's like relying on your visual memory of the living room to make it to the bathroom at night in the dark... Why not just flip the damn light switch on? I mean, that's how you get to where your trying to get to best.

 

 

I understand what you're saying. But what seems silly to you is not silly to other folks. For one thing, it's faster to improvise. I wrote a chorus to a song last night by just improvising the melody over some chords on the piano. If you give me a chord progression and some lyrics, I can improvise a ton of different melodies on the spot, try them all out, discard the ones I don't like and find one that I do. Poof, it's a song. I think lots of people come up with melodies that way. I can do the same thing with chord progressions but it's harder to make something that sounds a bit more original. What I really struggle with is lyrics. I can't improvise those - I have to really, really work at them. That's just practice... if I wrote lyrics every day then I'm sure I'd get faster at it. My problem is that my internal censor won't shut the hell up and if I start on an idea that is so-so I'll toss it out before I've really had a chance to give it a solid try.

[Fenezz]

 

We all have our "melodic phrases" that we like... a certain string of notes that form a melody that appeals to us. We all have probably a great many phrases we like to hear, and maybe we like to use. So here is the question. When you are writing a vocal melody, so you: 1. Consciously pull up some of your fave phrases and use them 2. Sing the first thing that comes into your head and see how it fits 3. Calculate the method based on the chord changes you wrote Here's what I'm getting at. I tend to write using method 2... I'll improvise a melody that tries to capture the feeling of the lyric, and if I don't like it, I'll improvise another, and I'll repeat until I get one I like. But most of the time I'll end up inadvertently tossing in one of my favorite little musical phrases. Could be as short as three notes together, or could be longer. If I were to sit down over the course of a few days or weeks and catalog all of my fave little musical phrases, and then purposefully try to use them in my songs, would that be "cheating?" Further, if I were to listen to some of my all time favorite songs and pull out the little phrases I like from them, catalog them, and then make a conscious effort to use those phrases in my music, would THAT be cheating? People talk about the "craft" of songwriting... how far would you go to "craft" a good song? Would analyzing hit songs and figuring out the little melodies that make them great and reusing those melodies be part of the craft, or would it be calculated and thus less "artistic?" More importantly, could listeners tell the difference?

 

 

 

I use "2" most of the time. But with that I risk subconsciously copying something I've heard.

 

In most cases I do the same with lyrics. Instead of trying to hammer in pre-written lyrics, I'll just kind of sing the melody until words start to form and then an overall concept will take shape. The topics are usually based on what's on my mind. I read the news a lot, so it's mostly taken from something I've read and stuck in the back of my mind. In order to keep it not-so-political or not-so-obvious, I just make it abstract to the point where the song could be about many things.

 

These types of songs usually begin with a guitar jam track, if a melody starts to evolve in my mind, they become a song.

 

On the other hand, the more creative stuff I've done was sort of written in my head during monotonous commutes to work. The hard part about that method is translating it to real keys and time sigs. It typically turns out quite different than what I already had in mind, but it always sounds original and they're better songs.

 

Now if I could only find a way to record things while I'm taking a shower! Those have it all,, a nice groove, hooks,, lyrics, everything. But for some reason, I can't get those songs out of the shower stall, lol. The next day I'll remember them while taking a shower, but I can't remember them long enough to get them out of there.

 

Waterproof recording equipment: possibly a million dollar idea? Or am I the only one it would benefit? :-D

 

As for calculating/analyzing hit songs, when doing a pop'ish kind of thing, I just try to incorporate basic concepts without copying anything. Repetitive loopy sounding things that build up (kind of like a clock with a fancy tick,, then gradually adding accents with other instruments), then a short, sweet and cool bridge to chorus,, then a catchy chorus.

[blue2blue]

I understand what you're saying. But what seems silly to you is not silly to other folks. For one thing, it's faster to improvise. I wrote a chorus to a song last night by just improvising the melody over some chords on the piano. If you give me a chord progression and some lyrics, I can improvise a ton of different melodies on the spot, try them all out, discard the ones I don't like and find one that I do. Poof, it's a song. I think lots of people come up with melodies that way. I can do the same thing with chord progressions but it's harder to make something that sounds a bit more original. What I really struggle with is lyrics. I can't improvise those - I have to really, really work at them. That's just practice... if I wrote lyrics every day then I'm sure I'd get faster at it. My problem is that my internal censor won't shut the hell up and if I start on an idea that is so-so I'll toss it out before I've really had a chance to give it a solid try.

I knew if I waited long enough, someone would answer for me.

 

That's pretty much smack on descriptive of how I work.

 

For chords and melody, I just, you know, play and see what happens. I have a pretty sure sense of where to go with chords to support whatever melody I feel like singing... seemed like I was always the guy at jams who everyone looked to to lay down some changes. (And it would have been nice if my pals had been able to deal with two sets of changes for a little verse/chorus type jam action but that was like pulling teeth with those guys. God love 'em.) I can pretty much just make up chords and melodies as I go along.

 

That said, I ain't no McCartney or Porter when it comes to deathless melodies.

 

Also, like Richard, I generally can't improvise words worth a darn. When inspiration strikes, it strikes hard and sometimes most of a whole song will flow out (and that feels great)... but not generally fast enough that I could just play...

 

Other times, it's just a spark or two of inspiration followed by an ocean of perspiration trying fill things out. (The ones that flow are almost always strike me as the best. Perhaps not surprisingly.)

 

One of my old jamming buddies (see above) has often been able to improvise elaborate lyrics on the fly -- and sometimes they're really funny and sometimes quite moving -- but over the years he seemed to convince himself that he can't write any of it down. As soon as you put a pen in his hands, he freezes up. We thought a 4 tracker would help him but he freezes up when he sees the red button, for the most part. You can sneak up on him and record him, but then he wants to refine it and... you guessed it... the temp drops to absolute zero. But put a groove under him and a cheap mic in his hand plugged into a Fender guitar amp with the spring 'verb turned up to Dick Dale and let him go and the genius flows... Artists are a funny lot.

[Picker]

I'm running into this alot, where I'll write something and think "That sounds to much like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or whatever. I personally am not a fan of sampling or reusing other people's music ala Vanilla Ice's "Ice ice baby" where the entire melody is lifted and just the words are replaced. In the old days, people readily stole entire songs from other people with no recognition at all (see Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog").

 

Some interesing stories from the past.

 

In 1969 George Harrison wrote "My Sweet Lord" and was later sued successfully and found to have "Subconciously copied" the Chifons "He's so fine". Basically, Harrison said he did not intentionally copy it, but may have accidentally done it subconciously and reached a settlement.

 

Another interesting case is what happend to John Fogerty. Notoriously, Fogarty was sued by his form record label for singing his own songs and not paying royalties to the company to whom he had sold the rights. Fogarty lost that case and stopped singing his songs on stage for several years after that. Later, he recorded "The Old Man Down the Road" and was sued again for sounding too much like "Run through the Jungle". Fogarty won this case after playing both songs in court and explaining how they were different songs.

 

At any rate, I make an effort to try to avoid plagerizing words or music as much as possible. It's diffecult to do since everything sounds like something, but I still make the effort.

 

On a side note, I have a sort of musical generator method that I sometimes use for fun...

 

1. take out a piece of paper and write out the alphabet. Below that write it again with just letters A-G so you will have this.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C E D

 

2. Take a word or a phase and pick out the corresponding note beneath the letter. So for example "PICKER" would be BBCDED

 

3. Use these notes as the melody and work out chords, phrasing, etc that fit the notes.

 

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