Influences

[Folder]

Good breakdown of the songs, Lee. Unfortunately, these cases are decided by juries of lay-people who likely know next-to-nothing about music. Not really of "jury of your peers". It seems. Maybe even one actual musician on the jury would have made a difference.

 

 

Thicke testified:

 

“Pharrell and I were in the studio and I told him that one of my favorite songs of all time was Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got to Give It Up.’ I was like, ‘Damn, we should make something like that, something with that groove.’ Then he started playing a little something and we literally wrote the song in about a half hour and recorded it.”

 

 

For somebody that knows absolutely nothing about music this could have sounded like an admission of guilt.

[Folder]

About ten years ago I went though some old tapes that I had recorded when I was a kid and I hadn't heard them in over twenty years. There was one song that when I heard it I immediately thought of a another song that I'm pretty sure was probably where I got the inspiration for it from. It's possible that I was aware of it when I wrote the song, I don't remember but maybe I wasn't aware of it and it just took me twenty years to figure it out.

 

This was recorded in a basement in 1983 with two Radio Shack microphones:

 

 

I think I probably nabbed it from this:

 

[video=youtube;e-qpGKi2Bsc]

[Jessie Laine Powell Jazz]

There is really nothing new under the sun. There are segments all most songs that you can compare with others you hear. Everyone is influenced by some one. How on the other hand if you purposely aim take some ones song and steal it that is another thing all together. When going to my piano to create a song, it is my desire to create something new and fresh. Usually while writing the song I can tell if it reminds me of anything I've hear that has already been done. I don't like songs that sound the same. I like different.

[Jessie Laine Powell Jazz]

wow!

[Jessie Laine Powell Jazz]

I am in total agreement with you!

[onelife]

"Junior's Farm" meets "Paperback Writer" - the first line of one followed by the second line of the other is used for the verse in this one...

 

[video=youtube;LAzPX37YuLc]

[Bucksstudent]

Yep. I've stolen "ideas" from Robert Fripp as a guitarist, but never plagiarized anything. The difference is that it's considered an influence rather than theft because I'm not representing any of his intellectual property as my own, but much of my experimental ideas and guitar/amp combinations came from studying Fripp. Rivers Cuomo has a notebook of Kurt Cobain's lyrics that he studies religiously, and while he takes ideas from Cobain's structure, diction, and language, I can't name a Weezer song that is a Nirvana knock-off.

 

It's interesting that Ronson (not Bruno Mars) and Pharrell Williams come from a heavy hip-hop background where sampling has been very controversial. One would think they understood the boundaries, but apparently there are some blurred lines... (I'm so hilarious). Honestly, I find modern Pop music that is derivative like Mars and Williams to be incredibly boring. I'd rather listen to their influences, or even Ellie Goulding, Kesha, or Lady Gaga.

[onelife]

I've discovered that I can't write original songs because I eventually discover all the bits are pinched from something else. If, however, I quote Jeff Beck or Robben Ford in the middle of a guitar solo it works - sometimes it can even add a bit of humour to the music.

 

On one occasion I was playing an old rock and roll song in G and I had the first measure of the solo to myself. For some reason I decided to shove the opening guitar riff from "Burn" into that measure and was approached later, during an intermission, by someone asking me what Deep Purple song I played.

 

 

[philboking]

As it turns out, I have found (to my dismay) that one of my songs, in it's verses, has exactly the same chords as the old country song 'Abilene'. The melody, tempo and rhythm is quite a bit different, so I didn't notice it for several years. And the chorus, at least, is (I hope) original...

 

Judge for yourself, if you like:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page...ongID=12002550

[philboking]

These days much of pop music (to my ears andyway) has little in the way melodic and harmonic invention. What's left seems to be the groove and the lyrics.There's plenty of invention lyrically. I'm wondering if someone copied the instrumental backing from "Like A Rolling Stone" and did some sort of new lyric recitation over it, Dylan could win a plagiarism lawsuit.

 

Igor Stravinsky has been quoted as saying "good composers borrow, great composers steal".

 

I've often wondered who came up with the "boogie riff" that was popularized I beleive by Canned Heat.

 

[video=youtube;j7EPIYlyUIM]

 

I'd say that would be John Lee Hooker.

[WRGKMC]

You cant just limit your influences to music. Everything in life we experience becomes part of our human nature from birth and even before birth some say. Family influences are the earliest, and later was we progress into the world and become independent, all those experiences from media, to books, to music, to people, to experiences good and bad become part of our makeup.

 

The more we experience in any one area the more diverse our feedback can become.

 

I was one of the youngest in my family. I several older family members who were into professional music and stage at a young age so it was a family thing from the time I was very young. We always had music going in the house back then. I was playing simple songs on an old pipe organ by the age of 5 and playing in a full orchestra playing violin by 8 years old. I knew many of the great masters works by ear from hearing it played all the time. I had a sister who was big into the popular folk music stuff from the 60's and another who was into the rock stuff, and I was listening to contemporary stuff on the radio by then as well.

 

You mix all of that together and add it to the rest I've learned since then and I probably couldn't tell you where or when I may have come up with something in an original song. I've had others listen to my stuff and say, well this sounds a little like this or that but I try and figure out why they think it sounds that way and often times scratch my head, because I don't hear that influence.

 

This is one example that it may not be just the writer that has influences. Its also the listener that has their recollections colored by whatever they listen to. Then you can go another step beyond that say it and maybe its the influences of the artists creating the music that person judging your music is listening to. Its almost a generational chain reaction when you see things that way. Someone may like two different songs and those two songs independently may have a different influence on their judgment then the two combined do.

 

Question is does it matter. You can attempt to find a unique spot for your own stuff between everyone else's but music overlaps so much you would wind up wasting too much time attempting to be unique instead of just being good.

 

The way I look at it, if you don't intentionally copy someone else's material, you have no guilt associated with the work. If it just happens to sound close to something else then maybe you should edit your own work or dump it and try something else. The mind can retain other peoples ideas and you may not knowingly recreate the same aural picture someone else did so there's no guilt associated, but that doesn't make it your own unique works. Its simply an echo of someone else's work.

 

You're going to have to expect that echo to occur if you're constantly listening to other artists material, especially the same stuff over and over. I'm at the point where my minds eye can be as clear as listening to a recording and I'm able to selectively play back music in my head and hear most of the details so long as the music isn't too complex. Sometimes I even have a hart time not hearing that music and have to force my concentration on to something tranquil to give my subconscious a rest. This is especially annoying after I've heard or played music live the night before. I may go half a day with that same song echoed over and over in my mind non stop.

 

 

I have found the best way of breaking that echo loop is to either use mental imagery of something tranquil or by listening to other music types that are very different from what you're used to and have no desire to duplicate writing your own music, It will help dilute your normal creativity flow enough to not be mimicking other artists material so closely.