Have you ever . . . .

  • Thread starter Thread starter nate_dennis
  • Start date Start date
nate_dennis

nate_dennis

Well-known member
Have you ever been mucking around with your instrument of choice, had a beautiful (or brutal) riff, or progression, or whatever going, started to work out a melody and realized "I know this song from somewhere.....FUCK!!!"????

I was messing with my guitar today, a cool little moody fingerpick thing . . . I just started singing something that felt like it fit. I started thinking "I know I'm stealing this from somewhere, but where?" I realized that I was basically singing different words to Death Cab for Cutie's "Army Corps of Architects." Bummer, no wonder I liked it so much.

Am I the only one?
 
nate_dennis said:
Have you ever been mucking around with your instrument of choice, had a beautiful (or brutal) riff, or progression, or whatever going, started to work out a melody and realized "I know this song from somewhere.....FUCK!!!"????

I was messing with my guitar today, a cool little moody fingerpick thing . . . I just started singing something that felt like it fit. I started thinking "I know I'm stealing this from somewhere, but where?" I realized that I was basically singing different words to Death Cab for Cutie's "Army Corps of Architects." Bummer, no wonder I liked it so much.

Am I the only one?
Click to expand...

Yes! Several years ago, I had this beautiful melody in my head for a week -- just four bars. I would hum it and vocalize it in the shower. As I began to develop it further it started to sound familiar. It bothered me for two more weeks. I knew I had heard this somewhere before! -- or was it a trick of the mind?

Finally, I figured it out. "My" song was essentially the melody from "It's Like We Never Said Goodbye" from Crystal Gayle. I'm not even a fan of her music. I mean, I don't hate her or anything -- I'm just not a fan. How odd! My version was not a carbon copy, but it was close enough that I knew where the idea must have originated from. Was I bummed! :-)

Anyway, my undeveloped version was better and had a full orchestra (in my mind). Heh.

Cheers,
Joseph
 
every musician does that. there have been TONS of songs written since the biginning of time, and ALOT of the possible chord progressions, riffs, harmonies, meledoies and beats have been used and reused time and time again. you listen to songs and they get stuck in the back of your head and when you pick a guitar, you just end up playing them. its happened to me 10000 times. id recomend tweaking it and making it your own if you like the sound. a musician creates music, but the best artists steal music. haha, idk, thats what id do. take what you have and tweak it to make it your own.
 
Yep . . . heaps of times.

I once spent ages perfecting a track . . . only to realise later that it was so close to Dire Straits Sultan of Swing it was almost a clone.
 
Record it anyway. It'll help you develop your own style and you can learn from it.
 
Happens to me all the time. I either try to tweak it a little to make it more my own......or.....sometime I just go with it (I figure what are the odds that my new "original" tune will get enough public exposure for a copyright lawsuit).

Given that there are a limited amount of notes and a limited anount of chords.......the odds are high that whatever "original" material we compose likely sounds like something that someone else composed at some time.
 
Well I'm glad I'm not the only one!!! I think it's funny when stuff like that happens. I've done it before, just not as blatantly. Anyway, all's well that ends well....or something.
 
Just now I was listening to Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap.

Now, in my head it has morphed into Good Night, the last song on the White album.

I wouldn't worry about your song sounding familiar because a new kid buys their first song every day. That's what keeps the record companies in business. If your song is a hit and someone calls plagiarism, well I'll just say I wish I had that problem
 
with all the billions and billions and trillions and of recordings there are and were in the world some (alot) are bound to be similar.

unless your making something really wacky and weird and crazy sounding which is probably going to sound bad or is similar to something else crazy and probably bad.

i say fuck it. inspiration has to start somewhere.
 
nate_dennis said:
Have you ever been mucking around with your instrument of choice, had a beautiful (or brutal) riff, or progression, or whatever going, started to work out a melody and realized "I know this song from somewhere.....FUCK!!!"????

I was messing with my guitar today, a cool little moody fingerpick thing . . . I just started singing something that felt like it fit. I started thinking "I know I'm stealing this from somewhere, but where?" I realized that I was basically singing different words to Death Cab for Cutie's "Army Corps of Architects." Bummer, no wonder I liked it so much.

Am I the only one?
Click to expand...

This will make you feel better - it is amazing
http://www.snotr.com/video/3093
 
...

There was a lady on the internet, shes a famous "how to" of songwriting.

a couple years ago, on her site, she reccomended the "ghost song" approach to making a song. You basically re-write the lyrics, rip off the chord prog (no laws broken there, lol) and then set about making a new main melody line.

It was supposed to be a way to get started quickly writing your own songs, until you could do it yourself later on.

I noticed she doesnt have that on her website anymore, LMAO




John "mutt" Lange, mr big time producer... was doing one of Huey Lewis and The News albums for them... someone on the internet pointed out that he had just re-written the lyrics for an old ELO song (portion of mr blue sky...) and kept the whole beat and flavor of it!

you'd never notice (I owned both cassettes and never noticed!) but once the guy pointed it out, it was as plain as the nose on your face.

its not illegal, its a useful tool kind of like "training wheels" to get you started songwriting, and hey, famous legendary producers STILL do it in plain sight, and hope no one notices till a decade or two later, LMAO

when I did it, I copuld PLAINLY hea the original song under my new lyrics and melody... my friends could hear "something familiar" about it, but it took them some time to put their finger on it. I had to TELL them it was a ghost song, then kind of "emphasize" the lyrics properly before they "got it".

up till then, they just thought it was a half decent effort, and it was familiar sounding. A decently written original song, WILL sound as if someone famous did it, and you search your mind for "who... who... who..." but cant come up with anything.

PS - if you ever get famous using ghost song approach, you owe me a week palling around backstage hobnobbing with famous people, or I will bust you for ghosting it, LMAO
 
...

another thngy I used to do when first getting started writing music, was this...

I would hum and sing the words to a famous heavy metal song I liked from youth... I would then use Pent Minor scale, and try to "best fit" using C Min Pentatonic's 5 notes... this produced the basic melody

I then had to find my key, by pasting up and down. Once I found the key of the original song, I moved the key around until it sounded "just as good again", but in a drasticaly different key.

then I proceeded to write the rest of the music muself around that guitar line.



I have played the beginning trax thusly made for people, and no one thuoght anythign was amiss... until I made the computer play JUST the guitar line, and softly hummed the original words.

Bruce Dickinson would prolly go "hey! who the hell found my old vocal lead sheet for that, and is playing power chords off of it!!!", LMAO

(wink)

go on, its an effective "training wheels" approach. It also seems to help training the ears somehow.

plus, famous producers rip off mercilessly, so... "have at it"



actually, i havent done this in a few years. When I am done with my current project, i will have to take a break and do a song like this for fun, LMAO, i always enjoyed it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top