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?
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?
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
Copyright bullshit has made artists paranoid.
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?
Don’t worry about it. There are only so many progressions. Everything else is just variations within them, with bass lines, melodies and rhythms.
It is a problem for other people too, but I would argue it’s a very small insignificant one. Unless you’re ripping off an entire song and it’s not parody, you’re fine.
You don’t lol. There have been instances in the past when pro musicians did this
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.
You don’t. It happens. There are only so many notes. As Picasso said, “good artists borrow, great artists steal”
You can’t, so you must assume that whatever you create has already been created and if people notice it’s a sign you did well to emulate the source material.
