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”
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”
Stop…
collaborate and listen?
Ice is back with a brand new invention?
Hammer time?
Stop.
In the name of love?
deleted by creator
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.
Run it through shazam (or a foss alternative if there is one) and check?
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.
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?
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.
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
Copyright bullshit has made artists paranoid.
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.
Reminder Deadmau5 has accidentally remade Sandstorm multiple times.
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.