BWAHAHAHAH!!! Collab', bro? We can combine some of your crap with some of my rubbish, and VOILA! Or, we could just record 78 minutes of straight white noise ... no, wait, I think I've heard that Peter Gabriel (or somebody) has already done that. Whooops! I'm a serial plagiarizer . . . save yourself! Shun me!
I made an reply saying the same thing - Easier to be original when you write bad music - Have I just committed a copyright infringement by reproducing your comment ?!? Madness.
I would also say that a large part of it is what Guy called Convergent Evolution. If it “sounds good” to you, it sounds good to me. So it sounded good to somebody else awhile ago.
@@dbmusicproductions9181 I think one of the ways to write something completely original is to set up rules when writing like the 12 tone row is a good one, of course I'm saying this if you want something completely original, not everytime set a rule when writing.
@@davetbassbos yeah I think so, alot of times when writing something I know where I got this musical phrase from, and its usually 3 notes but I don't think about it very much, because it's just 3 notes the important thing is what I do to make them sound unique to me to my sound
I like to do this in the reverse order, where I intentionally copy something and keep changing it until it's transformed into a completely new thing. My best source of inspiration is mis-remembered melodies, where I go back and realize I didn't remember a tune right, and the one in my head is something I can (mostly) claim.
This is exactly what Ian Anderson said happened with his ‘Bouree’ song on the early Jethro Tull album ‘Stand Up’. I think it was from Bach, but he said he only got it right here and there, sort of thing.
Listen to different genre of music, get a wider array of influences, practice techniques, and write what you enjoy. At the end of the day you need to be able to enjoy what you've written. No-one will ever be able to be 100% original.
This. Sometimes I worry so much about trying not to sound like someone rather than making what’s familiar and being creative within that space. You’ll end up sounding different the more you take that approach anyways
Some melodies I have written just so happen to be concurrent with something I've never heard before, regardless of genre. I.E. a tune whose main melody somehow matched up with Primadonna by Marina And The Diamonds. But all that gave me was a new song to listen to. I also sometimes intentionally borrow a few phrases here and there but I will readily admit that "Yes that's part of the Inspector Gadget theme and I'm not ashamed."
True. But sometimes you just hear something, it reminds you of something you liked before and it gets annoying that it doesn't continue the way you know it. I've heard tons of tunes like that.. and it's really unfortunate, because it could be a great piece of music but I can't stop relating it to something else (I might be similar to that Brad guy in the video). For example, check out the choruses of the two songs - "Gotthard - Heaven" and "Savage Garden - Truly Madly Deeply".. well that's a total rip-off imo, but it gets the point across.
@@nkirov I think you have to ask what your point is in referencing something. Are you referencing or "ripping off" something just because you like it? Or are you elaborating on the artist's original idea and saying something new and original with what you create? That is what, I think, Godard meant by this.
Just listen to Gustav Holst's' The Planets and you'll find almost every movie theme ever used in there. It's out of copyright for some time so just pick and choose. Even if your tune is not an exact copy then it will be close enough to win every copyright fight.
Just listen to "The Dune Sea of Tatooine" by J. Williams and then listen to "The Rite of Spring / The Sacrifice - Introduction" by Stravinsky. Like Guy said "We all walk on giant shoulders" even the great J. Williams himself...
Dear Mr. Michelmore, I just absolutely adore the New Adventures of Lassie. It is such an amazing series that always kept me longing for more episodes. I really love the style of season one, it is absolutely perfect and I love it so much. I love the character development of Zoe and Harvey, and how Lassie always, no matter what, comes to the rescue. You did such an amazing job on this series. However, a new composer came. Season 2 of the New Adventures of Lassie! I was just so excited to see Lassie’s adventures continue! I loved season one just so much, it was my favourite thing in the world. So I excitedly watched the first episode of season 2. Then I notice - it’s a different story and animating style. The characters are not hand-drawn anymore - my favourite art style has gone! I would really love it much more if they just continued season 1. It could be just the adventures continuing, and maybe at the end, there is a massive, final adventure that pushes Lassie’s abilities to the limit. Thank you so much for reading this, Elyse
I would recommend to do this: 1. Make longer tracks with intro‘s, that give u space for creativity 2. use more than 4 chords in a row, like f.e. 8 ones and pimp ur melodies into complexer ones 3. before making a melody, create a story u want to tell with ur music. A message u want to share or a journey through certain pictures
It seems to me that you have to constantly imagine what kind of picture you want to create. Music is somehow magically linked to imagination. I think the problem of copyright exists among those who went to a music school in childhood. I didn’t go, I don’t have a musical education. This problem does not bother me. But I loved to read books, watched many films in childhood. Perhaps you should go to the cinema, read books, visit galleries, theaters, walk and then that "picture" that you want to portray with the help of music will pop up in your head. And it won't seem like copyright. P.S. True, many musicians in my country do not care about the copyright problem either, although their songs are explicitly copyrighted. But I believe that there is no copyright in my songs.
This issue has often made me reticent about composing music myself, so thanks for the tips! I think it's unfortunate and concerning, though, that increasingly the overzealous use of financial music copyrights is making it risky to be significantly influenced by other composers' works. As well as potentially stifling creativity, especially among composers with less power, it could also make plagiarism more rife, not less. Why? Because composers who are influenced by other composers may be more afraid to openly acknowledge their influences, out of fear that it could get them into big trouble in court, and so there may be more of a temptation to pinch ideas from other composers and then pretend that they're completely original. I think John Williams's Star Wars is an excellent example of "being influenced done well", as I can spot many similarities between Star Wars and the temp track (there are also obvious homages to Holst's "Mars, the Bringer of War" and Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" as well as Korngold's "Kings Row"), but to me, all of it has been modified and adapted sufficiently to take it in his own direction and make it his own, and of course there's plenty of other music in Star Wars that isn't obviously influenced by anything. I reckon that the combination of familiar influences and originality probably helped to make the music for Star Wars so popular and so accessible to the general public. But even morally speaking there can be a fine line with this. I find Hans Zimmer's "Gladiator" close to the line with its homages to "Mars", as while I think it's mostly done well, there is one track ("Barbarian Horde") which, to me, sounds uncomfortably close to being a copy-paste of sections of the original. So there is some need for caution, but I fear that we're heading into an era where people have to be overly cautious, at the expense of creativity and quality of music.
Nope. Watch Legal Eagle's great video on how Led Zepplin saved Katy Perry. th-cam.com/video/zgsL5yW3bao/w-d-xo.html Lawyers don't sue musicians. Musicians sue musicians.
Just about to comment on the irony if you got a copyright strike because of 13:05 and then about 30 seconds later you said exactly the same thing! Really good video, lots of food for thought!
@@FreakieFan HAHA!! Good one. The fortunate thing is I don't have to steal. All I have to do is compose something and it already sounds like somebody else even when I think I came up with the idea. Nature of the beast - so to speak. Nothing new under the sun. But now borrowing......? Well THAT is another story. Using them as a reasonable example, perhaps. Not stealing. Just being inspired by what they wrote those 100's of years ago. ;o)
@@TonyDeConcini In all seriousness, If you keep composing, and put in the hours. In a decade or two you will most certainly develop a unique, singular voice that doesn’t sound borrowed. It comes with experience and workmanlike rigor.
@@FreakieFan Totally agree. There HAS to come a time when anyone would develop their own "style" or techniques musically. I don't have that long to live but those who do need to keep the nose to the grindstone indeed!!
I've been writing music for years, to various degrees of success. Now that I've decided to try songwriting, I faced this exact problem: my verse tune sounds like something I've heard before, and it boggers me. Thank you, sir, for making this video on this exact issue.
I hope I'm not too late n that you are still alive n well. It's 2021 and today is my first time finding you I happen to have stumbled upon your TH-cam video on melodies. I wasn't on this planet for a the minutes the video played. I want to be as good as you because I feel the spirituality of every note you play. I want to heal people through my music and you are that perfect mentor. If you are still here on earth with us, know that I love you and I do hope our paths cross soon. From a big fan who lives far across the world with dreams bigger than he could his imaginations. Love you Guy!
Haha Guy! The Korngold reference was astonishing. Funny , I have that very same book given to me in 1977 by my Grandparents who also gave me a book by the same authors "A Dictionary of Vocal Themes" a year earlier. Small world. I suppose I will have to get them out and read through some.
Hello Guy! Love your videos. I am a longtime amateur composer. I wish they’d have been around 30 years ago. But still, I have learned a lot about the art. And aside from the educational aspect, you are a pleasure to watch. This video reminds me of the genesis of the Beatles’ Yesterday and how Paul dreamt the melody, and was sure it wasn’t original. He played it for everybody he knew and nobody seemed to have ever heard it before. So he claimed it for himself.
Just a brilliant Brilliant video. Music, Movies, and Entertainment are just like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and Ice Cream. Friday night, mentally tired just want eat my comfort foods ,see my comfort visuals and hear my comfort sounds. The consumers of all things are the same and we as writers want to be part of the group so a lot of the time we don't take risk because the audience we have doesn't want to eat chilly prawn ice cream with a garlic cone or expand their musically palette to the unfamiliar tones that won't allow the right dopamine to wash over them. This era has creatives unable to expand and evolve due to simple survival, familiar pays, so we're not straying too far from the corporate nipple that feeds us. Thanks Guy for another great video.
You need musical copyright (probably?) but copyright lawsuits always seem frivolous to me because of the convergent evolution thing, especially for short melodic fragments. Not to mention that a lot of commercial music asks for the diatonic sound these days.
Andrew LLoyd Webber was once asked if he plagarized anything - always being accused of it. His response was (and I paraphrase) "there are after all, only so many keys on a piano and everything you've ever heard, listened to, liked or absorbed will influence what you write". The hard part is to not consciously use something you've heard before. As hard as it is, it IS possible to be unique but somewhere along the line a melody you will write may "quote" something else.... NOT that you're trying to - it just happens because it's all part of what you've absorbed and it resides in your brain. The biggest trick is to know how to NOT do that or learn to "trick" the brain. Therein is musical uniqueness....HOWEVER NOTHING anyone writes is unique. Somewhere along the time/space continuum, there is nothing new, it's ALL been done before somewhere, somehow. I mean musical use has been around for a very loooong time. It's very hard to prevent no matter how hard one might try. Even RANDOM melody generators will eventually hit upon something that is the same as something that's already been done.....as you said. HOW to get around that? Very hard to define ever. The ONLY thing one could ever do (and this is hard for those with careers that depend upon making music) is to never make any money on your music, never publish it, keep the things you write totally free and uncopyrighted.....as IF that would ever happen when your income depends upon it right? Tough question and concept to crack if one ever even can. I LIKE the suggestion to use someone else to listen with an unbiased ear. VERY good thought. THAT's likely the only way scientifically or logically, to accomplish. BUT it's still NOT 100% and all it takes is one low life lawyer willing to make life difficult on principle alone. Sigh. What ARE ya gonna do? I recall some classical composer(s) who were accused of writing someone else's music - only BACKWARDS or UPSIDE DOWN and using it that way. That's crafty - but still plagarizing. Again what ARE we to do? STIL NEVER 100% ever ever ever!! Tough to be unique and totally apart from copying somewhere along the line.
@@0AndrewBolt0 Hey Andrew - Yes you're right. And Lloyd Webber said so in the interview I watched years ago although he wouldn't say WHAT he had "borrowed". And to reiterate, he "quoted" a phrase perhaps - didn't TOTALLY lift it from Puccini but he DID say he did snag one melody - so I guess that was it. But this stuff lives in our heads forever and even though you might put something down, thinking that it's yours completely when it strikes the right feeling in your music, it's ALL been done somewhere, sometime before. There literally IS NOTHING new. I used to amuse myself by finding familiar tunes in "other" music, constantly thinking they lifted a melody or a phrase from somewhere else. It was part amusement, part annoyance because it kept me from simply enjoying what I was hearing... not because I care they did it, but rather because I couldn't get it then, out of my head that it was totally a borrowed tune or an inadvertent musical duplication. It truly IS a tough nut to crack to find melodies or chord progressions that have NOT been done before. The trick is as I see it, to find something that is far, far less familiar or obscured or something in public domain IF you're even going to borrow - which you should not at all. But this brain doesn't work that way - it's an amalgam of everything I've EVER heard that I like. Tough, tough thing to have to work around always.
We should be allowed to copy melodies if we change lyrics and it sounds good. There’s only so many notes and lyrics you could say. But different combinations, even if one or the other element is similar, does not mean you are completely copying the other work.
3 ปีที่แล้ว +4
Sometimes using tools like Symphonic Motion from Spitfire Audio, or any other rhythmic tool with random loops with many possibilities to change the rythm, is very helpful to make different tones/melodies!
I enjoy taking the logic we use to make music by completely diverting expectations, playing something completely unexpected instead of what logically follows and it ends up taking me down an endless corridor of nebulous melodies that are ever evolving and rarely resolving and it's a grand old time
I checked your channel but no examples. I'm not doubting you at all... but you may as well post something at some point, even if it's not a professional release.
Well Guy, I appreciate you did your best to give a solution to this problem and you are relatively lucky to have a person that can check for you (actually do just his best in this, as I suppose he is not infallible) that your motif is unique (perhaps). You see, this subject is soooo important and scary enough (to the point that could take someone completely away to even consider to create music and therefore take a course in music creation) that should be the first thing to be discussed and TRULY AND RELIABLY solved. I see instead that you discussed about this for the first time ONLY on the 30 July 2021 and after MANY user requests. Said that my questions are: 1) How do we find an alternative person that can check if a motif is unique, do they have a professional title? 2) Don't you think that to seriously discuss this subject a better idea would be to arrange an interview with a copyright official and get tips and recommendations from him? 3) Is there a web service or a consultancy service that can check and clear your track against copyright strikes? 4) What happen if accidentally you infringe, do they warn you first or they sue you straight away? You see, I think it is nice to create and produce/publish music at least as much as to have a good night sleep! Looking forward for your answer and in particular for a better and more reliable solution. Thank you.
Running your music track through Google or Soundhound as you make it is a great idea. It can help save a lot of time. I know there was a lawsuit once with the Beatles I believe and the judge ultimately said "If the note progression is the same 12 notes or more, it infringes copyright." While I think protecting your copyright is important, it is also important to understand that other people might have similar ideas. Doesn't mean they're wrong for it, it just makes that creative pool more explored. Its like fishing in a pond, someone may have 3 fishing rods with 3 hooks to catch 3 fish, someone else may have 1 fishing rod with 3 hooks on 1 line, both catch 3 fish but they achieved it by different means. Additionally, it doesn't always apply but looks for ways to destroy or derange your tune in ways that are different but make sense, through the means of effects, especially ones that randomize waveform patterns. Also AVOID USING PRESETS. Presets are there for inspiration only in my opinion. If you think about it, any preset you use is infringement because someone else wrote it to be used within the program, so the idea of using that sound is already out there, and dozens of people most likely have.
Guy, I've just watched this after a day messing with the Stargirl competition clip, and guess what I've used those same three 'superhero' chords you talk about. Sounded pretty good too, now I know why 😞.
Working on Stargirl, too. Now, I know I WON'T be using those chords, then :)))) Well, I was taking a very dark and gloomy, and almost atonal approach already. Good luck!
I read this awesome book titled Steal Like An Artist. I tend to use my influences collectively to create something one of them wouldn't necessarily create.
Stephanie Meyer, who wrote Twilight, said she was influenced by Jane Austen and Shakespeare. Nice blend! Point is, I totally agree with the comment above.
I was watching a movie called everything is a remix by this man by the last name Kirby. He shows everything on how all the music is not original. I understand things now. Even all of the presets we use have been used before so nothing is unique. This is why I create with now music with any tool that helps me complete a song. All I want to do is create. It doesn't matter what I use.
Some Melodies/Chords/Ostinatos just work really well, maybe that's why they are used so much. They are maybe just the "best" option in this situation so they are copied by many without that they know or that they even hear a similar piece. For example: At 6:40 you played the theme of a rollercoaster in germany and I'm pretty sure you did not know about it🤣
Agreed. The swing is in the breath and pace. As a guitarist, it's always my strumming and picking hand that makes my music feel beautiful. As someone once said to me, it's the bit of the canvas the artist hasn't painted that gives the piece it's name, individuality, character etc.
Hey Guy, I recently just found your videos and your energy and enthusiasm rekindled the flame inside me to try songwriting and compose again :D If alright can I give a video suggestion to maybe talk about how to add chords to a melody? Or maybe how we can go about "learning" chords? Is it something that we take the time out of the day to memorize? I think I am pretty good at coming up with melodies but then it just gets stuck from there. I can hear it as a complete piece in my head but I think I just don't have the technical skill to make it out yet and it is very frustrating sometimes. That being said I appreciate you so much for making these videos and I can't believe I can watch these for free! You are such an inspiration and great teacher I thank you so much!
I was playing in a band about 5 years ago and our guitarist had a new song she wanted to play. I went upstairs to grab a beer and heard the guitar lick. I was playing bass and came back. I said “Sweet we’re playing Ramones” and she said, “I wrote this song” I’m not sure if that really sunk in because I said, “I’ll just look up the tab.” When I started jamming with the rest of the band I realized it was really her song. I think too just using chords even with the same meter should be fine although lawyers may argue. Anyway, thanks Guy.
Last night, I came up with what stood out to me as a good intro for a song on guitar (even now, pretty sure it's my own work!) ... I recorded it as a scratch track so I wouldn't forget it, then laid down some drums, bass and piano very roughly around it and after it (not even using a click track) just to get the ideas down for where I saw this going, with the intention of doing the job properly today... This morning, I sat down and realised that with the exception of the original idea, I had written a version of "November Rain" by Guns n Roses! 🙄🙁 ... I spent today trying everything to move away from it, while still keeping the original idea, and it is seriously hard work!! ... What you said about there "only being so many solutions to the problem" resonates completely with me, because the only chords that worked when following my idea took me straight back to an angry Axl Rose! Hahaha ... I got there eventually, but this video was appreciated as an insight into what the hell had happened!! Thank you. 😊
So much this! As well as "mere exposure" I'd say that "anchoring" is another cognitive bias that we suffer from which constrains our thinking and the logic that we use to write music. Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" is a great read about this (he won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in the field and it's a fascinating book!) And when it comes to convergent evolution, the thinking in 2017 was that the eye has evolved *at least* forty times!
Speaking of imitation and "Imperial Theme" -- does anyone else hear the phrase "the medicine go down" from Mary Poppins' song "A Spoonful of Sugar" everytime they hear "Imperial March"? LOL
My own experience with this was hitting on a chord progression while noodling about one day. Really liked it. Spent another day working on it only to wake up on day three with the realization that I'd essentially rewritten an existing song. One I happen to really like. It was a giggle, but also a bit frustrating. :D
This is why I love Basil Poledouris's theme from Robocop, half hero of justice half a dilapidated world in moral ruin and the cross over in the reflected human sorrow between the two. It's truly something! All with the backdrop of mechanical/artificial sounding instruments and samples reflecting the mechanical and human conflict, it's like listening to it is half the movie!
It's just fun listening to you expound on musical ideas Guy. ;) I really like your channel. Thanks. Listening to this video in the background while I'm figuring out my next live video.
One copyright "infringement" that rankles is 19 by Paul Hardcastle. Apparently it's Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield. Yes eventually you can hear it but IMO it's not enough to be plagiarism. Unfortunately Hardcastle had to concede because he didn't have the resources to fight it, so it wasn't actually tested in court and he can only grumble about it.
BTW ... Self Plagiarization can be a great thing ... (IF) ... You are a great composer, with a style that has some sort of familiar emotional involvement ... and is appreciated by "listeners"
I experience something similar but sort of the other way around. I written a simple short tune but I haven't made it into a piece of music yet. And a few weeks later I found out that my tune is exactly the same as a main theme of a series in Disney+ it's just the rythm that's different! Funny thing is, I created the the tune first and then the series came out! Crazy right?
I call that the Homer Simpson effect. Like when he thought he had invented a chair with two extra little bits of wood legs that spring out when you lean back only to find out it had been done many times before.
The more music composers listen to, the more music gets into their subconscious, and then, when composing, this music comes out. But this is quite normal, since it is 100% impossible to compose music without similarity to another.
Great video! Has me worried for my own music, but I also feel good knowing I write multiple genres. And sometimes I use ideas I'd never use, for another use. My results end up surprising me. Although if I do notice that I accidently rewrite something pre-existing, I try to change notation, chord progression, or things like adding chromaticism, or more character to support your idea. Will definitely be using these tips!
Very usefull & interesting video, thank you for talking about this subject. I clearly remember the last time it happened to me, I played my last piece of this time direct from computer to my best half, Mrs H3, and she said "yes, it's realy nice but maybe it sounds like (a particular TV show), no? " After a quick check... Yes... ☹️ And it's not a TV show I'm particularly keen of, but for sure I've heard it, inevitably. So, back to the keyboard to change things.
I'm always hear that my music sounds like Massive Attack or Tricky. But it is a compliment for me most of the time. At the same time, in my country my music is quite recognizible, and if someone making similar stuff, people saying that "it sounds like Viktor Van River". This is incredible!
I happened to discard a piece of music because I had the feeling that I had already heard it, but then I found the file and it was my composition from a few years ago :)
Actually, the Imperial March is not the "Opening Movement of Beethoven's Whatever", it's a copy of "Mars" from Gustav Holst's "The Planets". Holst died in May 1937, so feel free to use the Imperial March in whatever way you like 😉 Love, Brad.
This is a great topic to explore, and for what little it is worth, my view is that you get on and learn and create, and don’t worry about it. If you actually made a big enough splash with something, and actually made money with it, then someone might emerge from a legal angle and ask for a portion of revenue. But, if that were the case, then two things apply: a - if you’d made it not so similar, it might not have been so successful; and b - it’s almost impossible to make an IDENTICAL song/tune, unless you set out to do so. So, no worries unless it is surprisingly successful, in which case you are still winning, just not by as much. I don’t set out with it as a goal, to copy other people’s music, but of course, if some film producer approaches a person and says ‘can you do something in the style of Hans Zimmer?’ you are one small step in the direction of being similar right from the off. Hence, I suppose pop music is the classic ‘copycat’ because if a certain genre takes off, every bu&&er copies it in order to be ‘on trend’. Next they find out what the samples are the inspiring song used, match the rhythm, and BPM, and then it’s more than halfway to a major overlap of course! But, the same statement I made earlier applies: if it is successful, then the formula worked, you are still winning even with a revenue share. The other obvious issue with any attempt to cash in on your song saying it ‘sounds like’ theirs, is the litigant probably falls into the self-same trap! Just find a similar song, done earlier than their own, and you have their ‘inspiration’ exposed too, which they won’t want. Yes, so I have almost no worries!
Speaking of John Williams, if I may : - The seven first notes of "Star Wars"' main theme are exactly the same as the the ones played by the orchestra at the end of the Intermezzo in Puccini's "Manon Lescaut". - "Empire Strikes Back"'s love theme looks a lot like the main theme of the first movement in Tchaikovsky's violin concerto. - "The Terminal"'s main theme sounds very much like Thomas Newman's theme for "Fifth Ave" in "Meet Joe Black", not to mention it is played on the same instruments. And I'm pretty sure these are not the only examples in all of his music, yet I don't believe JW ever got into trouble because of these. So, what to conclude?
The problem is that you can basically get samples royalty free on splice, Acapella, and loops, whereas others use the same samples, and your song ends up with the same acapella or the same loop. There was a big debate about it because what people do is, they go get the sample from splice or other platforms, create a song, and then copyright it. It's a free sample, or a paid sample but royalty free for commercial use. That's not fair id say. so we create the song and later find out someone else has used that before
I was once playing synth for a stage musical play. Just tinkling along before the show - the pianist and I were trying to figure out this piece that was stuck in my head. We were playing a nice piece - slowly, very classical sounding.. Sounded like early Bach, Mozart perhaps. We just couldn't figure out what it was. The bass player walked by and we asked him if it sounded familiar. Guess what? Procul Harem - WHITER SHADE OF PALE. Crickey!! See what I mean?
Happens to the best of us. There is a major theme in the live action Jungle Book movie composed by John Debney (I believe the track is Elephant Waterfall-starting a little more than half way through it) that is nearly identical to whole sections of the opening theme of Star Trek: Voyager by Jerry Goldsmith. Same melody. Same chord progression. Practically the same orchestration. Now... Debney worked with Jerry Goldsmith, and even worked on music for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, but not Voyager. I've heard people call it "reminiscent" of the Voyager theme, or Goldsmith-esque, but... no. It's a carbon copy. I own a copy of the soundtrack, and I absolutely love the music.... but I loved it when Jerry Goldsmith composed it more than 20 years earlier, too.
A crucial topic! 👌 Please do a "Part II" on pastiche, the sort of thing you hear on SNL that intentionally sounds like the reference track, and how that scene has devolved in the past decade into a more ambiguous legal circumstance. I have tried to research the guidelines in this topic for five years with zero success. Colleagues at the WB studios got away with cleverly written pastiche for the 90's animation series (for instance), but nowadays everyone in the licensing business seems to recommend avoiding song-specific imitation of the musical atmosphere of any commercial tracks. Thank you for your important work, Guy! 🙌 - Eero
I do get paranoid about this sometimes, but I try not to worry about it too much because it just hinders my creative mindset so much... All music is inspired by already existing music, and it's pretty much all been done before by someone else somewhere else anyway. My attitude is that as long as you're not trying to directly copy someone else's work and claim it as your own you're fine... but then again I just create music for my own enjoyment and I'm not trying to sell my music anyway...
I once discovered an amazingly unique and haunting chord progression. As I started building a piece of music from it, it became more and more beautiful and I got really excited. Then I realized I had just rewritten "Greensleeves." Doh. Oh well.
This is excellent, Guy. I still wonder about the extent to which "hookiness" of a song depends on familiarity from 'somewhere', be it a nursery rhyme where stepped notes like 3,2,1,2,3,3,3 just teach us about note intervals as babies, to past hit songs. The very end of Sheeran's Shape of You mirrors the beginning of Beatles From Me To You - but does anyone mind? The bridge in Whitney's Greatest Love of All mirrors Lightfoot's If I Could Read Your Mind. Lorde has spoken about how Solar Power shares chords with Sympathy For the Devil, Freedom '90, Primal Scream - Loaded.. but I've yet to see anything about the fact the chorus is basically Seven Bridges Road in harmony. But was it a copy, or the same great idea? The most daunting brief for me was for a planned worldwide-format TV sig tune (the rather over-ambitious show didn't come to fruition) - but the big worry wasn't about finding a strong idea with a catchy hook, it was the about the fact I could never know if it sounded like an existing TV theme or pop song hook in any of the countries it would be shown. Nobody could assure that, yet the contract effectively demanded that I could. Cheers, Drew
I have started listening to Beethoven before writing, so any recent influences are from that. As a singer songwriter (recently giving it another shot), I have decided that when I release a song, all my recorded parts will go for royal free, and I will allow anyone to use samples just for credit. I'm probably just going to distribute the individuals samples on youtube, what I won't allow is for the whole song to be ripped off, or the original recording, or composition without royalties.
I once wrote an entire Primary School musical (very well received)... turns out it was basically (subconscious) reworkings of Bonnie Tyler and Meatloaf songs! Luckily, no-one noticed.
@@davetbassbos I was gutted! I'd written a really nice power ballad for Macbeth about the pitfalls of being king, played it to my wife and she was all 'where have all the good men gone...' I assume she was quoting Bonnie Tyler!
This is a real problem for audiences, especially with the amount of Netflix series that we're binge watching, now. I keep hearing little bits of themes from other series and it totally throws me out of the reality of what I'm watching until I can remember where I heard it before.
There are apps you can get what can detect music, so what you did humming the melody, what if you use your phone to detect the actual music you create, that'll be better at detecting what it is. Also if it's unintentional plagiarism you get away with it as you've not done it intentionally. Your other video made me laugh when you was running on the beach by the way, you are such a character! You definitely ate that biscuit you dropped!
The thing is music is like a language, especially within the limited range of our octaves and so on. Melodies get composed again and again or rhythm patterns very naturally because there is a limit of possible variations especially variations that actually sound good. Still thousands of possibilities and more and things will repeat itself sooner or later and even people like Michael Jackson could not get around it - MJ even reused pieces of his own songs here and there. Copying so just taking a song and changing key, tempo and lyrics are one thing - but accidentally re-composing something more or less is something different. One could say that every possible melody was written before in one key or tempo or another. The variations within and between is what makes something unique again. So if one hears a melody and likes a piece of it, use it but not just copy it like modern „artists“ do, make something new out of it, combining it with other things maybe a piece of a melody but inside different rhythm as framework. One can’t get around of accidentally recomposing pieces. And that’s been the case for decades now and even occurs in Michael Jackson songs or songs of other great artists.
So how was it that literally all 50s rock and roll sounded exactly the same and no one sued anyone? You could say exactly the same for late 80s hair metal and just about every country song written 1980. This is really a societal problem, not a music problem. Power and control of ownership of common things to repress and extract unearned money. What ever happened to the phrase “ain’t even worth a song”?
9:46 I'm totally one of those people who can identify one's song, but I don't have recognition from the people I know... 'Cus it turns out to be anoying sometimes for them, I think... Imagine you come out with a good idea of a new song than BANG, here comes someone like me and says: "Oh, this song remembers this one here", and then when both listen to the song, you realise "your" song somehow already exists.... Well, in the end we try to help inovate, and that's when creativity comes in knocking "-Hi there!" but most people I know don't feel like opening the door for it :( Anyways, Thank you Guy Michelmore, I appreciate your statement! A SALVE from south Brasil
Was playing Danny Boy the other day and realised the chords are almost the same as Desperado. Desperado is just a variation of Danny Boy! The Eagles have done this before with Hotel California being very very close to a Jethro Tull song called We Used to Know.
Just for anyone else out there who hears it, the cell phone chirps that always seem to find their way into all audio gear that you hear around 12 mins into the video I think are in the audio capture. Took me a minute of moving my phone all around the room thinking it was my gear to realize... no I think that's Guy's phone. :-) Or it could be the controls on his fancy LED wall lighting.
Pro Tip. If you NEVER listen to music, you can hardly be accused of copying anyone else's music. This does not guarantee that your music will be listenable....
Just do like I do… write music so crappy that nobody else could possibly have written something similar before.
Great video. Love the humor.
BWAHAHAHAH!!! Collab', bro? We can combine some of your crap with some of my rubbish, and VOILA! Or, we could just record 78 minutes of straight white noise ... no, wait, I think I've heard that Peter Gabriel (or somebody) has already done that. Whooops! I'm a serial plagiarizer . . . save yourself! Shun me!
I made an reply saying the same thing - Easier to be original when you write bad music - Have I just committed a copyright infringement by reproducing your comment ?!? Madness.
Lol
I think most of the music we write is subconsciously derived from all the music we listened to
I would also say that a large part of it is what Guy called Convergent Evolution. If it “sounds good” to you, it sounds good to me. So it sounded good to somebody else awhile ago.
@@dbmusicproductions9181 I think one of the ways to write something completely original is to set up rules when writing like the 12 tone row is a good one, of course I'm saying this if you want something completely original, not everytime set a rule when writing.
It has to be, right?
@@davetbassbos yeah I think so, alot of times when writing something I know where I got this musical phrase from, and its usually 3 notes but I don't think about it very much, because it's just 3 notes the important thing is what I do to make them sound unique to me to my sound
If you listen to the beginning of this video, he kind of says this.~~~> 2:05
I like to do this in the reverse order, where I intentionally copy something and keep changing it until it's transformed into a completely new thing. My best source of inspiration is mis-remembered melodies, where I go back and realize I didn't remember a tune right, and the one in my head is something I can (mostly) claim.
This is exactly what Ian Anderson said happened with his ‘Bouree’ song on the early Jethro Tull album ‘Stand Up’. I think it was from Bach, but he said he only got it right here and there, sort of thing.
Listen to different genre of music, get a wider array of influences, practice techniques, and write what you enjoy. At the end of the day you need to be able to enjoy what you've written. No-one will ever be able to be 100% original.
This. Sometimes I worry so much about trying not to sound like someone rather than making what’s familiar and being creative within that space. You’ll end up sounding different the more you take that approach anyways
not to mention the most succesful work will (majority of the time) be very similar or in the style of already existing styles
It's easier to be original when you only compose really bad music. 😕
@@synphonix123 so true!
Some melodies I have written just so happen to be concurrent with something I've never heard before, regardless of genre. I.E. a tune whose main melody somehow matched up with Primadonna by Marina And The Diamonds. But all that gave me was a new song to listen to. I also sometimes intentionally borrow a few phrases here and there but I will readily admit that "Yes that's part of the Inspector Gadget theme and I'm not ashamed."
Moment of appreciation for guy who has sacrificed his video to copyright claims to help us against the same
"It's not about where you take things from, but where you take things to." -Jean-Luc Godard
That is absolutely amazing sounding thanks for that op and originator of the quote
True. But sometimes you just hear something, it reminds you of something you liked before and it gets annoying that it doesn't continue the way you know it. I've heard tons of tunes like that.. and it's really unfortunate, because it could be a great piece of music but I can't stop relating it to something else (I might be similar to that Brad guy in the video).
For example, check out the choruses of the two songs - "Gotthard - Heaven" and "Savage Garden - Truly Madly Deeply".. well that's a total rip-off imo, but it gets the point across.
@@nkirov I think you have to ask what your point is in referencing something. Are you referencing or "ripping off" something just because you like it? Or are you elaborating on the artist's original idea and saying something new and original with what you create? That is what, I think, Godard meant by this.
"Study the great and become greater!" -Michael Jackson
I wrote an epic space tune the other day. Took me days to arrange. Then realized I'd just re-written the theme from Startship Troopers.
Hello me from the future
Oh well, honestly. If someone tried to be completely original anytime they wrote, they would never finish or release anything.
@@electricpurple4112 Haha. Define Jazz Hippie in a sentence.
Lol
Just listen to Gustav Holst's' The Planets and you'll find almost every movie theme ever used in there. It's out of copyright for some time so just pick and choose. Even if your tune is not an exact copy then it will be close enough to win every copyright fight.
Just listen to "The Dune Sea of Tatooine" by J. Williams and then listen to "The Rite of Spring / The Sacrifice - Introduction" by Stravinsky. Like Guy said "We all walk on giant shoulders" even the great J. Williams himself...
Yeah, rule of thumb in my case is: "If it sounds good, it ain't yours..."
Challenge accepted
lmao
Sounds like something I told my dietician once: if it tastes good, probably I shouldn't be eating it.
@@joetowers4804 _alright we got it_
HAHAHA!! Joe has "trigger finger". Either that or he's really adamant about it. ;o)
Dear Mr. Michelmore,
I just absolutely adore the New Adventures of Lassie. It is such an amazing series that always kept me longing for more episodes. I really love the style of season one, it is absolutely perfect and I love it so much. I love the character development of Zoe and Harvey, and how Lassie always, no matter what, comes to the rescue. You did such an amazing job on this series. However, a new composer came. Season 2 of the New Adventures of Lassie! I was just so excited to see Lassie’s adventures continue! I loved season one just so much, it was my favourite thing in the world. So I excitedly watched the first episode of season 2. Then I notice - it’s a different story and animating style. The characters are not hand-drawn anymore - my favourite art style has gone! I would really love it much more if they just continued season 1. It could be just the adventures continuing, and maybe at the end, there is a massive, final adventure that pushes Lassie’s abilities to the limit.
Thank you so much for reading this,
Elyse
The fact there's audio clicking throughout the whole video makes this better.
The lawyers are trying to get hold of Guy.
You know it's a great day when Guy uploads a new video!
thank you
A true legend.
I once wrote a thematic legato with my horns and accidentally played the Avengers theme lol
😂😂
I accidentally played Gustav Holst Planets Jupiter lol
Haha.
I would recommend to do this:
1. Make longer tracks with intro‘s, that give u space for creativity
2. use more than 4 chords in a row, like f.e. 8 ones and pimp ur melodies into complexer ones
3. before making a melody, create a story u want to tell with ur music. A message u want to share or a journey through certain pictures
this is the way
It seems to me that you have to constantly imagine what kind of picture you want to create. Music is somehow magically linked to imagination. I think the problem of copyright exists among those who went to a music school in childhood. I didn’t go, I don’t have a musical education. This problem does not bother me. But I loved to read books, watched many films in childhood. Perhaps you should go to the cinema, read books, visit galleries, theaters, walk and then that "picture" that you want to portray with the help of music will pop up in your head. And it won't seem like copyright.
P.S. True, many musicians in my country do not care about the copyright problem either, although their songs are explicitly copyrighted. But I believe that there is no copyright in my songs.
This issue has often made me reticent about composing music myself, so thanks for the tips! I think it's unfortunate and concerning, though, that increasingly the overzealous use of financial music copyrights is making it risky to be significantly influenced by other composers' works. As well as potentially stifling creativity, especially among composers with less power, it could also make plagiarism more rife, not less. Why? Because composers who are influenced by other composers may be more afraid to openly acknowledge their influences, out of fear that it could get them into big trouble in court, and so there may be more of a temptation to pinch ideas from other composers and then pretend that they're completely original.
I think John Williams's Star Wars is an excellent example of "being influenced done well", as I can spot many similarities between Star Wars and the temp track (there are also obvious homages to Holst's "Mars, the Bringer of War" and Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" as well as Korngold's "Kings Row"), but to me, all of it has been modified and adapted sufficiently to take it in his own direction and make it his own, and of course there's plenty of other music in Star Wars that isn't obviously influenced by anything. I reckon that the combination of familiar influences and originality probably helped to make the music for Star Wars so popular and so accessible to the general public.
But even morally speaking there can be a fine line with this. I find Hans Zimmer's "Gladiator" close to the line with its homages to "Mars", as while I think it's mostly done well, there is one track ("Barbarian Horde") which, to me, sounds uncomfortably close to being a copy-paste of sections of the original. So there is some need for caution, but I fear that we're heading into an era where people have to be overly cautious, at the expense of creativity and quality of music.
Glad I saw this before it gets taken down 😀 Good advice. I think the problem is exacerbated and often created more by lawyers than musicians
Nope. Watch Legal Eagle's great video on how Led Zepplin saved Katy Perry.
th-cam.com/video/zgsL5yW3bao/w-d-xo.html
Lawyers don't sue musicians. Musicians sue musicians.
Just about to comment on the irony if you got a copyright strike because of 13:05 and then about 30 seconds later you said exactly the same thing!
Really good video, lots of food for thought!
I think you somehow copied the comment I was just about to write. ;)
@@Lantertronics SUE HIM!! I can represent you since I work for Dewey, Cheatham & Howe!! LOL!! ;o)
I have to quote Stravinsky here " Good composers borrow but great composers steal"
However, that was pre-lawsuit days. LOL!!
@@TonyDeConcini
Steal from classical music (pre-1900). They're out of copyright, and can't sue.
Happy stealing!
@@FreakieFan HAHA!! Good one. The fortunate thing is I don't have to steal. All I have to do is compose something and it already sounds like somebody else even when I think I came up with the idea. Nature of the beast - so to speak. Nothing new under the sun. But now borrowing......? Well THAT is another story. Using them as a reasonable example, perhaps. Not stealing. Just being inspired by what they wrote those 100's of years ago. ;o)
@@TonyDeConcini
In all seriousness, If you keep composing, and put in the hours. In a decade or two you will most certainly develop a unique, singular voice that doesn’t sound borrowed. It comes with experience and workmanlike rigor.
@@FreakieFan Totally agree. There HAS to come a time when anyone would develop their own "style" or techniques musically. I don't have that long to live but those who do need to keep the nose to the grindstone indeed!!
I've been writing music for years, to various degrees of success. Now that I've decided to try songwriting, I faced this exact problem: my verse tune sounds like something I've heard before, and it boggers me. Thank you, sir, for making this video on this exact issue.
I hope I'm not too late n
that you are still alive n well. It's 2021 and today is my first time finding you I happen to have stumbled upon your TH-cam video on melodies. I wasn't on this planet for a the minutes the video played. I want to be as good as you because I feel the spirituality of every note you play. I want to heal people through my music and you are that perfect mentor. If you are still
here on earth with us, know that I love you and I do hope our paths cross soon.
From a big fan who lives far across the world with dreams bigger than he could his imaginations. Love you Guy!
Haha Guy! The Korngold reference was astonishing. Funny , I have that very same book given to me in 1977 by my Grandparents who also gave me a book by the same authors "A Dictionary of Vocal Themes" a year earlier. Small world. I suppose I will have to get them out and read through some.
19:26 ...or the Jaws theme and then Dvorak's 9th symphony movement 4.
Tinkerbell's theme from "Hook" and "The Firebird Suite" by Stravinsky was always the most obvious to me.
Hello Guy! Love your videos. I am a longtime amateur composer. I wish they’d have been around 30 years ago. But still, I have learned a lot about the art. And aside from the educational aspect, you are a pleasure to watch. This video reminds me of the genesis of the Beatles’ Yesterday and how Paul dreamt the melody, and was sure it wasn’t original. He played it for everybody he knew and nobody seemed to have ever heard it before. So he claimed it for himself.
Great video Guy! Keep up the good work 👍
Just a brilliant Brilliant video. Music, Movies, and Entertainment are just like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and Ice Cream. Friday night, mentally tired just want eat my comfort foods ,see my comfort visuals and hear my comfort sounds. The consumers of all things are the same and we as writers want to be part of the group so a lot of the time we don't take risk because the audience we have doesn't want to eat chilly prawn ice cream with a garlic cone or expand their musically palette to the unfamiliar tones that won't allow the right dopamine to wash over them. This era has creatives unable to expand and evolve due to simple survival, familiar pays, so we're not straying too far from the corporate nipple that feeds us. Thanks Guy for another great video.
You need musical copyright (probably?) but copyright lawsuits always seem frivolous to me because of the convergent evolution thing, especially for short melodic fragments. Not to mention that a lot of commercial music asks for the diatonic sound these days.
Andrew LLoyd Webber was once asked if he plagarized anything - always being accused of it. His response was (and I paraphrase) "there are after all, only so many keys on a piano and everything you've ever heard, listened to, liked or absorbed will influence what you write". The hard part is to not consciously use something you've heard before. As hard as it is, it IS possible to be unique but somewhere along the line a melody you will write may "quote" something else.... NOT that you're trying to - it just happens because it's all part of what you've absorbed and it resides in your brain. The biggest trick is to know how to NOT do that or learn to "trick" the brain. Therein is musical uniqueness....HOWEVER NOTHING anyone writes is unique. Somewhere along the time/space continuum, there is nothing new, it's ALL been done before somewhere, somehow. I mean musical use has been around for a very loooong time. It's very hard to prevent no matter how hard one might try. Even RANDOM melody generators will eventually hit upon something that is the same as something that's already been done.....as you said. HOW to get around that? Very hard to define ever. The ONLY thing one could ever do (and this is hard for those with careers that depend upon making music) is to never make any money on your music, never publish it, keep the things you write totally free and uncopyrighted.....as IF that would ever happen when your income depends upon it right? Tough question and concept to crack if one ever even can. I LIKE the suggestion to use someone else to listen with an unbiased ear. VERY good thought. THAT's likely the only way scientifically or logically, to accomplish. BUT it's still NOT 100% and all it takes is one low life lawyer willing to make life difficult on principle alone. Sigh. What ARE ya gonna do? I recall some classical composer(s) who were accused of writing someone else's music - only BACKWARDS or UPSIDE DOWN and using it that way. That's crafty - but still plagarizing. Again what ARE we to do? STIL NEVER 100% ever ever ever!! Tough to be unique and totally apart from copying somewhere along the line.
The Girl of the Golden West...
Nice analysis Don. You're spot on.
@@0AndrewBolt0 Hey Andrew - Yes you're right. And Lloyd Webber said so in the interview I watched years ago although he wouldn't say WHAT he had "borrowed". And to reiterate, he "quoted" a phrase perhaps - didn't TOTALLY lift it from Puccini but he DID say he did snag one melody - so I guess that was it. But this stuff lives in our heads forever and even though you might put something down, thinking that it's yours completely when it strikes the right feeling in your music, it's ALL been done somewhere, sometime before. There literally IS NOTHING new. I used to amuse myself by finding familiar tunes in "other" music, constantly thinking they lifted a melody or a phrase from somewhere else. It was part amusement, part annoyance because it kept me from simply enjoying what I was hearing... not because I care they did it, but rather because I couldn't get it then, out of my head that it was totally a borrowed tune or an inadvertent musical duplication. It truly IS a tough nut to crack to find melodies or chord progressions that have NOT been done before. The trick is as I see it, to find something that is far, far less familiar or obscured or something in public domain IF you're even going to borrow - which you should not at all. But this brain doesn't work that way - it's an amalgam of everything I've EVER heard that I like. Tough, tough thing to have to work around always.
Sir Michelmore,
Your advice is 100% sound.
Great work you do.
We should be allowed to copy melodies if we change lyrics and it sounds good. There’s only so many notes and lyrics you could say. But different combinations, even if one or the other element is similar, does not mean you are completely copying the other work.
Sometimes using tools like Symphonic Motion from Spitfire Audio, or any other rhythmic tool with random loops with many possibilities to change the rythm, is very helpful to make different tones/melodies!
I enjoy taking the logic we use to make music by completely diverting expectations, playing something completely unexpected instead of what logically follows and it ends up taking me down an endless corridor of nebulous melodies that are ever evolving and rarely resolving and it's a grand old time
I checked your channel but no examples. I'm not doubting you at all... but you may as well post something at some point, even if it's not a professional release.
Well Guy, I appreciate you did your best to give a solution to this problem and you are relatively lucky to have a person that can check for you (actually do just his best in this, as I suppose he is not infallible) that your motif is unique (perhaps). You see, this subject is soooo important and scary enough (to the point that could take someone completely away to even consider to create music and therefore take a course in music creation) that should be the first thing to be discussed and TRULY AND RELIABLY solved. I see instead that you discussed about this for the first time ONLY on the 30 July 2021 and after MANY user requests. Said that my questions are: 1) How do we find an alternative person that can check if a motif is unique, do they have a professional title? 2) Don't you think that to seriously discuss this subject a better idea would be to arrange an interview with a copyright official and get tips and recommendations from him? 3) Is there a web service or a consultancy service that can check and clear your track against copyright strikes? 4) What happen if accidentally you infringe, do they warn you first or they sue you straight away? You see, I think it is nice to create and produce/publish music at least as much as to have a good night sleep! Looking forward for your answer and in particular for a better and more reliable solution. Thank you.
My favourite TH-cam! Such a happy and informative chap! Thanks, Guy.
Running your music track through Google or Soundhound as you make it is a great idea. It can help save a lot of time. I know there was a lawsuit once with the Beatles I believe and the judge ultimately said "If the note progression is the same 12 notes or more, it infringes copyright."
While I think protecting your copyright is important, it is also important to understand that other people might have similar ideas. Doesn't mean they're wrong for it, it just makes that creative pool more explored. Its like fishing in a pond, someone may have 3 fishing rods with 3 hooks to catch 3 fish, someone else may have 1 fishing rod with 3 hooks on 1 line, both catch 3 fish but they achieved it by different means.
Additionally, it doesn't always apply but looks for ways to destroy or derange your tune in ways that are different but make sense, through the means of effects, especially ones that randomize waveform patterns. Also AVOID USING PRESETS. Presets are there for inspiration only in my opinion. If you think about it, any preset you use is infringement because someone else wrote it to be used within the program, so the idea of using that sound is already out there, and dozens of people most likely have.
Guy, I've just watched this after a day messing with the Stargirl competition clip, and guess what I've used those same three 'superhero' chords you talk about. Sounded pretty good too, now I know why 😞.
Working on Stargirl, too. Now, I know I WON'T be using those chords, then :)))) Well, I was taking a very dark and gloomy, and almost atonal approach already. Good luck!
I read this awesome book titled Steal Like An Artist. I tend to use my influences collectively to create something one of them wouldn't necessarily create.
Stephanie Meyer, who wrote Twilight, said she was influenced by Jane Austen and Shakespeare. Nice blend!
Point is, I totally agree with the comment above.
I was watching a movie called everything is a remix by this man by the last name Kirby. He shows everything on how all the music is not original. I understand things now. Even all of the presets we use have been used before so nothing is unique. This is why I create with now music with any tool that helps me complete a song. All I want to do is create. It doesn't matter what I use.
Your Imperial March Grandfather edition and "we will take it straight into production" was the funniest moment of the week
Some Melodies/Chords/Ostinatos just work really well, maybe that's why they are used so much. They are maybe just the "best" option in this situation so they are copied by many without that they know or that they even hear a similar piece.
For example: At 6:40 you played the theme of a rollercoaster in germany and I'm pretty sure you did not know about it🤣
Never have writers block after watching Guy. Excellent and inspiring to do something different.
Thank you for this Guy! This is something I'm ALWAYS obsessing about.
I honestly feel like the most influence of your “creativity” always lies within the rhythm. Only so many notes on a keyboard that repeat infinitely
Agreed. The swing is in the breath and pace. As a guitarist, it's always my strumming and picking hand that makes my music feel beautiful. As someone once said to me, it's the bit of the canvas the artist hasn't painted that gives the piece it's name, individuality, character etc.
Hey Guy, I recently just found your videos and your energy and enthusiasm rekindled the flame inside me to try songwriting and compose again :D If alright can I give a video suggestion to maybe talk about how to add chords to a melody? Or maybe how we can go about "learning" chords? Is it something that we take the time out of the day to memorize?
I think I am pretty good at coming up with melodies but then it just gets stuck from there. I can hear it as a complete piece in my head but I think I just don't have the technical skill to make it out yet and it is very frustrating sometimes.
That being said I appreciate you so much for making these videos and I can't believe I can watch these for free! You are such an inspiration and great teacher I thank you so much!
I was playing in a band about 5 years ago and our guitarist had a new song she wanted to play. I went upstairs to grab a beer and heard the guitar lick. I was playing bass and came back. I said “Sweet we’re playing Ramones” and she said, “I wrote this song” I’m not sure if that really sunk in because I said, “I’ll just look up the tab.” When I started jamming with the rest of the band I realized it was really her song. I think too just using chords even with the same meter should be fine although lawyers may argue. Anyway, thanks Guy.
Last night, I came up with what stood out to me as a good intro for a song on guitar (even now, pretty sure it's my own work!) ... I recorded it as a scratch track so I wouldn't forget it, then laid down some drums, bass and piano very roughly around it and after it (not even using a click track) just to get the ideas down for where I saw this going, with the intention of doing the job properly today... This morning, I sat down and realised that with the exception of the original idea, I had written a version of "November Rain" by Guns n Roses! 🙄🙁 ... I spent today trying everything to move away from it, while still keeping the original idea, and it is seriously hard work!! ... What you said about there "only being so many solutions to the problem" resonates completely with me, because the only chords that worked when following my idea took me straight back to an angry Axl Rose! Hahaha ... I got there eventually, but this video was appreciated as an insight into what the hell had happened!! Thank you. 😊
So much this! As well as "mere exposure" I'd say that "anchoring" is another cognitive bias that we suffer from which constrains our thinking and the logic that we use to write music. Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" is a great read about this (he won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in the field and it's a fascinating book!) And when it comes to convergent evolution, the thinking in 2017 was that the eye has evolved *at least* forty times!
Speaking of imitation and "Imperial Theme" -- does anyone else hear the phrase "the medicine go down" from Mary Poppins' song "A Spoonful of Sugar" everytime they hear "Imperial March"? LOL
YES. I’ve thought it would be cool to do a mashup of them because they sound so similar, but the context is completely opposite.
th-cam.com/video/Pe_LOR4AszY/w-d-xo.html
My own experience with this was hitting on a chord progression while noodling about one day. Really liked it. Spent another day working on it only to wake up on day three with the realization that I'd essentially rewritten an existing song. One I happen to really like. It was a giggle, but also a bit frustrating. :D
This is why I love Basil Poledouris's theme from Robocop, half hero of justice half a dilapidated world in moral ruin and the cross over in the reflected human sorrow between the two. It's truly something! All with the backdrop of mechanical/artificial sounding instruments and samples reflecting the mechanical and human conflict, it's like listening to it is half the movie!
It's just fun listening to you expound on musical ideas Guy. ;) I really like your channel. Thanks. Listening to this video in the background while I'm figuring out my next live video.
One copyright "infringement" that rankles is 19 by Paul Hardcastle. Apparently it's Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield. Yes eventually you can hear it but IMO it's not enough to be plagiarism. Unfortunately Hardcastle had to concede because he didn't have the resources to fight it, so it wasn't actually tested in court and he can only grumble about it.
BTW ... Self Plagiarization can be a great thing ... (IF) ... You are a great composer, with a style that has some sort of familiar emotional involvement ... and is appreciated by "listeners"
Very, very good information contained within this video. Thanks Guy!
Incredibly useful - you’re the best! Thanks!
Damn, he demonstrated the convergent evolution concept and I immediately heard the theme from Rami's Spider-Man
I experience something similar but sort of the other way around. I written a simple short tune but I haven't made it into a piece of music yet. And a few weeks later I found out that my tune is exactly the same as a main theme of a series in Disney+ it's just the rythm that's different!
Funny thing is, I created the the tune first and then the series came out! Crazy right?
I call that the Homer Simpson effect. Like when he thought he had invented a chair with two extra little bits of wood legs that spring out when you lean back only to find out it had been done many times before.
The more music composers listen to, the more music gets into their subconscious, and then, when composing, this music comes out. But this is quite normal, since it is 100% impossible to compose music without similarity to another.
Maybe both you and the disney composer misrememered the same tune😊
Guy... It's funny you should choose the Imperial March as an example. I think that that tune was plagiarised from Chopin's Funeral March!
At 19:07 you say 'Oh My Lord...' is that a reference to the 'He's So Fine' Bright tunes case ref Allen Klein and George Harrison?
This is so splendidly true ... on so very many levels ... Thank You Mr Michelmore !
Great video! Has me worried for my own music, but I also feel good knowing I write multiple genres. And sometimes I use ideas I'd never use, for another use. My results end up surprising me. Although if I do notice that I accidently rewrite something pre-existing, I try to change notation, chord progression, or things like adding chromaticism, or more character to support your idea. Will definitely be using these tips!
Very usefull & interesting video, thank you for talking about this subject.
I clearly remember the last time it happened to me, I played my last piece of this time direct from computer to my best half, Mrs H3, and she said "yes, it's realy nice but maybe it sounds like (a particular TV show), no? "
After a quick check... Yes... ☹️
And it's not a TV show I'm particularly keen of, but for sure I've heard it, inevitably.
So, back to the keyboard to change things.
Nothing to worry about if it's in the public domain!
I'm waiting for Por Una Cabeza by Carlos Gardel
Public domain laws vary in each country. I don’t know how much that affects lawyers and their shenanigans…
but it doesnt mean the dead composers will decompose
@@user-wk2gi5cp9y beautiful
I'm always hear that my music sounds like Massive Attack or Tricky. But it is a compliment for me most of the time. At the same time, in my country my music is quite recognizible, and if someone making similar stuff, people saying that "it sounds like Viktor Van River". This is incredible!
I happened to discard a piece of music because I had the feeling that I had already heard it, but then I found the file and it was my composition from a few years ago :)
Actually, the Imperial March is not the "Opening Movement of Beethoven's Whatever", it's a copy of "Mars" from Gustav Holst's "The Planets". Holst died in May 1937, so feel free to use the Imperial March in whatever way you like 😉 Love, Brad.
No.
Two distinct pieces.
I don’t know Beethoven’s whatever , I’ll have to check it out.
This is a great topic to explore, and for what little it is worth, my view is that you get on and learn and create, and don’t worry about it. If you actually made a big enough splash with something, and actually made money with it, then someone might emerge from a legal angle and ask for a portion of revenue. But, if that were the case, then two things apply: a - if you’d made it not so similar, it might not have been so successful; and b - it’s almost impossible to make an IDENTICAL song/tune, unless you set out to do so. So, no worries unless it is surprisingly successful, in which case you are still winning, just not by as much. I don’t set out with it as a goal, to copy other people’s music, but of course, if some film producer approaches a person and says ‘can you do something in the style of Hans Zimmer?’ you are one small step in the direction of being similar right from the off. Hence, I suppose pop music is the classic ‘copycat’ because if a certain genre takes off, every bu&&er copies it in order to be ‘on trend’. Next they find out what the samples are the inspiring song used, match the rhythm, and BPM, and then it’s more than halfway to a major overlap of course! But, the same statement I made earlier applies: if it is successful, then the formula worked, you are still winning even with a revenue share. The other obvious issue with any attempt to cash in on your song saying it ‘sounds like’ theirs, is the litigant probably falls into the self-same trap! Just find a similar song, done earlier than their own, and you have their ‘inspiration’ exposed too, which they won’t want. Yes, so I have almost no worries!
Speaking of John Williams, if I may :
- The seven first notes of "Star Wars"' main theme are exactly the same as the the ones played by the orchestra at the end of the Intermezzo in Puccini's "Manon Lescaut".
- "Empire Strikes Back"'s love theme looks a lot like the main theme of the first movement in Tchaikovsky's violin concerto.
- "The Terminal"'s main theme sounds very much like Thomas Newman's theme for "Fifth Ave" in "Meet Joe Black", not to mention it is played on the same instruments.
And I'm pretty sure these are not the only examples in all of his music, yet I don't believe JW ever got into trouble because of these. So, what to conclude?
You can conclude that stealing from music over 100 years old is not a problem because copyright, if any, has long expired.
Ahem, Thomas Newman's music is not exactly 100 years old. ;)
The problem is that you can basically get samples royalty free on splice, Acapella, and loops, whereas others use the same samples, and your song ends up with the same acapella or the same loop. There was a big debate about it because what people do is, they go get the sample from splice or other platforms, create a song, and then copyright it. It's a free sample, or a paid sample but royalty free for commercial use. That's not fair id say. so we create the song and later find out someone else has used that before
Another pro tip. If you're getting mobile phone interference in your signal, consult a LOT of sound doctors.
I’ve been wondering why none of the home studio TH-camrs ever discuss preventing mobile phone interference…
Excellent info, as ever... thanks, Guy.
I was once playing synth for a stage musical play. Just tinkling along before the show - the pianist and I were trying to figure out this piece that was stuck in my head. We were playing a nice piece - slowly, very classical sounding.. Sounded like early Bach, Mozart perhaps. We just couldn't figure out what it was. The bass player walked by and we asked him if it sounded familiar. Guess what? Procul Harem - WHITER SHADE OF PALE. Crickey!! See what I mean?
Happens to the best of us. There is a major theme in the live action Jungle Book movie composed by John Debney (I believe the track is Elephant Waterfall-starting a little more than half way through it) that is nearly identical to whole sections of the opening theme of Star Trek: Voyager by Jerry Goldsmith. Same melody. Same chord progression. Practically the same orchestration. Now... Debney worked with Jerry Goldsmith, and even worked on music for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, but not Voyager. I've heard people call it "reminiscent" of the Voyager theme, or Goldsmith-esque, but... no. It's a carbon copy. I own a copy of the soundtrack, and I absolutely love the music.... but I loved it when Jerry Goldsmith composed it more than 20 years earlier, too.
A crucial topic! 👌 Please do a "Part II" on pastiche, the sort of thing you hear on SNL that intentionally sounds like the reference track, and how that scene has devolved in the past decade into a more ambiguous legal circumstance. I have tried to research the guidelines in this topic for five years with zero success. Colleagues at the WB studios got away with cleverly written pastiche for the 90's animation series (for instance), but nowadays everyone in the licensing business seems to recommend avoiding song-specific imitation of the musical atmosphere of any commercial tracks.
Thank you for your important work, Guy! 🙌
- Eero
th-cam.com/video/zgsL5yW3bao/w-d-xo.html
6:38
that's EARTH SONG of Michael Jackson (Not exact, but it really sounds like a variation). It proves your point.
I do get paranoid about this sometimes, but I try not to worry about it too much because it just hinders my creative mindset so much... All music is inspired by already existing music, and it's pretty much all been done before by someone else somewhere else anyway. My attitude is that as long as you're not trying to directly copy someone else's work and claim it as your own you're fine... but then again I just create music for my own enjoyment and I'm not trying to sell my music anyway...
I once discovered an amazingly unique and haunting chord progression. As I started building a piece of music from it, it became more and more beautiful and I got really excited. Then I realized I had just rewritten "Greensleeves." Doh. Oh well.
What was the chord progression and key
@@skas100 - Surely not the point. :D
I've had the same experience, but ending up with the Pachelbel Canon in D.
The problem is writing music when you're new that gets pulled up when you're rich and famous.
No worries for most of us, then!
Another possible solution is to take out insurance against the costs of getting sued for plagiarism (some times known as E&OE insurance)
This is excellent, Guy. I still wonder about the extent to which "hookiness" of a song depends on familiarity from 'somewhere', be it a nursery rhyme where stepped notes like 3,2,1,2,3,3,3 just teach us about note intervals as babies, to past hit songs.
The very end of Sheeran's Shape of You mirrors the beginning of Beatles From Me To You - but does anyone mind?
The bridge in Whitney's Greatest Love of All mirrors Lightfoot's If I Could Read Your Mind.
Lorde has spoken about how Solar Power shares chords with Sympathy For the Devil, Freedom '90, Primal Scream - Loaded..
but I've yet to see anything about the fact the chorus is basically Seven Bridges Road in harmony. But was it a copy, or the same great idea?
The most daunting brief for me was for a planned worldwide-format TV sig tune (the rather over-ambitious show didn't come to fruition) - but the big worry wasn't about finding a strong idea with a catchy hook, it was the about the fact I could never know if it sounded like an existing TV theme or pop song hook in any of the countries it would be shown. Nobody could assure that, yet the contract effectively demanded that I could. Cheers, Drew
It would be really cool if you could do a video on what bits you can copy like the progression or instrumentation etc.
I have started listening to Beethoven before writing, so any recent influences are from that. As a singer songwriter (recently giving it another shot), I have decided that when I release a song, all my recorded parts will go for royal free, and I will allow anyone to use samples just for credit. I'm probably just going to distribute the individuals samples on youtube, what I won't allow is for the whole song to be ripped off, or the original recording, or composition without royalties.
I once wrote an entire Primary School musical (very well received)... turns out it was basically (subconscious) reworkings of Bonnie Tyler and Meatloaf songs! Luckily, no-one noticed.
Outstanding. I guess you wrote the words write out of their mouth.
Total eclipse of the...gonna go all the way tonight, gonna go all the way
@@lauraburton 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@davetbassbos I was gutted! I'd written a really nice power ballad for Macbeth about the pitfalls of being king, played it to my wife and she was all 'where have all the good men gone...'
I assume she was quoting Bonnie Tyler!
I'm just going to retroactively call it a tribute to Jim Steinmann.
…….superb video.
I would love to hear your thoughts on how improvisation fits into this discussion on musical originality?
I did go and listen to Kings Row....wow....but of course it sums up what you're saying here perfectly.
Too true. I came up with a fab (ie pretty mundane) chord progression, but by chance discovered it had been used in 1924!
there are no original chord progs so rest easy
This is a real problem for audiences, especially with the amount of Netflix series that we're binge watching, now. I keep hearing little bits of themes from other series and it totally throws me out of the reality of what I'm watching until I can remember where I heard it before.
There are apps you can get what can detect music, so what you did humming the melody, what if you use your phone to detect the actual music you create, that'll be better at detecting what it is.
Also if it's unintentional plagiarism you get away with it as you've not done it intentionally.
Your other video made me laugh when you was running on the beach by the way, you are such a character!
You definitely ate that biscuit you dropped!
The thing is music is like a language, especially within the limited range of our octaves and so on.
Melodies get composed again and again or rhythm patterns very naturally because there is a limit of possible variations especially variations that actually sound good. Still thousands of possibilities and more and things will repeat itself sooner or later and even people like Michael Jackson could not get around it - MJ even reused pieces of his own songs here and there.
Copying so just taking a song and changing key, tempo and lyrics are one thing - but accidentally re-composing something more or less is something different.
One could say that every possible melody was written before in one key or tempo or another. The variations within and between is what makes something unique again.
So if one hears a melody and likes a piece of it, use it but not just copy it like modern „artists“ do, make something new out of it, combining it with other things maybe a piece of a melody but inside different rhythm as framework.
One can’t get around of accidentally recomposing pieces. And that’s been the case for decades now and even occurs in Michael Jackson songs or songs of other great artists.
So how was it that literally all 50s rock and roll sounded exactly the same and no one sued anyone? You could say exactly the same for late 80s hair metal and just about every country song written 1980. This is really a societal problem, not a music problem. Power and control of ownership of common things to repress and extract unearned money. What ever happened to the phrase “ain’t even worth a song”?
The trouble with Google is that it can be a bit dumb :). Interesting vid, Guy.
I love that this is the reason that Eric Carmen had to share writing credit for All By Myself with Rachmaninoff!
And also Never Gonna Fall In Love Again is taken from his Symphony No. 2
Barry Manilow could it be magic is heavily based on a classical piece.
9:46
I'm totally one of those people who can identify one's song, but I don't have recognition from the people I know... 'Cus it turns out to be anoying sometimes for them, I think... Imagine you come out with a good idea of a new song than BANG, here comes someone like me and says: "Oh, this song remembers this one here", and then when both listen to the song, you realise "your" song somehow already exists.... Well, in the end we try to help inovate, and that's when creativity comes in knocking "-Hi there!" but most people I know don't feel like opening the door for it :(
Anyways, Thank you Guy Michelmore, I appreciate your statement!
A SALVE from south Brasil
Was playing Danny Boy the other day and realised the chords are almost the same as Desperado. Desperado is just a variation of Danny Boy! The Eagles have done this before with Hotel California being very very close to a Jethro Tull song called We Used to Know.
Helpful tips, considering doing some original music so will save this video. Thanks
Just for anyone else out there who hears it, the cell phone chirps that always seem to find their way into all audio gear that you hear around 12 mins into the video I think are in the audio capture. Took me a minute of moving my phone all around the room thinking it was my gear to realize... no I think that's Guy's phone. :-) Or it could be the controls on his fancy LED wall lighting.
Thank you for confirming! I couldn't believe the sounds were coming from the recording guy. But I guess they were!
Thank you for the informative video, always a pleasure to watch! (ordered the book, before the prices go crazy xD)
Ha! Yes I can imagine good idea
I really enjoyed this Guy. I've always been fascinated with the Dukas/Willams relationship?... a modicum of sorcery perhaps? :P
To be famous for writing tunes is a real millstone
@@ThinkSpaceEducation ... apparently the money helps with the burden they tell me. :D
Pro Tip. If you NEVER listen to music, you can hardly be accused of copying anyone else's music. This does not guarantee that your music will be listenable....
Except if your music was born of convergent evolution