Good Lord man. Okay, let me put this another way with a very specific example, which in the end, isn't going to answer your question either.Frostline wrote:You know, I really really wish people would stop telling me that in discussions about rules in this competition.wagtunes wrote: Bottom Line: Use some common sense and, if you care, just be honest with this whole thing.
And with that, I'm done.
And Wags this is not directed specifically at you as a person or artist, you just happened to say the triggering phrase "common sense" at me this time.
Use common sense is a completely empty useless answer to someone asking a question. It is a cop-out. I've found it is an answer thrown up when a question is either too hard or too complex to answer completely.
Just because something is common it does not mean it is universal.
It's common for Americans to own pick-up trucks. But that does not mean that every American owns a pick-up truck or even knows how to drive one. Yet you want to answer "just throw it in the back of your pick-up, that's just common sense" when asked how to get a couch across town. That is a sure helpful answer to someone who only owns a bicycle.
And yes I know there are probably YouTube videos out there showing a person on a bicycle (missing 1 of the 2 wheels) packing 3 couches, 15 people and a cow across town, that is not the point.
So telling me to use common sense is basically telling me to keep wandering around in the dark and if you happen to cross that cliff edge that we refuse to tell you about, the landing (disqualification) will indicate to you where the edge(rule) was.
Only because I am confident I will not be contention for the first prize I have actually desired (the excellent artwork) I will not rue learning the rules the hard way.
You're coming up with a track for the OSC. You're trying real hard not to do something that you've done before OR, worse yet, is somebody else's song.
You start off with an innocuous 4 chord progression of Dm - G - C - Am. You start playing a melody around it and half way through you say to yourself, "Damn, that sounds a lot like (insert song name) by (insert group name)"
Now it's not identical. But you know it's close enough that most average people who listen to popular music are going to recognize it.
What do you do?
I know what I would do. I'd go find something else to play.
As I pointed out in the video (if you even bothered to watch it) chord progressions themselves are NOT copywriteable or all these people would be suing each other's asses off. A riff, is not copywriteable in and of itself. But...use the same riff with the same beat and then you start getting into trouble.
So if you did THIS at the beginning of your song.
JUST like that...Yeah, you'd be in a shit load of trouble. Especially if you CONSCIOUSLY do it and don't give a crap that you did it.
Are you going to come up with a riff or a melody or an arpeggio or something that's been done before by somebody on this planet?
Unless you're f**king Mozart, count on it.
But the chances of you putting together a whole song that sounds exactly like somebody else's whole song IF you honestly attempted to write an original song are slim to none. You'd have a better chance of winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning.
Now, you've got a whole catalog of your OWN songs and you decide to take the intro from one, the verse from another, the middle 8 from another, the chorus from another, the ARP from another, the drum beat from another and the outro from another that all just happen to share the same C-Am-F-G main chord structure, well, that's up to you.
The spirit of the rule says you don't do that. You ATTEMPT to clear your mind of everything you've ever done in your life and...wait for it...
WRITE SOMETHING f**king NEW.
I've been writing songs since 1977. That's almost 40 years. If you go to my Soundcloud page you won't find two songs that sound exactly alike. They are all ORIGINAL and DIFFERENT compositions.
You have any idea how f**king hard that is after almost 40 years?
Okay, this is the best answer I or anyone else can give you. If you can't grok what I'm saying from this then there is nothing else I can tell you.
Nobody can teach common sense.
