Accidental Plagiarising?

[killahpl]

You seem to think that your thoughts and ideas are really your very own thoughts and ideas, like private property or something

That's not the case at all. My musical taste is 100% the sum of all the music I've listened to all my life - music created by other people (and even then I would be hesitant to suggest that the ideas used in the music I've listened to are the original ideas of those artists' - they were influenced by someone as well, surely).

What I'm asking is, how do I avoid being accused of intentionally ripping of another artist's (well, I wouldn't call myself a artist but you get the point...) work even though I've never done it (consciously).

[Azura]

Back to OP's concern, I often asked myself the same question. This led me to a personal way of composing music which may not be appropriate for everybody. First, I come with a music idea that I record, as a sketch. During the recording process, other ideas may come up to complement the first idea. I record them also. Then I make a mixdown that I transfer to my phone, and I stop working on that song for a week or two, during which I listen many to time. Often, I will for example stop the playback just before the chorus, and I imagine another chorus than the one I recorded. Quite often, I find the new ideas that come up during this week or two better than the ones I recorded. And I have the impression that those new ideas are less prone to be a subcouncious steal of something else. But I may be wrong, I don't know. It's just that I prefer this method.

Cheers,
Marc

[killahpl]

Back to OP's concern, I often asked myself the same question. This led me to a personal way of composing music which may not be appropriate for everybody. First, I come with a music idea that I record, as a sketch. During the recording process, other ideas may come up to complement the first idea. I record them also. Then I make a mixdown that I transfer to my phone, and I stop working on that song for a week or two, during which I listen many to time. Often, I will for example stop the playback just before the chorus, and I imagine another chorus than the one I recorded. Quite often, I find the new ideas that come up during this week or two better than the ones I recorded. And I have the impression that those new ideas are less prone to be a subcouncious steal of something else. But I may be wrong, I don't know. It's just that I prefer this method.

Cheers,
Marc

Could it be, though, that in taking that last step (just coming up with a different chorus) you're subsconsciously trying to avoid (being accused of) having "stolen" someone else's idea and it is just a coping mechanism that's telling you "yeah, this new chorus sounds better" and that you're cheating yourself out of using a better idea?

[telecode]

Now, I've never seen a single "Pirates" movie. Might I have seen a trailer e.g. while going to the movie theater to see something else? Might I have heard just the theme? Sure, but I never consciously exposed myself to any of that stuff. Also, the rest of the song apart from that one bit is completely different.

the question you need to search and answer for yourself is, what is this "epic" sounding orchestral music? why does it sound the way it does? what are it's main characteristics? what are the elements of it and what is it that you are using in your own compositions that is making it get lumped in with zimmers stuff.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I guess that's... gulp... easy: what makes it sound like that are the strings, the relatively fast tempo... and perhaps there's certain scales/chords/chord progressions that get used more often than others in that type of music (I find myself defaulting to a lot of G minor/F minor stuff...). All of this produces a certain feeling of "adventure", i.e. I feel like rescuing some hostages from a submarine when I listen to it.

I move around the genres of folk-film music-rock-symphonic metal a lot, so I'm bound to slip into sounding like Zimmer at some point.

Now, surely you did not ask that question to imply that I should first figure out what makes Zimmer sound like Zimmer and then do my damndest to stay as far the hell away from that as possible? Because that seems like something that could put me in a lot of dead-end situations: "Oops, can't sound like that because people might think I'm ripping off Hans Zimmer", "Oops, can't sound like that or people'll think I'm stealing from Evanescence" and so on and so forth.

Not not at all. Zimmer is very popular and its good to sound like something that is popular because you have a greater chance with connecting with an audience. I was just stating, people will always try to compare your music to something else they heard that they are familiar with.


There was a guy called Captain Beefheart who a very long time ago released a record called Trout Mask Replica. He was a contemporary of Frank Zappa and those types of artists. Legend has it he locked everyone up in a little rented house and they rehearsed the songs for 3 months before they recorded it. There is this other guy that analyzed the songs and you can google and listen to the final record if you are mildly interested.

Was it "originality" or was it "insanity"? Or where they just a bunch of really stoned hippies locked in a house playing random stuff that made no sense? Who knows? Who is to judge.

Just work on your music and make it as good as you can make it.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trout_Mask_Replica

[superscan]

Chords and chord progression are not covered under copyright. Melody and lyrics are covered.

Take the most popular progression:

I → V → vi → IV

Some examples:

“Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey
“Let It Be” by The Beatles
“She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5
“Edge Of Glory” by Lady Gaga

[killahpl]

I am keenly aware of The Captain on account of having written my master's thesis on Frank Zappa


I'm just a little afraid that somehow, between the lines, you're implying that we should all be Captain Beefhearts and nothing less will do and I'm not sure that that'd be a good thing...

[Azura]

Could it be, though, that in taking that last step (just coming up with a different chorus) you're subsconsciously trying to avoid (being accused of) having "stolen" someone else's idea and it is just a coping mechanism that's telling you "yeah, this new chorus sounds better" and that you're cheating yourself out of using a better idea?

You're right, that may be the case. But I always ask my wife (she's the singer) to listen and compare the different ideas, and most of the time she finds the new ideas better than the first ones.

Marc

[Protocol_b]

There are only a set amount of notes, scales, and modes. Disregarding microtonal stuff, which is outside my understanding and experience, it is inevitable that over centuries of time and countless compositions, any given series of musical thingumbobs has been hit upon before you even began. Shrug it off, keep your ethics engaged and enjoy. I view the arrangement as my safe space.

[telecode]

I am keenly aware of The Captain on account of having written my master's thesis on Frank Zappa


I'm just a little afraid that somehow, between the lines, you're implying that we should all be Captain Beefhearts and nothing less will do and I'm not sure that that'd be a good thing...

Nope. I think one should follow their instincts and go where they feel most comfortable with musically. I do however strongly feel that there is always ways and room to make something better and build upon stuff that has been built before.

[vurt]

just steal a title from a different song.
creates ambiguity in the listener.

[killahpl]

There are only a set amount of notes, scales, and modes. Disregarding microtonal stuff, which is outside my understanding and experience, it is inevitable that over centuries of time and countless compositions, any given series of musical thingumbobs has been hit upon before you even began. Shrug it off, keep your ethics engaged and enjoy. I view the arrangement as my safe space.

That's true, there's a limited amount of notes etc. My ethics were fully engaged, but all that got me was getting accused of ripping off Pirates of the Carribean

[jancivil]

Plagiarism as a concept is not really extricable from intent.

If you're accused of it in academia, you've literally taken someone else's work and said it was your own.
Similarity in a musical line may or may not turn out to be a copy. George Harrison lost a case where it was shown that My Sweet Lord was originally She's So Fine and he copped it by accident or remembered it essentially. So as a point of copyright it already had an owner or owners, according to the judgment.

To assert that all melody is ultimately already extant is really from a limited view of what is possible in music, frankly.
I can make an artificial scale at any time and come up with lines which no one is likely to be able to claim already exist, for one small example of the concept.

If you're limited to 'key' and conventional notions, you may run into some concept of originality and experience a problem with it.

Take this for an example: You could, if you really were driven to, find motifs and intervals which happened in some music before. However melody really amounts a whole line, and you aren't likely to show the thing existed before.

[deastman]

The solution is to use generative processes to come up with all of your chord progressions and melodies. Then you’ll have a legally defensible position, even if you end up creating something similar to an existing work. Of course, everything you create will sound haphazard and poorly conceived, but it’s a small price to pay to keep the lawyers at bay.

[jancivil]

There are only a set amount of notes, scales, and modes.

Even if mathematically true, not relevant to whether or not A MELODY is necessarily a copy "at some point".
If I choose a mode, 6 notes eg., E F G# A# B D, there is no necessary resemblance in any phrase I come away with just because someone may have that exact set somewhere. It's not a usual avenue and chances aren't as high it's going to have the same kind of resemblance as your major scale <tune> might to something else; but even here a melody is not formed by the mere iteration of that set or even a straight replication of part of another melody. A lot more has to occur for us to call 'melody'. IE: you may intentionally take a motif or phrase from an extant melody and apply devices, even known devices to it in order to transform it.

[jancivil]

If your goal is to create very accessible music, which is really the intent to fit in with convention, it's not really the same goal as 'originality' anyway.
If it really fits to a type, you're bound to have resemblance. You need to worry if you're claiming a melody in the marketplace because someone may have a protection in place because of a vested interest.