# How do I know my composition is original?



## SoloYH (8 mo ago)

Hi folks,

When I hear a piece of music once, I seem to remember it if it's catchy.

Even if I don't remember hearing it, I sometimes loop it subconsciously, and have trouble deciphering if music I'm writing is from my original thoughts or it's an earworm that subconsciously directed me to write it. 

Especially if I was listening to my own composition a couple times, that it becomes so familiar, it almost becomes impossible to differentiate because it seems almost surreal that I wrote it.

Anyone have issues with this?


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## bagpipers (Jun 29, 2013)

The same melodies have been used many times with different chords and counterpoint.And of coarse the same chord progressions used over and over again with different melody.It's a grey area and you have to be a pretty exact replication to be called plagerism.Handel and Bach borrowed how many tunes and no one cared.
Or in pop the 60's rock n roll barrowed so heavely from the old delta bluesmen and the ancestor's of the delta bluesmen the rap and hip hop R&B sampled heavely from rock n roll.Music has always been a process of borrowing really.


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## SoloYH (8 mo ago)

It's one thing if I knew if I was taking a melody from another song, but sometimes I literally can't tell if the melody I wrote is my own or not. For example, the Quartet I wrote, I'm having trouble if I heard that melody and took it from somewhere, or if I came up with it myself. Or another thing is I'm not sure if the harmonic progression is my own or borrowed from elsewhere. I've heard it now enough times that I'm so familiar with it, such that I will never be able to tell.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

Is there really such a thing as a truly original composition? Everyone is influence by everything they've heard.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Good artists copy, great artists steal.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Stop worrying about it. Chances are really good that your music is not subconsciously copied.

Once when I was a young, fledgling composer who was immersed with a specific 20th Century Classical composer, I became fearful that something I was writing sounded like a direct copy of said composer. I then frantically listened to every work of his that I had, to ascertain whether I had ripped off something by him. But it turned out, that I hadn't.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

I have heard there is a cell phone app, which identifies the music you hear.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

Even the most groundbreaking composers didn't exist in a vacuum. When Claude Debussy invented impressionism, he was inspired by the Gamalon Orchestra he saw and heard at the 1889 Paris World Expo. He was also influenced by Scott Joplin's ragtime in the US.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

At the same time, there is a parallel thread, where they say, Puccini's heirs sued Andrew Lloyd Webber due to Puccinis's motifs found in Webbers musicals.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

You can improve your odds against totally unoriginal ideas to a certain extent by owning (mastering) as best you can, any techniques and finding out how you can use them in your own way and to your own advantages.
I agree with Vasks, best not to sweat it whilst learning and maybe even encourage imitation within reason as an exercise for specific technical purposes. Once absorbed, move on and always keep the ears and imagination receptive to new ways and any resulting music.


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