What Is Original And What Isn't? Options

[Bogdan Radovic]

Hey guys - I have been thinking about something.

When artists compose songs, what can be related as original and what not? What got me thinking is that I met a lot of young musicians in bands, starting out with composing and sometimes it appears as they are "afraid" to do some things musically just because it doesn't feel "original enough". This often leads to pretty underground sounding bands and songs.

I'd assume that ALL musicians are influenced by each others music? We all on purpose or subconsciously play some things that we like and feel. It can be a lick, chord progress, melody. Is it bad? IMO - NO! Does this lead to some similar sounding songs (or maybe even too similar) - probably. To me, those are still unique songs and one is not better than the other even if they look alike, use a similar lick or chord progression.

My thoughts/questions having this in mind are :

* Is it ok to paraphrase stuff you like in other peoples music, when writing your own?
* Does the above make you more or less original?
* What defines an "original" song/music really? Does this even exist?
* Is it good or bad for young bands early in their composing carriers to barricade themselves out of "stuff that has been done" in ultimate quest for something "original"? This is in question especially if the "original" doesn't actually exist.

To me every band and song that is composed (and not really purposely stolen) can be considered as original. Barricading yourself out of stuff that hasn't been done is not a guarantee of being original (after all - how can you know that it hasn't been done?). Utilizing stuff that has been done can still bring out something new, that is the beauty of music and composing.

Sorry, this can be a mind boggling topic - I just wanted to see what you guys (and girls ) think about it?

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

[Bogdan Radovic]

Very interesting views on this topic. I must notice they are very different too.
I wanted to talk more about paraphrasing and what I usually consider to fall under that term.

For example, when I compose songs sometimes I would come up with part which I can relate to some famous song(s).
I came up with it while playing the instrument and when thinking about it, it reminds me to something I heard and I liked in some other songs. In this case I really consider the music mine. I didn't intentionally listen to a song and learn it note for note and then used it in my song with little or no variation. The other possible scenarios are, sometimes when arranging the song I would intentionally add a certain vibe which would intentionally remind me of a certain band. For example, in one of the songs we added some nice harmony vocals which reminded us of Simon and Garfunkel. We thought it was awesome to have that kind of vibe in that particular song and it worked well. Does that make us less original?
What we've got with the song was exactly what we wanted from it.

Sometimes I would just like to create something similar to what I find cool by the bands I like listening to. I think we would be amazed if famous musicians would talk more intimately about their composing process and how they come up with their stuff. There are songs I have composed that I can relate certain things, details or sections in them with some famous ones I like but it is very personal in a way. If I didn't tell - how could anyone know what inspired me or what kind of emotion I wanted to create or which message to convey. I didn't always get inspired by other musicians/music too, it can be something completely different in our environment.

This makes me think - is the path to ultimate originality just not listening to music at all?
Being completely isolated from other artists music, it would imply that we have an upper hand to be more original?

The more I think about this, I come to the thought that originality in music doesn't exist in "more" or "less" form even though it can be propagated all the time when people try to define "quality" of bands or artists. In the end, we are all original as long as we are composing music and creating our songs. I would often hear: that band is great and everything but they are not original...and IF that band tries to intentionally be too original we can hear comment like : "Nah, that band sucks. They don't have any good songs and sound out of tune.". Same with guitarists, we would hear "originality" term overused as excuse to make ones music existence and contribution less significant or valuable. In the end, it just boils down to taste of the listener. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder. After all - music is played by humans and we are ALL original from our birth. There are no two alike on the planet

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!