I’m currently in the process of writing a song. I’ve got a tune and I’m putting the lyrics together but I’m always concerned that any tune I think of might just be another song I’ve heard somewhere randomly that I don’t remember hearing.
Do I just have a shitty memory or is this a problem that other people have too?
Nope, happens a lot to me, too. Worst part is that whatever you’re accidentally plagiarizing, will immediately sound great and will be really easy to write, because of course, you’ve listened to it before. And it can be nigh impossible to distinguish between accidental plagiarism and just being in a flow.
No, you see it’s: “dun-dun-dun-dudu-dun-dun dudu dun-dun-dun-dudu-dun-dun”
not
“dun-dun-dun-dudu-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dudu-dun-dun”
I simply don’t think about it. If Chino Moreno can get away with using the chorus chord progression of “Hit Me Baby” in one of his songs and the most that happens is laughter about it in the comment section, it’s not an issue.
Alternatively, there is nothing new under the sun. Music has seven fundamental notes that can only be arranged so many different ways and still sound pleasing to the ear. It’s an inevitability that somewhere, you’re going to use the same chord progressions as thousands if not hundreds of thousands of other composers, you’re gonna write the same licks, you’re gonna play the same riffs. The difference is in atmosphere, genre, and performance. Don’t stress it too much.
Don’t worry about it. There are only so many progressions. Everything else is just variations within them, with bass lines, melodies and rhythms.
Everything is derivative of something else. Thag made that drumbeat on a rock 20000 years ago and it has passed down in oral history to eventually be in a Nirvana song.
This sometimes results in songs like Dani California that are almost certainly overt or unintentional copies of another song. When you find out your song is subjectively too close to another song you do the right thing, whatever that may be between you and the original musician.
