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When you're writing a song, how do you know it isn't just a song you've heard before but don't recognise? (infosec.pub)

submitted 4 months ago by frostprophet@infosec.pub to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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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?

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[–] Funkytom467@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

I'm not a song writer but it seems to me a lots of songs can share some similar chord progression without being in any way the same. It can be more or less obvious.

I feel like, as we're immersed into music, when creating music what we hear in our head can and will be influenced. It probably should be too.

Because even so, you have more than one influence, you don't put them like anyone else and that's where you start putting something that's you, into it.

But to me that also mean what you feel is not only normal for a song writer, but also to any creative process.

I myself got quite obsessed at some point with this question of what is "original", what is creation.

It's pretty philosophical though, on a more practical point of view the best solution is to be learn to recognize your influences in general, and start to build your own style from them. Then you'll know even if one melody resembled another it's still your song. That takes a good level of expertise to define yourself though, and is never really fixed, wich will mean the question can come back often.