How Do You Know If You Have a Truly Original Composition?

This is an issue for every songwriter. How can you tell if your song is really yours? Now it's hard to really answer the question off the bat. But there are ways to prevent you taking someone else's work and calling it your own. One thing you can do is to give it time. Once you come up with a song, record it, and then listen to it a few days later. If your song is something that you've heard before, you will be most likely to determine this if you're in a different frame of mind. Re-visiting your songs is a very good way of preventing plagiarism. Another method that works is having an audience. Get as many people to listen to your song as possible. You don't even have to have a mixed and polished version of it. Just make a rough recording that you can present to people. Get your family and friends and let them listen, and see what they say. If none of these people recognize it, then things are looking good for your original composition.

This is a problem that I've had to deal with many times. A lot of the time, I've made up songs and then realized they were too similar to an already existing piece. About a year ago, I woke up with a beautiful melody in my head. Since I was half asleep, I wasn't fully thinking. So I figured it out on the piano and went about my day. Once I came back to it, I was very disappointed. It was "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," by Elton John. This just goes to show that if you re-visit your songs in a different frame of mind, you're most likely to notice more. 

Now although plagiarism is illegal, you can still create your own music using the foundations of existing songs. If there's a song you really like, you can figure out the chord progressions. The chords are the structure behind the melody that give music it's special feeling. If you like the way a song sounds, you can figure out the chords that were used in the song. You can then play around with these chords and try to construct a new melody on top of them. You have to be careful though, because it still has to be different from the original. Listening to music is very important, because you learn a lot from it. You can be inspired by different songs. Often, what you listen to determines what kind of musical style you have in your own playing. Believe it or not, your playing is strongly influenced by what you listen to. I believe that every piece of music is inspired by something, even if we don't' realize it. 

Some artists that I listen to are The Beatles, Queen, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Wings, and other classic rock artists. Classic rock is my main kind of music I'd say. But I do enjoy other things too. I enjoy jazz, electronic, disco, orchestral, pop, and show tunes as well. I see many elements of all this music come into my own work. Songwriting is a skill, and you can only get better at it. 

A Different Approach to Songwriting

Hello everyone. In this post i'm going to explain a method of writing original music that has been useful for me. Now you may be familiar with the concept of a Ouija board. Where you put your hands on the planchette and it moves around the board, as you try to make contact with the paranormal. This technique uses a similar idea, only it's not for contacting the dead, it's for creating an original composition! All you have to do is turn on a tape recorder, and sit in front of a piano. Just begin hitting notes at random.  That's right, that's all you have to do. Now it's best not to just start banging on the piano, playing clusters of notes at once, because that'll get you nowhere. Play with form, like you normally would. Close your eyes and just move your fingers wherever you feel like. It'll sound like a huge mess at first, but as you keep going, something will come out of it. It's important not to stop though, keep going for a good few minutes. Then, listen to your recording, and listen for the good bits. It's impossible to go through this exercise without getting anything. I've found that you'll always get something.
I got this idea from the book ,The Day Metallica Came to Church. There's a part in that book where the authour gives a theory that songs are just floating in the air. All musicians have to do is reach out and grab one. That idea really amazed me and blew my mind, because in a way, it's true. Just look at all the different composers throughout the years. All the many varieties of artists. The billions of songs that exist across the globe, each one unique in its own way. Surely they don't come from nowhere. The same thing can be said about other forms of art, such as painting or writing. It's ridiculous to think that people come up with these things on their own without any spiritual help. Whether they know it or not, they're all being inspired by an energy around them. At least, that's what I believe.
I've experimented using this method and found that it's quite effective. You may not always get beautiful results, but you get results. So if you're looking for something to do, I'd highly suggest you give this technique a try. As with anything, the more you do it, the better you get at it. So try it out, you've got nothing to lose!