Seeing the "lifting lyrics" thread reminded me of something that nags at me from time-to-time.

As a songwriter, sometimes I try to develop a song that has a known 'feel' - that is a melody and perhaps lyric that sounds like a known style. Also, as a songwriter, I carry around with me, over months at a time, bits of melody that I am fooling with - working on, kicking around - you know, not something I intend to use (as is) - but like to kick around and experiment with - something that usually forms the base of a new melody that one day I will craft.

Anyway - sometimes when I choose to create a melody for a song, and use a known style, I am bothered by, "Is this something I've heard before? Is this something like the melody lines I've played with? Or is this something brand new?"

Well, when a genre uses a particluar scale, set of known chords and numbers of bars per verse/chorus - as a familiar patern - you greatly reduce your chance of truly being unique with a new melody - and increase the liklihood of reusing common phrases within a melody - I take it as a compliment when I know a melody is quite unique - but people say it sounds familiar.

The trouble is, I carry so many bits of old melodies, my own and those I've heard for years ... I don;t always know what's what - fer sure.

Ya know what I mean??