Original music?

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 04:23 PM

Joe, you're reminding me of when Aly Bain turned to Phil Cunningham during a concert given by the duo,and said, rather disparagingly, " Phil, that was so fast, only dogs could hear it"! Do you sing that high?

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 03:09 AM

I get tunes in my head all the time. I put words to them and sing them to my dogs. The dogs seem to be highly entertained, but that may be because they always get a treat when I sing to them.

Anyhow, I forget the songs as soon as I sing them once, and I suspect that may be a good thing.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: Mr Red
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 02:58 AM

The problem with arriving at an age where your song count is respectably high, is that you have said a lot of what is in you and you start repeating yourself. aka copying yourself. Add to that you have more life experience and that brings with it a more balanced opinion.

Tom Lehrer admitted as much re the balanced opinions with age. The quip about satire being dead when Henry Kissinger got the Nobel Peace Prize in an oblique way supported that argument.

As I always point out, a lot of creativity comes when big changes come in your life. Like divorce. It leaves a hold in your mind and you fill it with other things. Creative people use creativity.

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 08:14 PM

Yeah, I feel like not sounding like a rip-off is important to consider to an extent but I feel it's more important to not stifle the creative process. I feel like if you can be to cautious in the creative process if sounding original becomes a goal. I feel like it's better to just write and "let the critics decide" later.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6CY4TuT73fg

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 02:24 PM

Over the years I have done a fair bit of songwriting and, unless I am parodying a well-known song, I would try to write an original tune for my song. Apart from that, I have written a number of tunes (songs without words for those on iTunes!).
I am pretty self-critical, but might ask a musically knowledgeable friend or 2 to listen to my "original tune" to check that I am not plagiarising someone else's tune, even if that person has been dead for a couple of hundred years, and their tune is out of copyright: not that I do any of this for commercial gain!
It can be relatively easy to change a tune by altering a few notes or "inverting" or "reversing" it, e.g. Instead of writing a phrase like ABCEDAB you write EDCABED (inversion) or BADECBA (reversion)

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 11:00 AM

Liam,

You ought to send a note to [e-mail] and become a regular member. It will make navigating the site a little easier because you can send personal messages (PM) to members, etc.

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: leeneia
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 10:43 AM

To answer your question, Liam, I am a Mudcatter and I occasionally compose music. Once there was a poem here called 'The Groves of Boho', and I liked it and set it to music.

Once a dance leader posted, asking for a jig with only six measures in each part, instead of eight, so I wrote one for him.

Once a father posted, asking for 'I Saw Three Ships' converted to a jig, so his daughters could do Irish dancing to it. I obliged him.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning, and going through my head there is a musical theme which my brain composed in the night. When that happens, I go straight to my MIDI program and write it down. What I will do with these themes, I do not know.
===============
I liked your original song.

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 06:06 AM

It was easier getting excited about writing original songs when I was 18 in a new wave / punk band.
I'd only heard a mere few thousand songs to be 'inspired' by...

40 years later, after hearing tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of other, newer, artists songs in all diverse genres;
I can't start writing anything without it seconds later reminding me of something else much better...

All my efforts get quickly rejected and abandoned...
I'm an very stern self critic.

It's 20 years since I last completed a song that I was satisfied didn't sound too much like any other,
but it still got stored in a notebook and forgotten, because i thought it was too dull...

...thank f@ck for trad folk...!!!

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: Mr Red
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 03:49 AM

Another problem is whatever you sing, someone will relate it to this song or that and if you sat them side by side they would be distinctly different. The recognition might be words, riffs &/or subject matter.

But in their mind .................

I always refer back to my song about dog poo. There is one about "Emptying dogs out down our street"

But when I sing mine about "Pure Finding" they think I am being derivative, or wasting my time doing the same subject. The fact that the song is a humorous take on the Victorian trade of collecting poo and selling it is a nuance lost on some "Folkies" (of all people). Despite a pre-amble to set out the scenario. And an educational aspect in many cases.

FWIW it was still used in the 1950's, now largely replaced by bird guano. Which itself is still used in Morocco to soften leather after tanning & dyeing. Keeping pigeons for the purpose is an income stream.

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: GUEST,liamsimpson1994
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 01:58 AM

Fair point Al


I've heard it somewhere said that the only way to be truly original is to rip off more artists than anyone else.

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 01:04 AM

no I'm very derivative.

As the late Derek Brimstone used to say:-

If I should die, think only this of me...
There is some corner of a foreign field, where lies..
......a plagiarist.

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 12:33 AM

Joe,

Thank you for the tip, I wouldn't want to step on any toes.

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jan 18 - 09:21 PM

Hi, Liam -
I have no idea what the above post from Gargoyle means, but somehow he has become an institution here.

It's fine to post YouTube links to songs you've recorded, but please be sparing in the number of threads you start - it's better to post links in new messages in existing threads. You can find your previous posts by clicking on your name in any post you've made. To find threads by thread name, you can use our Filter box at the top of the list of threads on our Forum Menu page.

-Joe Offer- Mudcat Music Editor-

Subject: RE: Original music?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jan 18 - 08:16 PM

Do you intend, instead?

pagina oficial da tia do funk!! aqui vocÊ que É titia vai poder ficar ligada como anda minha carreira.

Something is lost in cross translation.

Sincerely,

Subject: Original music?
From: GUEST,Liamsimpson1994
Date: 07 Jan 18 - 06:04 PM

Anyone else on here making original music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTk3_1rnX9Q