Help: Did I really write this song?

Subject: Did I really write this song?
From: GUEST,Linda Goodman
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 05:18 PM

I wrote a song -- it just sort of came to me as I was driving along. I started singing it a while back and I am now trying to finish the words. I THINK I wrote the tune --at least a tune I think is new came to me, but it sounds old- it certainly partially uses an old pattern. My son (who wouldn't really know) says it's old.

Does anyone know if there is a way to find out if a tune is original - or just something half-forgotten? I can't just call up the Copyright office and start humming--and in any case it would be over 100 years old.

I don't plan to do anything with it except sing to friends, but I still don't want to claim it as mine if it isn't. Ever been in this situation?

Subject: RE: Help: Did I really write this song?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 05:34 PM

Hi, Linda:

Unless you're as famous as George Harrison, you're not likely to have any problems. When someone writes a song, they draw upon all the music they've ever heard, and often phrases surface from old songs without our ever realizing what they are until later. I've had that happen many times... a melody line from Oh, What A Beautiful Morning mysteriously appeared in one of the songs I wrote, and I just finished a song where parts of the melody are suspiciously similar to The Great Pretender. Unless you lift a melody completely, I don't see any problem. And if you're Bob Dylan, you can lift the tune comnpletely and not have a problem.:-)

One of the beneficial side effects of the lack of commercial viability of folk music is that you don't really need to worry much about inadvertently (or even intentionally) using a pre-existing melody. I'd just enjoy the song, sing it for friends and if they enjoy it, the song will be passed around... the greatest payment of them all. Or, you could consider changing your name to Public Domain.:-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Help: Did I really write this song?
From: C-flat
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 06:07 PM

I've lost count of the times I was half way through a song, thinking how well it's coming on and then realising I had subconsciously lifted a chord sequence belonging to an existing song from my memory.
There's a limit to the pleasing permutations available in the Western scale so I shouldn't worry too much. It's all been done before in one form or another! :-)

Subject: RE: Help: Did I really write this song?
From: harvey andrews
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 06:29 PM

I wrote a song called "Fading Voices" and the tune seemed as old as the hills. I was so sure I must have heard it before that I phoned up a few friends who are steeped in traditional music and sang it to them over the phone. Not one of them recognised it. Then I phoned Johnny Collins and sang it to him. "Do you recognise the tune John?" I asked. "No" he replied, "But I want to sing it!" He recorded it too!

Subject: RE: Help: Did I really write this song?
From: harvey andrews
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 06:31 PM

Ooops..it wasn't fading voices..it was "The Centurion"

Subject: RE: Help: Did I really write this song?
From: GUEST,Colin Manning
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 07:36 PM

As many of the people replying have said, tunes, melodies, and word patterns recurr all the time - what makes the song/tune interesting is the personal aspect - so enjoy singing it, and maybe write some more.

As an interesting anecdote, David Lindley, an American musician made a set of wonderful CDs in Madegascar, where he recorded and played with many local musicians. One of the tunes on one of the CDs (the first one I think) is some local Madagascar harpists playing a tune, hich is note for note an old Irish tune - there is no known link between Madagascarf and Irish culture - Music is a magical and spiritual thing - forget about copywright and enjoy the experience.

Regards,

Colin Manning ([e-mail])

Subject: RE: Help: Did I really write this song?
From: Genie
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 08:24 PM

A year or two ago, while driving, I started 'composing' what I thought might be a good Christmas song. The words going through my mind were something like "In the cold of winter, love is born again...". Upon doing a bit of research, I realized that I was humming and singing (with a bit of the "folk process" involved) the UU Hymnal's version of Christina Rosetti's carol "In The Bleak Midwinter!" (No wonder I thought it was a great tune!)

It never hurts to run it by other people to see if someone recognizes the melody.

Did you know, BTW, that the first four notes of "The Merry Widow Waltz" are the same as "How Dry I Am"? (I learned that from a book by, I think, Leonard Bernstein.)

Genie

Subject: RE: Help: Did I really write this song?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 09:51 PM

Fergoonessakes, a four-note sequence? That's nothing! Pure chance could and in fact is likely to bring THAT about!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Help: Did I really write this song?
From: Genie
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 10:12 PM

The point is that when you change the time signature, tempo, and other auxiliary aspects of the tune, it's often hard to recognize that you are playing the same "melody." Kind of like Meredith Willson's "76 Trombones" and "Goodnight, My Someone." I'm not sure people realize the tunes are the same until someone points it out.

Subject: RE: Help: Did I really write this song?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 24 Aug 02 - 05:35 PM

In the Whitby interview with Peta Webb last week, she pointed out that Ralph Vaughan Williams was responsible for providing the tunes for the book of hymns used in many school assemblies, and thus for imprinting traditional tunes on the minds of our generation of schoolchildren. I think this largely explains how I progressed from improvising harmonies under my breath in school assemblies to singing in folk clubs, like a duck taking to water.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Help: Did I really write this song?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 24 Aug 02 - 05:51 PM

hi folks,

i play melodeon, mostly airs, not the fast & ferocious morris dance stuff.

there's a tune called 'st. patrick's cathedral' i attempted to play one night at the queens head session in frodsham[uk]but i'd misremembered it when i learned it- so 'unnamed composition No 1' became the first 'original'tune i'd written!

Subject: RE: Help: Did I really write this song?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Aug 02 - 06:56 PM

If a tune hasn't been used by someone somewhere it's probably not much cop. Tunes fall into families, and I'm sure you can get variations which might not have cropped up before.

And you can probably work out ways of harmonising a variant on some tune in one one of the families in a way that will be different, or play it at a different speed or whatever.

But if the sequence of notes you use was really totally different from what anybody hae ever played or sung together, the betting is it would be pretty dire. (There's a few of the around too. Orginality is a guest who sneaks in while you are doing something else, and a welcome guest too - but if you go chasing after her, she'll probably lead you a wild goose chase.)