Discuss whatever you want about being original in music, whether it be other's work or your own. Here's an interesting article I found: [http://www.cyberfret.com/misc-wisdom/originality/index.php]

To get things moving: In my personal experience, I find it hard to be creative. Each time, all I want is to write something new and fresh, but I rarely come up with the ideas I want. What do you guys think? Aren't you afraid that somebody else has already written the same song before you were able to? And what's the point of composing if everything has already been said and done?

It took me a while, but I found the related topic I was looking for. It's kind of similar, but different enough to deserve a new thread, I hope! [http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?showtopic=699]

Originally posted by Nicolas Slonimsky
John Stuart Mill once wrote: "I was seriously tormented by the thought of the exaustibility of musical combinations. The octave consists only of five tones and two semitones, which can be put together in only a limited number of ways of which but a small proportion are beautiful: most of these, it seemed to me, must have been already discovered, and there could not be room for a long succession of Mozarts and Webers to strike out, as these have done, entirely new surpassing rich veins of musical beauty. This anxiety, may, perhaps, be thought to resemble that of the philosophers of Laputa, who feared lest the sun be burnt out."

The fears of John Stuart Mill are unjustified. There are 479,001,600 possible combinations of the 12 tones of the chromatic scale. With rhythmic variety added to the unbounded universe of melodic patters, there is no likelihood that new music will die of internal starvation in the next 1000 years.

-Nicolas Slonimsky

The instrument used to express music also can have a great bearing on originality. The synthesizer for example can produce radical pitch bends, slurs, complete control of dynamics, including infinite sustain (among many other cool things) and nearly an unlimited variety in timbre. Conlon Nancarrow's work for the player piano included things not humanly possible to perform, including super fast sections, extremely precise polyrhythmic structures, huge harmonies, and counter-point. Music is not be limited simply by what is possible to play on standard instruments; we must expand our minds beyond these limitations.

Jazz musicians have been playing the same songs for over 40 years and still reinvent old ideas. How do they do this? It is something like a classical instrumentalist playing a work by a great composer. A feature of virtuoso performers is often their ability to add something to the composer's work. While keeping a keen sense of the original intent, the performer adds their own personality. A jazz musician is similar, only he/she becomes a co-composer in a sense by improvising over the original piece.

more later.. :heh:

Believe it or not, I have a HUGE fear of me copying other composers. Of me making something already made. After all, there are thousands and thousands of songs. I even noticed that in my second compositions, it sounded a bit like To Zanarkand for the left hand, only progessing upwards not downwards in a different set of notes.

And my second part of it was like some weird Chinese song Xaijon gave me, for 3 notes, though they weren't exactly in the same beat. And my style is like Yuki Kajira. The songs are completely different, yet similiarity can be found

Yes, I'm quite nervous about it, but I do so anyways. I suppose there will always be some influence in a song to another song, some link. Because we gather our ideas from different sources and ideas. For me being creative, it starts by me playing random notes on my piano. But what if they aren't random notes? What if I am subconsciously copying an author? I don't know, but....that's what I fear, hehe.

I hear so much music in a single day - the thing that I'm most worried about is whether the tunes are really mine or just something that I heard which I've forgotten the origins of. Often tunes will pop up in my head days after I originally heard them.

Originally posted by Nightmare@Nov 25 2004, 02:03 AM
And my style is like Yuki Kajira.
Indeed, that was the first thing that struck me when I heard your compositions.

On another note, Nobuo Uematsu says in mostly all interviews that his inspiration came from Elton John, and he bases his work on already existing songs, but uses the famous 'nobuo-touch' to make them original.

Yeah, I am always afraid that I'm copying someone else because my melodies always sound so familiar to me.

But I'm not worried about being a pioneer or super inventive. I think the way is sufficiently paved. I'll just flow on passed traditions and styles.

First of all (uh-oh, i may start ranting), I believe that if you compose something yourself, then another person can't say they composed that before you did if you just happen to meet them playing the same song. Second (i'm definitely ranting) :ranting: , there are millions of chord progressions, and for each chord progression, there is a more complicated one (like pi. there are only 10 different numbers in it, yet it never gets to being a pattern), and for each more complicated one, there is a great number of reversals and switches you can perform on it to create a song. THIRDLY!!!! :ranting: :ranting: :ranting: every day the vision and perception of beauty changes! Think... it was taboo to expose your ankles, pierce any part of your body, wear color (okay, maybe not that far). What is taboo now? Some people think belly button piercings are cool and tatoos that say "i love mom" are beautiful. My point is that no matter what some guy says that "only 59284 of these sound cool" will never be right, because there will always be a different opinion about beauty (so you'll never ever run out of people to please and ways to please them). Whew :heh: glad to get that out of my system :sick: