Did I accidentally rewrite a tune?

[Fred Keller]

I do that from time to time. But I had this tune stuck in my head today so I wrote it down and recorded a rough version. Give a listen and see if it rings a bell. I'd love to sign my name to it but I can't until I dispel this nagging feeling. Thanks!

[Bertram Henze]

Sounds Bavarian to me. The melody, reduced to the essentials, is a building block used in many musical pieces around the Alps. Visit the Munich Oktoberfest and you'll recognize it, probably more than once.
I can't pinpoint any example, because I can't listen to Bavarian music longer than, say, 5 minutes without anaphylactic shock; sorry to be not more helpful, but it might give you a direction where to search.

[John Kelly]

Fred, I am hearing some echoes of "Mockingbird Hill" in some of the phrases, but then so many tunes have echoes of others. You should try to write some original Scottish bagpipe tunes with the 9-note range of the chanter. Here repetitions abound! All of us who try to create our own tunes get this feeling that the new masterpiece is probably already out there under a different name.

[Bertram Henze]

All of us who try to create our own tunes get this feeling that the new masterpiece is probably already out there under a different name.

True. Tradition is a process of continuous reinvention going on all the time, and mutual quoting is a normal part of it. That's why it is so important not to think of "my tune" vs. "somebody else's tune", because it's always "everybody's tune".

[Fred Keller]

Thanks for the feedback folks. Yeah, I am usually not terribly self-conscious about whether or not something I've written sounds familiar. Given the multitude of fiddle tunes (pipe tunes, etc. etc) out there, I don't believe it's possible to avoid hearing similarities. But something about this one made me feel like I'd played or heard it before. Nevertheless, it seems to be original enough that I'm not going to worry about that any longer. Thanks again!

[John Kelly]

Fred, here are links to two famous Scottish pipe tunes, both 2/4 marches, which I have posted on my YouTube channel. The first is "Donald MacLean's Farewell to Oban" and the second is "Father John Macmillan of Barra". Now how about similarities!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojhgA...yer_detailpage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gpqvTL-FZM

[Mike Bunting]

All I can say Fred, is that it's new to me and I like it.

[Jim Garber]

It sounds similar to other waltzes but doesn't cry out to a particular one that already exists, at least to me.

[Fred Keller]

John: Beautiful tunes. I absolutely understand what you're talking about as these two remind me of yet another tune/song the title of which escapes me, though I believe it to be Irish. (EDIT: These two remind me a bit of "Sean Bhan Bhocht") I used to play quite a bit of Irish trad in days gone by and now playing mostly US old time it is intriguing to me how tunes and tune families intertwine or mitose into new, albeit related, melodies.

I've heard many folks say they all sound the same, but I'm with Joel Mabus

[Mandolin Mick]

There is one short chromatic run that seems familiar ... close but no cigar. I wouldn't worry about it. I don't know what kind of music you have designs on for your tune, but in Bluegrass there are so many overlaps and similarities in lyrics and melodies that it boggles the mind.

I don't know if you've heard this before, but in 1965 Paul McCartney woke up with a melody in his head and ran to the piano and began to play it. He then played it to the other Beatles and everybody else he knew. He was afraid that it was from some song that he heard, but nobody recognized it. He called it Scrambled Eggs. After he wrote lyrics to the melody, it became his most popular song of all ... Yesterday.

[Fred Keller]

MMick: I had heard that before but it's a good reminder. I was, naturally, more afraid I'd done the George Harrison "My Sweet Lord"/"He's So Fine" trick :D

[Mandolin Mick]

Well, if you listen to My Sweet Lord and He's So Fine back to back, I don't think it was a coincidence. Harrison was notorious for lifting things from other artists. The first line of Something (something in the way she moves) is from a James Taylor song. The piano interludes in Give Me Love are from the melody of Dylan's I Want You. The lyrics to The Inner Light and While My Guitar Gently Weeps are based on things he found in books. The chorus of Ring Out the Old comes from words on his fireplace. I could go on ...

[journeybear]

It doesn't sound exactly like anything I've heard, though it has echoes of this and that. I think the main thing is whether you are happy with it, and feel it is your own. If someday later on someone points out an undeniable similarity to some previously written song - well, so it goes. If it turns out to be a well-known song you have somehow never heard, and the publisher wants to take you to court - look, that is highly unlikely for most of us. If George Harrison hadn't been so famous and "My Sweet Lord" hadn't been such a big hit and the publisher who owned the rights to "He's So Fine" hadn't seen an opportunity to make some serious bucks, nothing would have come of it. I forget what the criteria for determining plagiarism is, but it's less than you might think. Just a few years ago Men At Work got taken to the cleaners by the writer of "Waltzing Matilda" because one of the flute interludes in "Down Under" - just a couple of bars long - was deemed too similar.

My problem is plagiarizing myself. I have been known to repeat lyrical and musical phrases on occasion, and take pains to change them when I catch myself. I have also written some songs that later on seemed eerily similar to other artists', as I discovered when I listened to some Ten Years After some ten years after the last time I had (sounds funny, but I'm serious). The riffs to a couple of songs could have fit onto one of their albums, they were that close. I guess I had spent so much time listening to them back in the day the grooves got worn into my mind. My biggest worry, though, was writing a song called "Putting All My Eggs In One Basket," and years later hearing the Ella Fitgerald chestnut by the same name on the radio, and about falling out of my chair. There was even some other lyrical similarity. (Not a bit of musical similarity, though.) I believe (hopefully correctly) that plagiarism laws are tighter about musical than lyrical content, but I would not be happy if this ever becomes an issue. I will swear on a stack of Joy Of Cookings that I wrote my song completely oblivious of the other song, if it helps me any, and I am absolutely confident this is true, but it is really, truly strange that this happened.

On the other hand, there are those who aver there are only so many ways notes and chords and words can be arranged, and some songs are just going to end up being similar. During the Tin Pan Alley era songwriters worked really hard to find a balance between the familiar and the new, and found countless ways to make little changes in the I-VI7-II7-V7 circle of fifths songs so popular at the time. The same thing happened again during the doo-wop era, when so many songs were written with the I-VIm-IV-V progression. For the last decade the airwaves have been flooded witrh songs built on the I-V-VIm-IV progression. Yet there must be enough differences among these songs that the writers aren't battling in court. At least I haven't heard that's the case.

Bottom line is, enjoy the song you wrote. Call it what you will. Run with it. If some day someone wants to take you to task, deal with it then. Indeed, look on it as a sort of accomplishment, even a compliment, if someone thinks what you have is worth a tussle. Beats the heck out of obscurity!

[Fred Keller]

Thanks Journeybear. I am happy with it. I'm pleased as punch to be proven wrong. I've been humming this ditty for almost two days now. Gotta come up with a catchy name and really learn to play it.

I truly understand about the spontaneous regeneration notion. There is a famous incident of Stephen King writing a story called the Running Man which is an accidental re-write of an older Robert Sheckley story called The Prize of Peril. So it happens all the time. I have, btw, written Cherokee Shuffle at least twice LOL.

[Bertram Henze]

Back in the 80's, I had a reel in my head which was somehow familiar but refused to identify, so I called it my own and recorded it much later: it is the first one in this set. Afterwards, I found out why it had seemed so familiar: the A part is full of phrases of this mandolin piece.
However, Mike Oldfield hasn't called yet

I see myself not so much as a composer; I'm more of a tune integrator.