How NOT To Copy Other Peoples' Music

hello everybody now a question which crops up quite a lot is how do you avoid subconsciously particularly copying somebody else's music well i have some advice there's no one magic solution to this but i've got three reasons why it happens and seven things you can do to prevent it and if that's your idea of fun then stick with us and even think of subscribing right the reason it happens the most obvious one is you do it deliberately you kind of quite like somebody's track and you're gonna do something similar or you're working on a film or a game or something like that and they've used a temp track which is a piece of commercial music they can't clear um but they're just using the edit and they say do you think you know we've got star wars in the edit could you possibly just write something similar to that don't do it don't go there okay this is the easiest one to avoid it's deliberate so deliberately don't do it yeah okay now the next two how does it happen that you write something subconsciously that is absorbed into your head and it just comes back out through your fingers and gets you into trouble okay um i've got two takes on this one is an effect which has been noticed in psychology much studied called the mere exposure effect this is based on the work of robert zionk back in the 60s and 70s where what he noticed was okay the essence of it is that if you're exposed to something a picture a sound whatever particularly sort of fairly subliminally or you know so it doesn't really register on your brain when you're then given a choice of a whole load of things later whole load of pictures or whatever you're likely to favor the one you have previously been exposed to do you see what i mean so the fact that you don't even remember seeing this happy smiling face out of a group of pictures you get oh that person looks really nice i'm going to choose that one okay that's how it now fast forward to the world of music okay so you're listening to music all day long it's going whizzing into your brain from all possible places then you sit down to write a tune all these things are sort of bubbling away in the back of your wrap because we're not we're never writing a completely original tune it is always on the shoulders of giants we're always you know programmed to some degree by what we've heard before okay so you don't remember this piece of music but you're like most people when they're writing tunes trying lots of options okay so you might have dozens of different little motifs you're playing with and then one of them just stands out as being better than the others this is the mere exposure effect saying you've heard this one before so choose that one you don't know that that's what's happening but that's what's happening so the mere exposure effect um i think um explains to some degree how we accidentally end up more likely to copy somebody else's piece of music we've been exposed to before than choosing the completely original piece of music which we just written ourselves go figure okay um the other reason i think these things happen um and there's a really good logic to this is um it's the kind of musical equivalent of convergent evolution convergent evolution is where uh different creatures arrive at the same solution to the same problem dolphins and fishes for example okay they're marine uh animals they need to get around so they develop fins and flippers and all that kind of thing which look very similar to one another if you look at a shark and look at a dolphin they don't look that different but they have totally different evolution uh journeys to the same place birds and bats okay same idea convergent evolution presented with a problem there are only so many logical solutions to it and there's probably one best solution to it fast forward to the world of music you might have a particular chord progression you know that with the much hack need one five six four or something although there are people say oh there's only so many notes you know actually by the time you know you factor in uh all the sort of rhythmic variation and everything else there's an almost infinite variety of different tunes you can write but people tend to gravitate towards certain chord progressions certain phrases certain things like this and there will be a best solution and the best solution has probably been thought of before so convergent evolution will lead you down the same track as some musician previously and potentially lead you into trouble this is what i mean about convergent evolution so here we have my keyboard if you okay if you start with a a chord progression let's go um this one which is quite popular in superhero world so you start on a c you go to an a flat and then you go to an f okay that those three chords crop up a lot in movies for example so you go here was here's one c so then you're going to what is it it's it's a median relationship to a flat um and then you go down another medium relation down to it okay now if you're going to write a tune to go with that it's okay so we start on c and you want it to be superheroes it's going to be up and so that's often involving a rising fifth or a rising sixth or a fourth [Music] already you're starting to sound like other stuff so in order to make it sound good you get oh yeah but will it we like this chord progression because these the the this relationship of thirds has got a kind of interesting it's sort of it feels nice and logical but it also feels slightly different and if you go to the third one it feel it gets you to a nice place and then you're back to the beginning so you can see how that kind of chord progression works well but then you are limited in you know if you're going to go for a particular feeling in this case you know i'm an uplifting hero it's going to have the rising sort of horn call type thing [Music] so before you know it without really meaning to you can end up coming up to a very similar solution let me give you another example okay let's take a start on g minor [Music] if you're playing a tune you know the very it's not the rules of tune writing because there's no such thing really in a way but what most people will do is they will see uh you know the viable tones available to them if they're writing a tune which is in g minor obviously g b flat and d and then you can pass through a and c and then you're going to change to say a c major chord where you're going to go next you're going up and it's going to lead you to the e so anybody writing and then going to c is likely to go to the same place because there's a logic to the r to the way in which we write music and um sometimes in order to be original and not to fall into the trap of sounding like other people you have to push back against that and find a way of finding an alternative way of speaking uh you know when there's an obvious solution you've got to try and not get sucked into that there you go okay clever of course what can you do about it okay there is no one-stop shop there is no ha ha get out of jail free this is a very difficult problem if it wasn't a difficult problem famous songwriters and composers will not be getting into trouble like this all the time um but there are some things you can do which will reduce the risk of this happening there is a sort of technology it wouldn't be nice if there was a sort of global database of every melody ever written there sort of is and it won't surprise you to learn it comes from google if you go into the google app on your phone and press the microphone button and go what piece of music is this sorry i wasn't able to recognize this song try again dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum [Music] darth vader's theme it's not perfect though and the trouble one of the problems is that a lot of what you'll do when you come to um accidentally copy somebody else's music is you won't copy the whole thing you'll just copy a little phrase which will just insert itself into your tune or it won't be literal but it'll be close enough to give you a problem so google is making a great thread you know strides forward in this and that's great but it's not going to get you out of trouble so we have to look for something else the best solution is a human solution actually some people are particularly good at identifying pieces of music which are familiar from other settings and when you find people who are good at that make sure you use them and hold on to them so if somebody one says but you've got to give them the freedom to do they say that sounds a little bit like uh ed sheeran or john williams or whatever um and it turns out they're right run your tunes past them say does this remind you of anything but make you know make you got to give them the freedom to do that because a lot of people um will stand back from uh saying your music sounds exactly like han zimmer or you've just ripped off somebody's tune people love to do this but it's also kind of so but people who are able to do this uh really accurately are worth their weight in gold i have a person who i trust for this job and uh his name is brad and he's my assistant and so if i have that i'm not sure what about this i'll play the tune to brad and brad knows he can say look you've just rewritten the hunger games this is how it works right i've got a tune and i need to know if it's completely original or whether i've heard it somewhere else i've got my assistant brad on the other end of the video say hello brad hello that's it right i just want to run this little tune pass and you tell me if it sounds familiar at all how does that sound does that sound like anything you've heard before i don't think so 100 original brilliant right we'll just go straight into production then thanks very much well brad can't be right every single time but no i mean in all seriousness um i think uh a good human uh person to rely on is probably the best solution um but you can help yourself um by putting the tune you've written into a whole range of different contexts in other words you might have written a tune which is in a major key quite fast try playing it back in a minor key try being playing it back slower try playing it as a swung try playing it without any chordal accompaniment put it in different contexts and it might reveal a similarity that was not obvious before because sometimes what you've done is you've rewritten a tune at double time or you've rewritten a minor tune in a major key and so then you'll go oh i know what that is and then you're in business okay so like this really re-expressing an idea a musical idea um faster slower major minor so for example we just had my epic tube which brad had never heard before which goes okay if we slow it down [Music] and maybe move it into a minor key [Music] suddenly it starts to sound more familiar [Music] so if just because you're going i don't know um [Music] it doesn't immediately sound like [Music] peppa pig etc i'm gonna get so many copyright strikes for this video which is ironic because the video is about not in breaching other people's copyright i'm sorry okay i'm genuinely sorry all this in part relies on that little voice in your head saying something's not quite right something's not quite right and it's a balancing act because on the one hand you need to listen to that little voice but on the other hand you can't let it totally stop you writing music um so you need to set the little voice to one side but keep but give yourself a bit of space to listen to it when it's necessary so write the tune write the tune but then don't rush into the commercial exploitation of the tune by sticking it up on spotify sticking into the film instantly because normally my experience is another tip give yourself time given a week or two often you suddenly wake up in the night go i know what that is i know i know what i did i know i know what i've done now that's fine because then you can change it however if it's already all over spotify radio one or uh the main titles of a new tv show it's too late so give yourself you know when you're writing tunes try and give yourself a bit of time for them to sink in and for you to assimilate them with other stuff which might be out there and to take a wide view and with your friends and trusted uh confidence as to other people who may think uh yeah yeah that's the one okay um there's a another basic principle at play here and it sort of reflects back to the convergent evolution thing and that is the simpler this the motif or tune um and the more obvious the chord progression the more likely the tune is to be drawing on a tune which has already been written or to be because you're coming to the same conclu conclusion um if if you're using hackneyed chord progression one five six four or one of those it's going to limit your range of melodic choices and that in turn will push you ever closer there's only so many solutions to the you know a chord progression which needs a melody is a problem which needs a solution and the solution there are only so many solutions to this problem that going to work and there's going to be as we're saying before there's going to be some solutions which work better than others and if you're you come to the same conclusion simple things mean fewer choices mean greater likelihood of plagiarism basically um and don't be aware of your own ability to plagiarize yourself as well because sometimes and you hear this a lot um composers and songwriters will essentially reinvent something they've done before without realizing it so they'll plagiarize their own music now this is not always a serious thing if you're an artist a commercial artist that's not the end of the world if however your um composer doing an advert or something and that tune was commissioned by shell or something then you're in trouble because they own it so self-plagiarization can be a real problem as well um there is one pretty reliable way of sort of avoiding some of this and well it slightly limits your creative choices and that is you start with a piece of inspiration that is a piece of music that is out of copyright the copyright and a piece of music the duration varies around the world but normally it lasts until 70 years after the death of the last living uh creative contributor so if there's two people wrote a song oscillating hammerstein or something the last of them to die plus 70 years that is the lifetime of copyright now if somebody writes something when they're 20 they die when they're 90 you can see that copyright goes on for a long long long time however you know if you're if you go back if you're just taking the basis of the motif the basis of the theme and you go back to classical and folk tunes folk tunes you see a lot of folk tunes are out of of copyright um you can use something like this and this is in itself i think out of print but it's a wonderful book of it's a dictionary of musical themes and it sort of organizes them pitch by pitch and there's just one theme after another in here and the vast majority of them are out of pocket but you need to check that obviously but you can use a phrase like that as the inspiration for your tune and document the fact that that's where it came and it can help it can help i mean because what one of the ways people defend themselves against um claims of infringement copyright is to try and find a tune which predates both your tune and the person who's suing you which is out of copyright so i've written a tune oh my lord it sounds exactly like star wars and john williams says that's my tune or whatever and he said no it's not it's the opening movement of um beethoven's whatever actually on that subject um this kind of problem i'll leave you this one thought this kind of problem happens to everyone um and i would merely point you in the direction of listen to the opening of star wars and then go and listen to a film score called king's realm and there is a similarity between the two i say no more than that but look i hope you found this useful um don't let it stop you writing music you know it's it's better to write something great than not and yes there is you know always the risk that you're accidentally going to plagiarize somebody else but if you go through these steps and don't get too paranoid about it you know you should be able to write great music of your own which then somebody else will plagiarize and you can see them look i hope you found this useful um as ever there's um you know all kinds of useful stuff to download underneath this video and um we've got lots and lots of interesting stuff along these lines uh for you to learn on thinkspaceeducation.com which is where i hang out actually i live there i live in this little box on the website i never go anywhere else this is all virtual reality and i live in the think space education website producing fantastic educational materials for people like you so whether you want to learn to write music want to learn about music business you've got a master's degree in that you want to learn about film scoring we do master's degrees and that short courses in that and yeah it's all great so why don't you come over see you soon bye

Channel: Guy Michelmore

Views: 61,175

Rating: 4.9621778 out of 5

Keywords: thinkspace, education, music, film, scoring, games, television, composition, composer, guy michelmore, guy, michelmore, thinkspace education, Music Education, copyright, copyright music, Music Business

Id: F2z2IGi_OUs

Length: 21min 4sec (1264 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 30 2021