Sometimes I feel like every song has been written

airamitsukifan

New member
I've been trying to write songs for 6 months, I try to create songs with strong melodic and rhythmical hooks, catchphrases, but it sounds too much like I'm ripping off this or that song.

I know that the idea the every possible song has been written sounds ludicrous, because there is new music being released everyday. If you do a permutation you'll see that the number of ways in which you can combine notes, harmonies, structures etc. is so big that we will possibly never run out of new music. Not all of these combinations would be pleasant to hear, so if you discount the combinations that don't work it's still a HUGE number, but think about how many songs have been released, say, in the past 100 years. Chances are a lot of the melodies, chord progressions etc. of recent songs are too similar to already existing songs. The same melodies and rhythms are constantly re-hashed to create something "new".

I really want to write something unique, but maybe this is the reason why I'm struggling with writer's block. Is this common with beginners?
 
I don't think you're alone at all, just remember that music is a lot more than just chords and melodies. Many famous musicians and vocalists developed a trademark sound, their chords and melodies aren't anything new or different, it's the way their vocals are processed, or the guitar tone, or the incorporation of some weird synth...
 
I created poetry and literature when I was younger and it made me realise that nobody can tell the same story twice on the same way if he doesn't learn it by memorising. Its not even about the content of your words but more on the way you use them. I speak five languages and English is just one of them. I learned the power of pronunciation from the ring announcer of the wwf. Howard Finkel is his name and he pronounced those names so beatifull that I started to immitate him while I didn't master the English language becuz I am from Holland. So my point is that you shouldn't see this in mathematics but believe that the words we are conditioned to carry their spirits based on the collective use and misuse of dem words. You can play with that and start pronouncing dem words differently based on your flow. Like saying negus instead of niggers. Did you also feel it ? The last one came out as a hilbilly repubplican-no-matter-what racist type of guy. When i start about the works of Karl Marx I know allready where the discussion will lead us. People that have corrupted his ideology to mix it with opression while Karl Marx has not even lived in the same timeline as criminals like Stalin. So I must do the clean-up for corrupt communist leaders in history. You notice with words like communist or muslim even using the word gets a reaction. So if you pronounce terrorist on an other way than George W Bush was doing than thats a plus for you. That axample of how Bush is pronouncing the word is exactly what i mean. His spirit is now interlocked in a words collective memory by letting that freak say it so many times with that smoothly chosen breakbeat/beatbox type of cut
 
"There's nothing new under the sun"
In a general sense that is the truth, but at the same time
no two things are alike, specifically. Everything is a mixture or a derivative of another.
The trick is however, to find that balance between "inspired by" and extra modifications.
"Great artists steal" which is very true. The key is to steal from many. If you steal from one person/entity, it becomes a carbon copy.
So don't feel ashamed if something you're writing is similar, but instead, try to combine and experiment with your inspiration to create a
new, unique, variation of the same general idea.
 
Yes they probably written but don't ever forget,

It's not that lyrics or notes carrying the music nowadays. It's all about production and we possibly will never run out of VSTs and instruments. It just depends on where you looking at the topic. You can just use an acoustic guitar or you can mix it with some synths, distortion, some reverse reverb effects. The possibilities are limitless.
 
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