PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting Plagarism or Inspiration?

As an off topic springing from the "Quoting a line from another song, are there copyright issues?" discussion elsewhere in this forum, I decided to share the inspiration (?) of my latest project and where I've taken the various elements to create a jam that I hope to complete a new and original (?) song.

I have now decided this jam may be more beneficial as a discussion and learning/sharing tool than as a User Showcase/Soundcloud original release.

This jam is a culmination of songwriting influences for me that I've derived over a period of many years and culled from interviews and videos in which artists and songwriters I admire have shared their inspiration for song ideas in general and specific influences they had to create huge hits. To name a few, but nowhere complete list of artists that I draw inspiration for creative ways to generate ideas for new songs from are, Lennon/McCartney (primarily McCartney), Rick Nelson (Primarily Garden Party), Mac Davis (Primarily Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me), Craig fuller and George Ed Powell (Pure Prairie League), The Goshorn Brothers (Pure Prairie League) and Vince Gill (PPL & solo). There is a host of others where I learned to look toward the mundane things I encounter daily such as signs, church bulletins, menus, play lists, TV or movie guides, poems, postings and similar articles. Lists, guides and bulletins have seemed to be particularly inspirational to successful commercial artists and some huge hits have been sourced as the original ideas coming from these places. I've noted "Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite" from the Beatles, but Ringo also provided quips for their hits Eight Days a week and A Hard Days Night. I cannot recall the song at the moment but there's a Rod Stewart hit that came from Rod and another Band mate, looking out of the studio window during a break, watching another band mate who was married, cheating with a studio singer in the parking lot as they watched from above and they wrote that event into one of his hits, written and recorded that day. One of my favorite originals is a song I wrote from the list on Tom Adams web page of his song titles. Tom is credited as a co-writer and also properly recorded the song from my demo. The song practically wrote itself with me only arranging the titles into different order from the list if needed. Mac Davis was not having much success for a period generating much song output and his music supervisor told him to write something with a hook to it, Mac turned that phrase into Baby don't get hooked on me.

With that background, I've decided to share the origin of various elements that I used to create a jam demo and to replay it repeatedly as possible inspiration for a song idea or theme I have in mind to "make a song using a commercial oldies hit, as the vehicle to get the girl to dance to her 'favorite' song (the Oldie) and in turn, to win the girl's heart." I did not start out with how to "write that song" idea in mind. Here is how it developed, from no idea for writing a song at all to that song content idea and where I'm at today with the idea development.

I was watching a YouTube video of the video author demonstrating how to get realistic guitar sounds from a VST. He did a great job creating some very realistic samples.

I downloaded some audio clips I liked that he generated with the VST in the video. One sounded similar to the riff from Extreme's "More Than Words" that I like a lot.

I opened BIAB and then processed and imported the 4 bar audio sample with the ACW into a new BIAB project.

I used the chords the ACW analyzed for the four bar audio sample. I did change the fourth bar from just the chord to modify it with a stop and used F5 to unmute the drums so the drums in the song begin on the fourth bar with a fill for the verse starting at bar 5.

I randomly chose to input 8 bars of I|VI|IV|V progression G,Bm,C,D for a total of 12 bars - 4 bar intro mixed with the audio sample and 8 verse with BIAB Style.

I modified bar 14 and 16 from Bm - D to Em and EM... to transition into a 2nd chorus

The 2nd chorus tagged to bar 17 and played 16 bars of G|EM|C|EM to bar 33 Song Ending G... I also reduced the tempo the last three bars.

This provided me a 36 bar, 1:55 minute song for me to select a style and to audition the audio sample with, hopefully, a BIAB style that matched the audio sample in a musically pleasing way.

Everything is still random at this point of the project. I'm just playing around and there's no song ideas running through my mind.

Based on ACW analysis of the audio sample, I audition BIAB Styles using 4/4 ev16 100bpm in D. After several minutes auditioning through the Styles, I quickly come across _SERENE.STY and select that BIAB Style.

I like what I'm hearing and my mind quickly associates the verse chord progression with a familiar song that uses that Progression, "May I" by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs.

I go to YouTube and listen to the original "May I" and summarize the lyrical intent of the song. From the song lyrics, I develop the 'theme' I listed above for my song in BIAB.

I return to BIAB and the project. Now based of the lyrics of the original "May I" and using the unique and unrelated audio sample intro, begin the process of creating an original song.

The audio sample is obvious plagiarism and should not make it to publishing without proper authorization and permission. But what about the song as a whole? It did not originate to copy or rely on "May I" to be a song. I think it is entirely acceptable to reference the song "May I" and use some of it's lyrics to create a song where the girl I'm trying to win the heart of, has "May I" her favorite song so it is natural to use that song playing as a vehicle to start the conversation and dance that I'm hoping leads to romance. Great song idea to me.

I would love to hear others analysis and thoughts of my process that I used to give rise to my song.


Here's a link to the jam I created.


"May I" Jam


LOL, It's already gotten a play and positive comment up on SoundCloud!!!

I read you procedure several times...
But all I hear is a musical bed with no plagiarisms that would cause legal problems (IMHO)...
However, another idea came to me...
Since we have a lot of wonderful songwriters on this forum...
I wonder how many different original songs could be written based on your musical bed?
No changes to the bed...
Just different melodies, vocals, & icings on the cake...
Perhaps, it would make a great challenge!

Good idea Jim. But for me, as a jam, and less than two minutes long, it's not a complete arrangement yet. It would be fun and challenging to see it also turned into a complete arrangement.

That's not plagiarism. Taking a sample and using it to create a progression is totally legit. Using that progression to then build a song is called "original music".

Imagine if the 1-4-5 rock and roll progression was considered plagiarism or copyright infringement.

I've had people say that some of the stuff I have written and recorded sounds like such and such song. When I went to listen to that song they mentioned, it wasn't even close.

Actually it seems like your short jam has all the elements for a complete song...
A little splicing here & there should do it...
That's one of the reasons I like short songs...
Once the basic elements are in place...
You can easily make a complete song

While grateful for the in depth analysis, it is still over my head to imagine how you could achieve such results. Judging only from what I can hear, it is a powerful little ditty eager to be put to words.

What a great experiment Charlie! The result turned out quite well too!

That would be interesting to see!