Question for music makers

[SonicKaos]

How do you keep yourself from accidently copying other peoples songs? lol. I know it's stupid, but every time I try to come up with bits of songs, all I can think about are varients of already existing songs that I know...

Tonight I sat down and spend about 30 minutes or so trying to come up with a bass line for a slower song. This was my first real attempt at creating a song too. I thought all was going well, and it was... until I realized I was unintentionally tabing part of Lazy Eye by the Silversun Pickups. Now, it's not exactly the same and my song so far has a bunch of different parts, but one of the main things I built it around is almost the exact same as their guitar....

Kind of frustrating really. I'm going to have to change it up a bit tomorrow if I'm not working again.

[CaseyCadaver]

I've been playing music since I was 12. I'm 21 now... I've been in active bands in the our local hardcore scene since I was 15. I've played every instrument besides drums...

Ripping people off happens often no matter what you're doing. Just remember to keep it at an inspiration instead of purposely just doing whats been done.

Since you're just starting out this will happen a lot until you get the feel of your instrument(s). Just practice and study scales, techniques and things like keys and modes until you find your style. Knowing what you like and knowing what you can play are two different things. I like really fast stuff with a lot of change ups. I can't always play this though... but that's why I do vocals now.

as with anything just practice practice practice... it'll come! Good luck! and if you need any tips on setting up instruments/recording songs/or just tips on a certain topic feel free to ask me. If I don't know I know someone who will!

[aggroman_]

Learn some scales so you can build different chord progressions/melodies. Once you broaden your knowledge of theory, you wont be subconciously building chord patterns that already exist. Learning theory goes a long way in expanding your musical vocabulary and gives you a lot more options when improvising or writing.

[greenlake]

the best way i've found is to ignore the similarities between what you're doing and something else. that's how influence works. over the course of working through something you're writing, a lot will change and the only person who will be able to detect that bit of influence anymore will be you. playing with other people everybody's styles, which each person thinks is a rip off of this or that, comes together to form one thing totally different from everything else. stick with a riff or whatever and you'll see how it changes.