are you not afraid of posting your music?

You don't need to post it online. 

Marilyn Manson once "borrowed" a song from me, of course w/ no chance of him even hearing it - not the entire thing, but the chorus. Same chords, same tempo, same mood, same melody almost note for note - something I had written a few years before Mechanical Animal came out and which has been sleeping on the shelf on 1/4 tape ever since.

I forgave him because his version was just much better than mine. ;)

Nine Inch Nails also "stole" an idea I had for a movie when I was in film class. Since the teacher insisted that I should work w/ someone and form a team and since I didn't want someone else to fail because of my weird ideas, I wrote a different scenario. 

But it was pretty surprising to see my "vision" finally make it on film when I saw "Pinion" on MTV a year later.

Rain


You don't need to post it online. 

Marilyn Manson once "borrowed" a song from me, of course w/ no chance of him even hearing it - not the entire thing, but the chorus. Same chords, same tempo, same mood, same melody almost note for note - something I had written a few years before Mechanical Animal came out and which has been sleeping on the shelf on 1/4 tape ever since.

so how did he do that??? telepathy? or did he overhear you humming it...

yorolpal


Your paranoia is unfounded.  It assumes that your musical output is demonstrably "better" or more "engaging" than the other thousands of postings by every other musical wannabe on planet earth.  Not that it might not be, mind...just that the odds are pretty long.  It has been my experience that true professional music producers and creators are, for lack of a better term, not "studying you".  Or me.  There are simple self evident reasons why you (or me) is not yet an international mega star.  My advice is to learn how to live with that. YMMV.

I don't agree, everybody "study" everything and everybody when they have a chance and it has nothing to do with being better then somebody else.
It's all  about luck, being in right place in the right moment. We all know  many of pros and famous are not all that good anyway. This is not paranoia just curiosity, accidents happens more often then you think. Deep in side I'd like to write something meaningful someday, don't you?

I have a couple originals im afraid to post for fear of thm being stolen. One of them i could seripusly hear being played on the radio now WITH THE RIGHT BAND. SORRY FOR CAPS

offnote

 Deep in side I'd like to write something meaningful someday, don't you? 


I like to think I did, a few times in the last 20 or so years. Not many times, mind you, even though I'm relatively satisfied w/ other songs I've written too. But these few songs I know they are good ones - I feel lucky to have written them and I can still enjoy listening to them 10 or 15 years later, almost as if they weren't mine. That's as much as I want.


What if someone "stole" them? Honestly, I don't think this is likely to happen and I don't know how much I'd care. I didn't write any of these to make money or become someone, I wrote them because that's what I do - I write music. When one's done, it's on to the next one. 


Of course I could do w/ the money of success, but all the rest just isn't for me. I already have to deal w/ some of it via my wife, and honestly, I don't envy any of it. As long as I have a roof over my head, 3 meals a day, a couple of beers every now and then and the occasional plug-in, I'm happy sitting here and writing.


Plus, I met my wife because of my music, because she dug it. It doesn't get any better than this on the quest for meaning. ;)

Well, OTOH, I participate in a couple forums that are more instrumental/orchestral composer oriented, and at least on those forums, theft has sometimes proven a real problem (of course a couple of the contributors to those forums are much higher up on the compositional music food chain than most any of us-including moi).

offnote

I heard that once unknown JJ Cale was sitting and writing at home all for himself and his cat when "friends" stole his tapes and publish it,
then Clapton make money on his Cocaine.... When you look on youtube a lot of idiots thinks Clapton wrote that songs. 

Clapton didn't write Cocaine?! Oh well, my favorite Clapton song is I shot the Sherif, anyway... ;)

I know how I'd feel w/ myself stealing someone else's work or getting credit for something I haven't done. The other side of the coin is that I can recognize when I do good w/o recognition from the outside. 

I have many other reasons to despise idiots - thinking that Clapton wrote Cocaine is a relatively minor offense by comparison. 


Which only goes to show - if you seek meaning through public recognition, you better be prepared because fans are quite often just like those people who believe that Clapton wrote Cocaine. Having such people worship you doesn't mean crap... I'd feel dirty if I had to not only put up w/ those people but please them w/ my music.

offnote

Rain


Which only goes to show - if you seek meaning through public recognition, you better be prepared because fans are quite often just like those people who believe that Clapton wrote Cocaine. Having such people worship you doesn't mean crap... I'd feel dirty if I had to not only put up w/ those people but please them w/ my music.

of course not, as a matter of fact I m more like JJ Cale in nature and hate crowd 

For me the sign my song is good enough is that I can listen to it along with other songs.

A couple of years ago, I was going through a very dark period of my life - pretty much everything was going down hill. 


I remember one night when I finally felt the need to get out of my head and see some friends I had neglected. I dropped by unannounced and when I walked in, a bunch of friends and strangers were there, casually listening to a song I had written years before - it was just another song in a playlist squeezed in between The Cure, Killing Joke, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Joy Division and NIN and such...


That almost brought a tear to my eyes. To see people listening to MY music casually, w/o me asking "would you listen to this?" or w/o even paying that much attention to it. Man, that was powerful. 


I've had songs on the radio back home, in movie festivals in Europe, I've played for reasonably big crowds and had people sucking up to me and my band... But nothing ever made me feel like that one insignificant moment.

Rain

offnote

Rain


Which only goes to show - if you seek meaning through public recognition, you better be prepared because fans are quite often just like those people who believe that Clapton wrote Cocaine. Having such people worship you doesn't mean crap... I'd feel dirty if I had to not only put up w/ those people but please them w/ my music.

of course not, as a matter of fact I m more like JJ Cale in nature and hate crowd 

For me the sign my song is good enough is that I can listen to it along with other songs.

A couple of years ago, I was going through a very dark period of my life - pretty much everything was going down hill. 


I remember one night when I finally felt the need to get out of my head and see some friends I had neglected. I dropped by unannounced and when I walked in, a bunch of friends and strangers were there, casually listening to a song I had written years before - it was just another song in a playlist squeezed in between The Cure, Killing Joke, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Joy Division and NIN and such...


That almost brought a tear to my eyes. To see people listening to MY music casually, w/o me asking "would you listen to this?" or w/o even paying that much attention to it. Man, that was powerful. 


I've had songs on the radio back home, in movie festivals in Europe, I've played for reasonably big crowds and had people sucking up to me and my band... But nothing ever made me feel like that one insignificant moment.

I know what you mean. I once recorded a banjo version of The Ace Of Spades with a friend, for fun, and heard it in a bar one night. Apparently the CD had ended up in the jukebox. Such a buzz (the beer helped as well though). 

I may be wrong but I think any member of Th CHB would be honored if someone did rip off any part of  OUR SONGS

Unless they take my Am bass note. Then I sue the baystids.

Old55
 
 lots of people don't know that "Black Magic Woman" is composed by Peter Green and originally performed by Fleetwood Mac and not written by Santana.  

You're kidding roight?  That's one of FMs best songs...
Next you'll be telling me Status Quo know more than 3 chords.

Offnote, you can either keep your masterpieces locked up in your bedroom where no one but you and the cat will hear them or, live dangerously and get them out there where someone might make you a star.
God job (for him) Justin Beiber didn't worry about putting something on YouTube :)

Karyn

Old55
 
 lots of people don't know that "Black Magic Woman" is composed by Peter Green and originally performed by Fleetwood Mac and not written by Santana.  

You're kidding roight?  That's one of FMs best songs...
Next you'll be telling me Status Quo know more than 3 chords.

Peter Green played the Supernatural on John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers' lp titled Hard Road a few months before he formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac featuring Jeremy Spencer and in the grand tradition of the borrowing blues tunes from other guys, He borrowed the Supernatural from himself and the band turned it in to Black Magic Woman.

The Supernatural is my favorite version. :-)


best regards,
mike

I had a song once that was blatantly ripped off.  One by one, various artists began stealing from it.  In time, there was a flood of them.  I've lost track of them all.

They didn't actually steal any of the notes, lyrics, rhythms, chords, etc.  They stole the empty space in between the notes.  Imagine my surprise when I turned on the radio and heard a song that brazenly flaunted an absence of sound between its notes! 

I was stunned.  My jaw dangled, more useless than usual, as I pondered this violation of my rights.  I wondered, "What else have they stolen?"  I listened to some jazz and found, to my horror, that they featured chords I had created by accident as I tried to pound out songs on a piano.  Granted, when I played them, they were mistakes, but still! 

I tried to explain this to a punk guitarist, but he just encouraged me to lie still until the bleeding stopped and the police arrived. 

it was never your idea to begin with,plain and simple.
there are so many ideas out there .
even the beatles music was someone elses ideas with a litlle more salt and pepper to the ingridence.

i believe every song has been written before,every idea has been thought before,we just add a little something to it..flavor.

even these precious ideas you speak of being stolen.
those ideas came from a place that was created by you from listening to years and years of your favorite bands.

but to be safe i copyright everything i do and before it gets posted here or anywhere else is on its way to washington.
thats why i dont have a slew of songs on here,i can only pay for so many at a time.

the ones i post a day after writing...well those are for anyone to use.