Not sure if this is the right forum, but here goes.
Once in a while I come up with a melody that seems really familiar to me, like a fragment from another song, but I can't place it. I have other people listen to my melody and it doesn't sound familiar to them but I just know I've heard it somewhere before. Maybe it's like a deja vu moment or something, I don't know.

I don't want to record something that's been done before so how do I find out if there's a song out there with the same melody line? I think there's a smart phone app to help identify songs and I might try that but not sure how well that would work.

Why bother? There hasn't been an original idea in decades upon decades...

I think there's a site called Shazam that will use a database to try and identify a melody, but I haven't used it/can't vouch for it.

"every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief"
 
Words to live by.

sven450
"every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief"
 
Words to live by.

That's the refrain of my newest song!

yea its pretty hard to create something new, just a rearrangments of what has gone before, but if done the right way can still create a different animal.
 
Im pretty sure that shazam just matches the mastered released track off spotify etc with the SAME track YOU are trying to analyse. In other words, its not gonna match your piano melody line to a mastered version of the studio track in its online database. Thats my understanding of it anyway.
 
My advice: We all have a friends that have an extensive music library knowledge, throw it their way, if they don't cop it straight away, fire ahead it will be alright!
 
Cian

bjornpdx
Once in a while I come up with a melody that seems really familiar to me, like a fragment from another song, but I can't place it. I have other people listen to my melody and it doesn't sound familiar to them but I just know I've heard it somewhere before. Maybe it's like a deja vu moment or something, I don't know. 

That is the very definition of a hit song! Go with it. Unless it becomes a huge commercial success, it's unlikely anybody will ever go he's-so-fine on you.
 

I agree that everyone is influenced by someone else. I just don't want this song of mine to be so influenced that it sounds pretty darn close to another one and I don't even realize it. What's it called, subconscious plagiarism? Anyway, people are telling me the melody is unique (and it passed the Shazam test) so I think I'm good. 

"Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal." - Igor Stravinsky
 

What's it called, subconscious plagiarism? Anyway, people are telling me the melody is unique (and it passed the Shazam test) so I think I'm good.  

 
If it wasn't for this, Hans Zimmer wouldn't have a career.  #LionKing/AveVerumCorpus, #Gladiator/ThePlanets ;) 

In the Jazz world the saying is "Giants stand on the shoulders of Giants"
 
I have taught copyright a few times. Unless your melody is an excat copy of another for the whole length of the tune, note for note, timing for timing then NO you are not ripping anything off and you will not be prosecuted even if you release it.  As a composer of many jingles I have many times had to create what we call 'look alikes' where exact melodies are copied and only the slightest thing is changed to avoid any prosecution. Sad isn't it.
 
I say go right ahead and do what you want. It is more about how you personally feel in terms of creating something that might sound similar to something else that is all. But hey that is not a bad thing either. It means you are pretty good at what you are doing if you are coming up with things that are close to other great things.