Originality in Songwriting

Most guitarists at some point want to start writing songs, but many tend to stumble on the idea of originality. Many of them have trouble writing unique songs or even are so confused as to what “originality” actually means in songwriting will confuse standard music basics for ripping off another song. Understanding what is actually important to being original in songwriting can keep you from second guessing whether you are actually ripping someone off or not.

1) Using the Same Chord Progression is Not Copying
Using the same chord progression as another song has nothing to do with whether or not a song is original. Now if you copy the dynamics, beat, etc of it, that is a different matter, but if two songs happen to have the same progression they may still not remotely sound the same. The 12 bar blues chord progression has been used for decades by guitarists in all sorts of genres, but that doesn’t mean all those songs sound the same. The Beatles and Van Halen both have used that progression, but you won’t find many people who will confuse those two bands. Sometimes borrowing progressions from songs is a good way to get a starting point or just a good way to mess around and get some ideas. Chord progressions are such a very basic music construct, just having the same one as another song doesn’t mean it is a rip off of another song, or even that the songs sound remotely the same.

2) Scales and Techniques Aren’t Original, Unless You Directly Copy Something
There are only so many scales and guitar techniques, and some guitar phrasing is so common that becomes cliché for the entire genre, rather than any particular guitarists work. This is an easy area to second guess yourself on, but unless you write a melody that sounds exactly like another song to you and just about anyone else that hears it, it usually won’t actually be plagiarism. This, however, is the area that gets fuzziest. Most guitarists will favor a few musical constructs and techniques in their writing, which is what makes their playing sound unique. If you write a song and notice whichever techniques and musical phrases you normally use are missing, you may want to double check and make sure you are writing something original. However, unless you favor the exact same techniques and phrasing as a particular guitarist you listen to (which isn’t actually too uncommon), those are usually good signs that the part is something original to yourself.

3) Songs are the Sum of Their Parts
Unless it is a solo guitar piece, all the other instruments contribute to the song, potentially quite dramatically. There are a lot of cliché rhythm parts that get used for background, and the simpler ones can be seen in a ton of very different sounding songs. Punch lines appear in a ton of rock songs, such as “I Love Rock and Roll,” “No One Like You,” tons of Kiss songs, etc, etc. While it is the same basic rhythm pattern, and many of these songs have fairly similar chord progressions, they don’t actually sound the same. Once you add vocals, bass, drums, keyboard, etc, these songs sound very different. Some songs have simple guitar parts that get used by a ton of artists in a huge number of songs, this doesn’t mean they are being unoriginal or even influenced by one another. Rather, this just means that simpler musical concepts can fit in a large number of songs and not come off as the same. Granted if you actually copy a song, then even if it sounds different overall, it is still copying, but if not don’t second guess yourself because another song has a similar part. Unless the two songs sound identical overall, it is rather unlikely that you are being completely unoriginal, and more likely just falling back to the same musical concepts as the other guitarist did.

Keep on rockin'!