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As a hobbyist song writer I think about this subject often. There's also "accidental plagiarism". There are tens if not hundreds of millions of songs out there

As a hobbyist song writer I think about this subject often. There's also "accidental plagiarism". There are tens if not hundreds of millions of songs out there with melodies composed of only 12 distinct tones. And there's no way to check if that melody you just came up with doesn't exist already. In fact, chances are it does. Paul Mccartney said during one interview that when he wrote the melody of "Yesterday", he wasn't sure if it was his or he overheard it somewhere, so he spent 2 weeks playing it to various people. Consider the fact that Yesterday's melody is fairly elaborate and it was the 60s. Tens of millions of songs were written since. The conventional 3 minute song format simply ran out of melodies. So either songs need to adopt more complex approach of Bohemian Rhapsody (unlikely) or plagiarism is absolutely inevitable.

cafard 5y ago
I remember hearing an interview with Dave Brubeck on NPR, in which he mentioned that the melody of Schutz's "Oh, Sacred Head" (also found in Bach's St. Matthew's Passion) was from a folk melody, a song about a guy being jilted.
Pigalowda 5y ago
I hear Richard Hendricks made a website for that.
- neverminder 5y ago
  Yeah. "Anton" would be handy now. If it was real.
k__ 5y ago
With the robot 9000 project I got the impression people underestimate the number of permutations and how easy it generally is to generate them on the fly. You don't just got "only 12 tones" but also tone length, pauses, melody length, etc.
- neverminder 5y ago
  Of course. But plagiarism, or close similarity is what we're talking about here. If I take someone's melody and stretch a few tones, that doesn't really make it a different melody as viewed by law or society in general. Regarding the permutations - absolute majority of randomly generated melodies will sound like shit, complete gibberish. Like think worse than impro jazz. So when you only leave the "useful" ones, that number is drastically smaller.
  - jancsika 5y ago
    > If I take someone's melody and stretch a few tones, that doesn't really make it a different melody as viewed by law or society in general. You are literally describing the technique by which Western polyphony developed new melodies! For centuries composers took the exact intervals of a pre-existing popular melody, had one singer sing it at a glacial pace, then had one or more other singers fill in the gaps with new sprightly melodies. For example, consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_L%27homme_arm%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_L%27homme_arm%C3%A9 Same title, same exact super-slow melody (a.k.a. cantus firmus), yet no plagiarism in the sense you're using it. Josquin's mensural canon[1] flies out of neverminder's nostril at the last possible moment: Go go go! Goooooo! Go Go! neverminder sneezes 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_L%27homme_arm%C3%A9_super_voces_musicales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_L%27homme_arm%C3%A9_supe...
mmmpop 5y ago
>> melodies composed of only 12 distinct tones Yeah yeah the "only so many notes in music" argument. As a hobbyist songwriter I'm surprised you would say this knowing what semi-tones are, as well as how identical phrases can be entirely different melodies when the backing chords are taken into account.
- neverminder 5y ago
  12, that included the semitones. Very easy to verify that on a piano, wouldn't you agree? I'm talking about conventional western music here. Also, changing the backing chords doesn't actually change the melody, just makes it sound different. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think this kind of argument would fly in court. In fact there are historical precedents - like Huey Lewis vs Ghost Busters song.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Why does the distinction of "traditional western music" matter?
    - pythko 5y ago
      Traditional western music assigns 12 notes to an octave using a tuning known as Twelve Tone Equal Temperament[1]. These twelve tones include whole tones and semitones. The vast majority of western music is composed exclusively using these twelve notes. I believe the GGP meant to refer to “microtones,” which are frequencies that don’t fall into the Twelve Tone Equal Temperament tuning system. These are commonly used in non-western music (Indian music is a typical example), and occasionally in some western music styles (blues, some jazz, some sub-genres of rock, maybe), but you’re not going to find microtones in most western music. The use of microtones would greatly expand the set of possible melodies, but those melodies would also sound very weird to someone who has grown up listening to western music. Also, these legal cases are not decided by precisely comparing the relative frequencies of notes in two different melodies. Relating all this to the article, I personally feel like music is not a good parallel for the topic of academic plagiarism since the idea is the whole point of academic papers, whereas the point of music is harder to pin down, but it’s certainly not only to expand the set of melodies and chords used in songs. Anyways, for more on music theory, I’d suggest Adam Neely’s YouTube channel [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_equal_temperament https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_equal_temperament [2] such as this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ghUs-84NAAU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ghUs-84NAAU
brimble 5y ago
A story about what happens when very accessible recording tech, automated plagiarism-search, dirt cheap mass storage & sharing, a relatively small set of combinations of sounds that people find appealing, and long copyright terms collide. http://spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html http://spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html IMO we're already about where this story projects we'd end up surprisingly fast under that set of circumstances, and are just kinda in denial about it.

cafard 5y ago

I remember hearing an interview with Dave Brubeck on NPR, in which he mentioned that the melody of Schutz's "Oh, Sacred Head" (also found in Bach's St. Matthew's Passion) was from a folk melody, a song about a guy being jilted.

Pigalowda 5y ago

I hear Richard Hendricks made a website for that.

neverminder 5y ago
Yeah. "Anton" would be handy now. If it was real.

k__ 5y ago

With the robot 9000 project I got the impression people underestimate the number of permutations and how easy it generally is to generate them on the fly. You don't just got "only 12 tones" but also tone length, pauses, melody length, etc.

neverminder 5y ago
Of course. But plagiarism, or close similarity is what we're talking about here. If I take someone's melody and stretch a few tones, that doesn't really make it a different melody as viewed by law or society in general. Regarding the permutations - absolute majority of randomly generated melodies will sound like shit, complete gibberish. Like think worse than impro jazz. So when you only leave the "useful" ones, that number is drastically smaller.
- jancsika 5y ago
  > If I take someone's melody and stretch a few tones, that doesn't really make it a different melody as viewed by law or society in general. You are literally describing the technique by which Western polyphony developed new melodies! For centuries composers took the exact intervals of a pre-existing popular melody, had one singer sing it at a glacial pace, then had one or more other singers fill in the gaps with new sprightly melodies. For example, consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_L%27homme_arm%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_L%27homme_arm%C3%A9 Same title, same exact super-slow melody (a.k.a. cantus firmus), yet no plagiarism in the sense you're using it. Josquin's mensural canon[1] flies out of neverminder's nostril at the last possible moment: Go go go! Goooooo! Go Go! neverminder sneezes 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_L%27homme_arm%C3%A9_super_voces_musicales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_L%27homme_arm%C3%A9_supe...

mmmpop 5y ago

>> melodies composed of only 12 distinct tones Yeah yeah the "only so many notes in music" argument. As a hobbyist songwriter I'm surprised you would say this knowing what semi-tones are, as well as how identical phrases can be entirely different melodies when the backing chords are taken into account.

neverminder 5y ago
12, that included the semitones. Very easy to verify that on a piano, wouldn't you agree? I'm talking about conventional western music here. Also, changing the backing chords doesn't actually change the melody, just makes it sound different. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think this kind of argument would fly in court. In fact there are historical precedents - like Huey Lewis vs Ghost Busters song.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Why does the distinction of "traditional western music" matter?
  - pythko 5y ago
    Traditional western music assigns 12 notes to an octave using a tuning known as Twelve Tone Equal Temperament[1]. These twelve tones include whole tones and semitones. The vast majority of western music is composed exclusively using these twelve notes. I believe the GGP meant to refer to “microtones,” which are frequencies that don’t fall into the Twelve Tone Equal Temperament tuning system. These are commonly used in non-western music (Indian music is a typical example), and occasionally in some western music styles (blues, some jazz, some sub-genres of rock, maybe), but you’re not going to find microtones in most western music. The use of microtones would greatly expand the set of possible melodies, but those melodies would also sound very weird to someone who has grown up listening to western music. Also, these legal cases are not decided by precisely comparing the relative frequencies of notes in two different melodies. Relating all this to the article, I personally feel like music is not a good parallel for the topic of academic plagiarism since the idea is the whole point of academic papers, whereas the point of music is harder to pin down, but it’s certainly not only to expand the set of melodies and chords used in songs. Anyways, for more on music theory, I’d suggest Adam Neely’s YouTube channel [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_equal_temperament https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_equal_temperament [2] such as this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ghUs-84NAAU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ghUs-84NAAU

brimble 5y ago

A story about what happens when very accessible recording tech, automated plagiarism-search, dirt cheap mass storage & sharing, a relatively small set of combinations of sounds that people find appealing, and long copyright terms collide. http://spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html http://spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html IMO we're already about where this story projects we'd end up surprisingly fast under that set of circumstances, and are just kinda in denial about it.