Songwriting Frustration

I'm sure any good riff you write will have been played anywhere from a minute before you wrote it by a 16-year-old guitarist in Seattle to 400 years before by some guy at a piano.

I, too have, written a song or two that I liked because they sounded like a certain genre that I wanted to emulate, and then discovered that they are actual songs already written in that genre. It certainly is frustrating.

I do believe, however, that there is a small number of chord changes and combination of notes that haven't yet been tried by anyone over time. Exactly what they are, we will never know. But the fun is trying to discover which.

On that note, anyone here played Am/Dm/C9 before? 'Cause I have.

Here is a brief comparison, they have the same "theme". Who cares, the music is excellent!

Echos:
Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me

RW PCOH
I recognise...
Myself in every stranger's eyes

And in wheelchairs by monuments
Under tube trains and commuter accidents
In council care and county courts
At Easter fairs and sea-side resorts
In drawing rooms and city morgues
In award winning photographs
Of life rafts in the China seas
In transit camps, under arc lamps
On unloading ramps
In faces blurred by rubber stamps
I recognise...
Myself in every stranger's eyes

I think at this point every song will have a similarity to another song...It just happens, there's no way around it.

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Where's Handbanana?

There are too many songs around. I wrote a complete song with lyrics only once. I mainly do intrumentals, because I don't like my voice and I'm changing the lyrics anytime depending on my mood.

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In the womb, the baby thinks that it's the universe. And when the baby is born, there is a glimmer of light.
I was there, but now I am here. So there are two things - me and the universe. The universe is there for me.
Then what happens? Other people. But the universe is there for you. Now tell me what happened in the glade.
I did something to myself. Like entertainment, like music, like a daydream. There was nothing there and I saw something.
I saw his head on the bonnet of the car. You can say what you like but I saw the bird of paradise spread its wings.
DO YOU PLAY BRIDGE?

yea i don't like my voice either. Right now though i've decided to do a cover of audioslaves like a stone...im going to sing because i want everything to be completely me. I have everything completely finished with guitars, i have some of the drums recorded but i had to delay recording of my drums because of thunderstorms constantly interrupting. I'll be doing the bass part today i think...

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Where's Handbanana?

You've got so many instruments !!

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In the womb, the baby thinks that it's the universe. And when the baby is born, there is a glimmer of light.
I was there, but now I am here. So there are two things - me and the universe. The universe is there for me.
Then what happens? Other people. But the universe is there for you. Now tell me what happened in the glade.
I did something to myself. Like entertainment, like music, like a daydream. There was nothing there and I saw something.
I saw his head on the bonnet of the car. You can say what you like but I saw the bird of paradise spread its wings.
DO YOU PLAY BRIDGE?

I have guitars and drums...the bass is my schools that i "borrowed" after marching band practice last week....nobody is gonna miss it...im going to "borrow" some auxilary percussion instruments tonight

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Where's Handbanana?

hah. I'm trying to force somebody to buy drums and learn to play them. I don't care about bass, I could buy it, but you can do the bass line with a lead guitar. I've got a semi-professional keyboard which can give the basic metronome drums too.

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In the womb, the baby thinks that it's the universe. And when the baby is born, there is a glimmer of light.
I was there, but now I am here. So there are two things - me and the universe. The universe is there for me.
Then what happens? Other people. But the universe is there for you. Now tell me what happened in the glade.
I did something to myself. Like entertainment, like music, like a daydream. There was nothing there and I saw something.
I saw his head on the bonnet of the car. You can say what you like but I saw the bird of paradise spread its wings.
DO YOU PLAY BRIDGE?

at the end of the school year i helped my band director take inventory of everything, and we had a clamp on stand for a drumset that could hold a cymbal or some type of drum that was not listed on any sheets anywhere so i slipped out of there with that on the last day of school lol

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Where's Handbanana?

A tune or melody may be set and finite, a series of notes, chords and phrases...

Music wells from within my friend.. so no.. we are far from exhausting all possibilities...unless your just not that creative....

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I have always been here.
I have always looked out from behind these eyes.

You always seem to have some words from the wise for us in times of trouble, Fulghum.

Year of experience and thousands of dollars in education..


I do what I can. And if I can leave the place a little better than I found it, everybody wins.

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I have always been here.
I have always looked out from behind these eyes.

Good point.

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In the womb, the baby thinks that it's the universe. And when the baby is born, there is a glimmer of light.
I was there, but now I am here. So there are two things - me and the universe. The universe is there for me.
Then what happens? Other people. But the universe is there for you. Now tell me what happened in the glade.
I did something to myself. Like entertainment, like music, like a daydream. There was nothing there and I saw something.
I saw his head on the bonnet of the car. You can say what you like but I saw the bird of paradise spread its wings.
DO YOU PLAY BRIDGE?

That's why you are the illustrious leader of the old and wise, Fulghum (right up there with our original akela, BoaB)!

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"David Gilmour can do more with one note than most guitarists can do with the whole fretboard."

Dave Mustaine (Megadeth)