[quote name=‘splajn’]
Are you sure? I´m not, as far as i know I newer heard of such law.
I think quite the opposite, things can be original despite being influenced.
Ofcourse things can be more or less original. But things can even be original within a genré. There can even be original pop.
Something is original as long as noone else have done it or do it the same way. And in a way yes the one who did invent a genré first owns the fact the he/she was first.
What he does not own is the genré, anyone is free to imitate what he/she did, I don’t even think its bad to imitate a genre or a sound. Why? Because some people will even end up doing it better than the original creator of the genre or they do it in a different way expanding a genré or just keeping it alive.
I know some people claim that the original is allways best, but that is just pure bullshit if you ask me. There is nothing that say that a follower can´t be better than the creator. Sure perhaps he did not invent the genré but he might still do it better or in a other way.
What you are saying is that no matter what you do its not original because it draws inspiration and knowledge from what others has allready done. With that reasoning the word originality should not even excist, but it does.
Because it describes something that eventhough it might be influenced from other genres stands out, if it stands out enough we call it original.
The word excists because there is a need for a word.
Sometimes someone comes by and does something that noone else has done before like inventing the electric guitar that sure is original to me.
If you don’t think anything is original that is fine by me but your reasoning could also be a cover so that one wont have to recognise those who invented some new kind of sound or genré.
In your case I don’t belive that is was your intention.
However I still think that originality is overrated.
It is harder to do something good than something original. But the hardest thing to do is something that is both good and original.
I also think creating music shouldn’t be about how hard it is to create but how true it is.
exactly. its just like being normal.
originality is relative! 
but, maybe in this case it might be better to say, original sounding?
i absolutely agree with you about others imatating/emulating/permutating a sound or genre, hearing someone else’s touch on something. there is too many oldschool jungle tunes that upon the first time hearing is so intriguing i wish i could keep that feeling forever:w00t:
of course after awhile the parts that make it seem original or are intriguing always become placid when still in the mindset. eventually you forget an when you come back its almost as unique to the ears, just not as much.
you could be right about that being a cover, personally i find it hard to ever accept anything to really ever be truly original. in this world there are so many places, soo so different than another. that when in these areas the whole seem to have a different way/vibe known to you. then you find a group or even just one person doing something completely different, but what motivates these people an groups to do this. alot of times its a rejection of a common component like complacency that they notice within themselves. but what were the actions/influences/beliefs that led up to them to do something completely different, an how many others have already walked the same path.
too many times music is like a writer that has written a story.
someone comes by, reads it, an decides to rearrange some paragraphs, ideas, characters an chapters. they end up selling it an getting reknowned for it being so original. who could say that the seemingly original writer of that story was not writing a variation of a variation of someone elses story?
william s burroughs use to take from other writers work an rearrange it like that, not completely like that but enough.
the root of my belief comes from this:
i’m going to take this off topic for a moment.
theres a book by micheal talbot titled Holographic universe a girl friend reccomended to me one day years ago. he writes about a phenomenon called the collective consciousness, all thoughts come and go from this great nexus. the more tapped in to this the more you notice others having duplicate “seemingly” original ideas. so awhile before i read that book, i had a thought about controlling midi with my mind, several months later i walked into an apartment of some other like minded friends that made electronic music an they told me about how future sound of london was using this now! needless to say i was kind of upset yet exhilarated that it was done. but at the same time i wanted to know how this had happened.
what i later found out is that ideas basically drop from this nexus into the minds of anyone wiht an open minded enough imagination to grasp them. the people that end up bringing the ideas to light are those who have the know how and resources to do so.
these people are usually called the innovators. are they original, no because the thoughts never really ever belonged souley to them, they still belong to everyone that has ever connected to the collective consciousness.
(now i just gotta figure out how to prove this exists in court, so i can f**** the shit outta them corporate copyright big wig pigs!!)
i should probably affirm, that to me, all of this is very real. but i’m not so far off as to say that i’m right, but i do like to think that i could be.
-back to topic-
the idea i had with controlling midi with my mind was not an original thought at all, (however it was to me an most everyone i told) after much research i found out that this had been done way before i had ever fathomed it. on top of it, that was just a natural flow of creative evolutionary thought.
just like existence can only be truly left to interperatation. i believe originality follows the same path.
this is a great thread.
