The Bible and Music

One of the main topics we discussed in class today was the idea of originality in music. Two words that we mentioned while discussing originality was plagiarism and improvisation. With any song or music ever created, you have to consider these three words. Creating music can often derive from another piece of work and people confuse this by labeling it as plagiarism. One of the main ideas that Professor McGrath stated was how several artists take certain sounds or chords from other music, and that is perfectly okay. If we were suppose to compose music based entirely on new chords, melodies, instruments, and tones then it would be nearly impossible. Another aspect that I never really thought of was how easy it is to create some form of music. From humming into the car to having a full band in the studio creating an album, anyone can create music.

Improvisation was a word that I was sorta unfamiliar with in the subject of music. However, I realized that improvisation is not plagiarism at all and it can be mistaken for that. Improvisation does not always have to be an entirely new form of music, so you can take it from some other song or hymn that grabs your attention. The idea of creating my own music is scary to me, yet I realized today in class that it is okay to start from another text or even another song. I can take certain chords or sounds from my favorite songs and utilize them in creating my own work.