The Bible and Music

Can you plagiarize music? Chord progressions can not be copyrighted, thus you can take backing music that is already in existence, and make a parody, without it being plagiarism. However, if you do take a song as is and don’t change any of it, then it is plagiarism. Even if you write original music, it follows patterns and influences of other artists, and that is why music from older generations all starts to sound the same. Being a composer or a creator of music, creating from things that exist, sculpting from things already in existence, that’s okay to do and is an good place for the final project. It is not plagiarism if you do it right. Basically, all you have to do is change some of it up and it will not be plagiarism.