Composers who copy melodies they had already written before- Page 2

[dutch46mill2]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 1:06pm

Loved the quote Kaboodles, that you don't recall the author is probably irrelevant because its probably copied.

[NYLG]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 1:29pm

I think you're going to be hard pressed to find anything that's exactly note for note. That being said...the first time I saw PASSION and heard HAPPINESS...I could have sworn I was listening to an incarnation of TOO MANY MORNINGS. Several parts of both songs sound very similar to me.

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 2:06pm

"This also ignores how different songs feel different, even if their melodies are the same. For instance, the notes on the words "You are complete, George" from We Do Not Belong Together are exactly the same as The Ladies Who Lunch, but I would never claim that Sondheim had ripped himself off. These songs are light years apart, and Sondheim uses that little melodic motif to brilliant effect in both of them. There are other times when the feel is less different (like Our Little World and No More, on the lyrics "Our little world is perfect" and "Running away, let's do it) but the similarities are, in my opinion, irrelevant."

COME ON!!!!! Sondheim uses the same melody ALL THE TIME!!!! In terms of solfege: "mi-fa-mi-sol" or "3-4-3-5" stuff like that. HE USES THAT ALL THE TIME! Get him away from that already, why don'tcha??

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 2:16pm

I don't really hear Somewhere That's Green and Part Of Your World, beyond how they generally relate to all that guy's balladish songs.

NYLG, you're right, they are similiar melodies, although I like "Happiness" better and it soon takes off in a different direction from the other song.

I dunno. There are only so many notes and combinations of notes, and a composer with a long career is bound to start copying his or herself.

A funny Sondheim one my friend pointed out to me. I thought she was crazy, but she told me she thought some random part of Assassins was ripped off from some random part of Into the Woods. She thought it was in the song "Another National Anthem" but she wasn't sure about which part of Into the Woods it was. I listened to the song and determined that the bits of the melody that go like this:

"There are prizes all around you if you're wise enough to see. The delivery boy's on wall street and the usherette's a rock star!"

Wherever it does that in the song reminded me of:

"We can't sit around and dither while her withers wither with her."

Apparently that's exactly what she was thinking of. I'm sure he's used that little bump de dump like 5 million times but I think it was a pretty random thing to notice!

[gumbo2]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 3:10pm

You can't count stuff from the SAME show as copying...like Les Miz which clearly purposely uses the same melodies over and over again. But to add someone that no one has said, it's not exactly that his melodies sound the same, but William Finn has almost the EXACT same style in all his songs, like you have 2 choruses of the song and then he has those 8th note block chords and it speeds up.

And JRB, there's a part in the Funeral song from Parade where he has a little piano riff, that sounds IDENTICAL to SOMEthing from Last 5 Years, though I can't put my finger on it.

[JudasIscariot]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 3:38pm

Thesbijean, care to elaborate? Wicked and Children of Eden sound NOTHING alike.

[neddyfrank2]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 3:49pm

Don't Murder me for this, but I always find that when I listen to the Overture of Ragtime, it reminds me of A Day for The Cat in The Hat from Suessical

[Kringas]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 3:54pm

The opening vamp of ROXIE is the same as MAYBE THIS TIME.

Did you maybe mean "Funny Honey" instead of "Roxie"? I don't know about note for note, but that's a similar vamp to "Maybe This Time."

Posted: 4/13/06 at 4:02pm

There's also a quote that says "Writing is re-writing," and I think it pretty much covers anything written.

[bare_nakedlady]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 4:36pm

Lot's of composers go back to a riff that they wrote previously and expand on it. I know if you look in a lot of weird places you'll find the start of something brilliant. Cy Coleman, Kander and Ebb, and Sondheim do/did this very frequently and it makes you smile when you hear the evoulution of a song.

However, there are whole shows that are simply that, Theme and Variation. Let's talk Lez Mis for a moment. It feels like there are only three melodies in the whole show. Javert sings a variation of the same melody for the entire show except for stars and his death song. Themes and Variations can make for a very enjoyable evening.

[mrsparker]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 4:43pm

I've got news for you. Anyone in a creative field steals from himself or herself. I am an advertising copywriter and I do it all the time.

[FranklinShepard-Inc.]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 5:10pm

The Day for the Cat in the Hat has a certain similarity to some strains of Ragtime, yes. But that seems to me to be because Flaherty's whole style of composing has ben fed with elements from Ragtime. After all it was their biggest hit and people usually keep stylistically not to far away from what worked well. There are moments in A Man of no Importance and Dessa Rose as well which could be trunk songs from Ragtime stylistically.

[NYLG]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 5:12pm

You are absolutely correct, bare...

"Theme and Variation. Let's talk Lez Mis for a moment. It feels like there are only three melodies in the whole show. Javert sings a variation of the same melody for the entire show except for stars and his death song."

My daughter was 8 when she saw Les Mis. When Javert was singing his death song, she said, "that's ironic...that's the same melody that Valjean used when he was starting his life over." She was an exceptionally precocious 8-year-old.

[Rentaholic2]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 6:19pm

Frank Wildhorn -
The vamp from "The Glory" in "Civil War" is used again in Dracula. Haven't seen either, I just know "the Glory" and hear a clip from Dracula that had that same theme.

And Part of Your World and Somewhere That's Green aren't the same--even when they say "part of your world" and "somewhere that's green," the intervals are different.

[SayitSomehow]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 6:52pm

-In Les Mis from Castle on a Cloud "She says Cozette, I love you very much." Then in Martin Guerre in The Imposters "By the burning star, we'll find out who we are."

-Jekyll and Hyde "Your Work and Nothing More" and Dracula's "Nosferatu" (from the demo CD).

-One theme from The Scarlet Pimpernel (you can hear it at the beginning of "Believe") is almost exactly the theme in Dracula.

Updated On: 4/13/06 at 06:52 PM

[jam_man]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 7:31pm

Funny, I was listening to Ragtime today, and in the musical interlude after "Sarah Brown Eyes," right as Coalhouse was coming out of his daydream, there was an orchestrial melody played that I SWORE was "One Small Girl" from Once on this Island. I know A&F uses a lot of variations on themes in their work, but I didn't know they did that between works. (J/K, J/K! (That's right, I just said "J/K," you got a problem with it?))


And I know they are different composers, but I've always thought that the opening music of "Master of the House" was strikingly similar to that of "Willkommen." Just a thought.

[blaxx]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 7:48pm

Another ALW - The song "English Girls" from "Song and Dance" is oh so similar to "Tire Tracks and Broken Hearts" from "Whistle Down The Wind." They have very different tones, but if you listen to both themes, you can immediately pick up on the same melodies often.

Actually, these are the first two that I thought of, they are practically the same song, I wonder what Sir Lloyd Webber was thinking.

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 7:53pm

Jerry Herman copies himself!

From Hello, Dolly! "Oh yes, it takes a woman, a dainty woman, a sweetheart, a mistress, a wife."

From Mame: "Oh yes we need a little Christmas, right this very minute, candles in the window..."

The melodies here are extremely similar. I still LOVE Jerry Herman though!

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 4/13/06 at 7:57pm

Jule Styne always copied from himself

[Sant]

Posted: 4/14/06 at 9:06am

AIDA: in "Fortune Favors The Brave" the melody for the part "It's all worked out, my road is clear, the lines of latitude extend " is directly from Elton's own hit "I'm Still Standing" and it is so disturbingly obvious!

[rockfenris2005]

Posted: 4/14/06 at 1:51pm

Jim Steinman's Total Eclipse of the Heart originated as an anti-war song in his college musical The Dream Engine: which featured a 45-minute nude sequence and killer nuns LOL