When the time is ripe for certain things, these things appear in different places in the manner of violets coming to light in early spring.

— Farkas Bolyai

Simultaneous discovery, or what science historians call multiples are extremely common phenomenona. Natural selection, the polio vaccine, the telephone and the first law of thermodynamics are among countless theories, discoveries and inventions that have been made in a short space of time by people working independently of each other and completely unaware of their peer’s work.

A case of plagiarism or multiple independent discovery?

Scientific development is inevitable, and the concept of multiples parallels with music closely. Whilst it would be unfair to label the creative process behind music, or any other form of art as a science, music does indeed follow rules. Even if you’re not abiding to them by the book, the vast majority of compositions follow rules about rhythm, melody and harmony. If these rules aren’t followed, the result is often displeasing to the ear and you’ll probably not even want to classify what you’ve just heard as music.

Another thing to note is that musicians are undoubtedly influenced by the music they’ve heard throughout their lives be it consciously or subconsciously. Pick a track. Can you honestly say you’ve heard nothing like it before? That it is completely unique? Choose any song and it could almost certainly be compared to a song written in the past and strong similarities could be drawn between the two tracks.

It’s no secret that plagiarism is rife within the creative industries. Just take a look at the Timbaland controversy or listen to Indian filmi music. Whilst it is definitely unfair to exploit the artistic work of others, it’s also important to encourage other artists to be creative and march ahead in the direction of their predecessors. The secret to creating original and innovative music isn’t to do something that’s never been done before – that’s fairly impossible. It’s to approach the classic concepts and ideas in a fresh way.

As I played, I’d record the music onto a cheap cassette recorder, but eventually found that quite limiting as I could only record what I could physically play myself on two hands. Using a dirt cheap PC microphone and Windows 98 I began my next recording technique.  Each layer of a track would be recorded onto Sound Recorder from the drums to the lead instruments merging each layer on top of the last. I had nothing to keep me in time, so the results were a bit messy. Later on I began trying connecting the keyboard to the computer with MIDI, but the system wasn’t fast enough to allow me to really experiment and figure out how to use the sequencers properly, so I had to give up.

When I was around thirteen a friend recommended the eJay series to me. This was my first real venture into composition. Whilst it was fun and taught me more about songwriting and the elements in pop songs, I found it more limiting as I’d have to record each layer on a different eJay package, export the layers and then mess around with time-stretching (which wasn’t brilliant on the software). The results were always far from perfect.

For the next couple of years I’d play around with different software packages to see if I had the technology at my hands to complete a decent song. I discovered Cubase alongside other software and by then also had a faster computer. I started recording music onto the sequencer and the system was powerful enough to support editing. Until then I was only writing music for myself, but some friends managed to get hold of my tracks and were impressed. This surprised me as I’d never really thought of playing my music to anyone else and hearing compliments about my work was quite a new experience.

As I approached the middle of my teenage years, most of my friends started picking up guitars, drums and the other usual band instruments. I’d regularly jam with them on keyboards and vocals. My computer music skills attracted the attention of others and I began collaborating with live musicians. At this point the only computer in the house was in my parent’s bedroom so I started spending the money I’d saved purchasing more equipment, including a portastudio, a mixer, more microphones and tons of cables so I could record on the move. I also began remixing music for other bands and ‘beefing up’ friend’s tracks with added instrumentation.

Now it’s over ten years from the start. After recording and playing live shows with others, I feel the compulsion to sit with my gear, (including the CTK-611 I still have in perfect condition) and write some music. I wonder what’ll happen next.