G C Em D.
I'm not very good in theory,and I may stand corrected,but this is the scale of G with it's relative minor.Suppose Tracy was the first person to ever write a song like that.As in a scale and it's relative minor.Then here comes another dude,called Eagle Eye Cherry,who decides to "steal" that major/relative minor idea,but starts his on C.And from that idea,he writes the song "Save Tonight".And tweedles a bit with the point where he starts singing,compared to Tracy.
Now,you tell me;
How different(read original) is "Revolution" from "Save Tonight"?As different as different can be.That makes Eagle original,right?I think it does.But hey,he copied an idea from Tracy!!He isn't original!!Originality is coming up with ideas!!New ideas!!Not taking someone else's and making it yours!!
The point I'm trying to make here is that what comes out of us depends a lot on what goes into us.And a lot,if not all,of what goes into us is other people's produce.We shouldn't judge originality by merely what absolutely new stuff(as in totallt unrelated to anything that ever existed) that one comes up with,but rather what one comes up with when they put together what they got.From themselves and other sources.
Like other people.A song they heard.A melody they heard a bird sing.Something they stumbled upon just fiddling with their instrument.Some source.
I'm sure Florence Nightingale was not the first person who figured out that if you clean a wound and tie it up and son on,it helps the wounded person.So how come she got so famous?Or Mother Theresa(sp?).Her's wasn't the pioneering charitable organisation.She didn't invent the idea of helping the needy.Any fool can think that.Again,so how come she became what she became.
The trick is not in what you "come up" with,but rather how you use what's been "comed up" with to come up with something yourself.
I can go on and on and on about these things,so I'll stop.
About "open source playing"(I like that term,btw):
It's already out there.
You didn't invent the scales,did you?Musical notations?That's as open source as open source can be.
And who's stopping you from playing "Stairway to Heaven"?If you want,play it!Just don't use it to as though it was your intellectual property.To make money,for instance.That would be no different than taking your neighbours car and using it as a Taxi,without your neighbours consent,or without giving your neighbour some form of return for using their car.Which I think is what copyright is all about.
