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#1
10-20-2014, 06:50 PM
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Similar or same tunes?
I was clicking on a list of songs and one was Stewball by Peter Paul and Mary. So I pulled it up in Youtube and was surprised by the similarity to another song that I am more familiar with. After reading the thread about Led Zep getting sued for Stairway' being a little too close to Taurus by Spirit.
What songs do you know of that are real close in melody? Versus
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~Dave ~Music self-played is happiness self-made 
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#2
10-20-2014, 06:55 PM
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A lot of traditional tunes go by various names. Temperance Reel is the same as Chicago Reel. Stoney Point is very similar to Miss McLeod's Reel. You can also have lots of different tunes using the same name, I've heard about 5 different melodies for Ten Penny Bit.
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#3
10-20-2014, 11:40 PM
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“Stewball” is traditional--and it’s not at all unusual for trad melodies to be repurposed. Woody Guthrie and even Dylan did it quite frequently. It’s called the folk process. Not only melodies, but sometimes stories and themes get recycled. (e.g., “Red Wing” morphed into “Union Maid;” David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” begat Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom,” both adapted from “2001: A Space Odyssey;” and the evolution of “Black Jack Davy” over the centuries into “Gypsy Davy”). At the Old Town School of Folk Music I once took what was billed as a songwriting course with Steve Earle; it turned out to be a six-chapter history of who stole what from whom in folk & rock, how it was a time-honored tradition, and how and when to do so effectively and ethically (e.g., actual copyright infringement is a no-no).
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Sandy http://www.sandyandina.com ------------------------- Gramann Rapahannock, 7 Taylors, 4 Martins, 2 Gibsons, 2 V-A, Larrivee Parlour, Gretsch Way Out West, Fender P-J Bass & Mustang, Danelectro U2, Peavey fretless bass, 8 dulcimers, 2 autoharps, 2 banjos, 2 mandolins, 3 ukes I cried because I had no shoes.....but then I realized I won’t get blisters.
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#4
10-21-2014, 06:09 AM
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I demonstrated the melodic similarity between Stewball and Happy Xmas (War is Over) to a non-musician colleague back in in 1989 using my car stereo as we left the office for the day. He recognized some resemblance but didn’t seem to think the melodies were as close to each other as I did. Nevertheless, I felt certain the likeness was coincidental and I still think so.
Like parallel evolution where certain traits evolve independently in unrelated species (gliding possums, flying squirrels and flying lemurs are examples), some melodies are likely to have been independently composed with certain types of simple melodies being more likely than others.
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