[jseth]

There have certainly been times when a "new song" has come to me - a riff, a figure, a melody line, even words - and I've realized that it's close to something I've heard along the way... not surprising, given that Western music only has so many notes and they've ALL been used, many, many times in the past several hundred years!

If what I've "come up with" is really similar to an already existing tune, I'll scrap it... BUT, if it's just vaguely reminiscent of some other song, I'll continue with it, making sure that I don't go any further into actually mimicking the "other" song.

What's that line (from Picasso?) - Good artists borrow, but GREAT artists steal!

For those times when I can't quite put my finger on what other song mine reminds me of, I just keep going with it until the source of my theft becomes obvious... sometimes it takes a while, but I always seem to remember in time...