Traditional but original?

[pepeluis]

Hi Folks,
I recently submitted to a Taxi listing seeking “Traditional Flamenco’.
The dilemma is that for a piece of music to be Traditional it will inherently contain recognizable musical motifs, chords structures/voicings that are pre-existing and that define the genre.
A similar description could apply to some other genres eg Blues, World, various Ethnic forms etc.

How do other composers deal with the copyright issue in for example Blues?
If a Blues composition has a typical 12 bar , 3 chord arrangement and is played on guitar using the familiar ‘chuggy’ shuffle riff known to most guitarists eg https://youtu.be/xWexaS61NwY?si=2YhMWnKlMJaIAX0L
but has an original melody superimposed or added, can this be categorised as an original work?

Similar to Flamenco, Blues has unclear, mostly anonymous and archaic origins which form a fundamental and defined genre but whose primary authors are unknown.
For composers submitting Blues or other traditional compositions to libraries, what approach do you take re. authorship/ownership of your original work?
Any response much appreciated. Thanks. Pepeluis

[AlanHall]

Are we trying to discern the difference between

original = a composition that no one wrote before I/you did
totally original = sounding like nothing every heard before

Don't overthink it: a blues, or flamenco, or samba, or polka, or waltz, or... are all (based off of) specific traditional dance forms that come with predetermined defining characteristics. A piece will share some or all of these characteristics to be admitted into the genre party. How close to a complete rip-off is too close? Use your authentic composition voice and know that the piece you write is actually your piece. ML has mentioned his 80/20 (sometimes 85/15) rule to suggest library music needs to be at least 80% recognizable in order to be useful to the client.

It's hard to quantify musical composition, so I'd suggest that you listen to your finished composition.
IF it gives you a queasy feeling in your ethical center, THEN it might be a good idea to change it a bit to make it 'a little more' original.