You don't learn the 2 other things until you get some honest feedback... Everyone tends to be nice when you play some of your tunes to friends...

The question I have, Is composition originality ? When using styles, you really can't say it's your composition (if I understand the terminology correctly)...

In 2002 prior to heading to NAMM 2002 to demo the SD1 for Ketron , I decided to create & record songs with my SD1 . But how original was it ? After all I was using a style that was not created by me personally. So when I did think about hooks, chord progessions etc.. I gave serious thought on how I can make that recording original or have other SD1 owners say "how did he do that" .....

That's when I started listening & selecting parts from different styles, isolating those parts , matching tempos and laying in the parts on separate tracks..

For instance.. I used a string part from the 3rd variation of a baroque style. Baroque styles are usually at a 100 to 120 bpm tempo on a arranger. But when I slowed down that style to 72 bpm, I was able to mix the string part onto a separate track... If you head to my website and listen to "shoreline" .. you can hear the string parts added during the song..which in turn created pace to what was originally a very slow style ( tribal age on SD1) ..

If that example is "composition" vs originality, than I can understand what you are talking about.

I may be out for the rest of the night .. be back wednesday ...