[Jess]

Lots of songs share the same chord progressions and that's not copyright, so can I borrow part of a picking pattern from another song and play it using different chords in one of my own songs? Or is that breach of copyright?

[terrysains]

There are only eight chords, so I would say help yourself, print and be dammed!! (as they say in the newspapers). Terry.

[man of simple pleasures]

There are only eight chords, so I would say help yourself, print and be dammed!! (as they say in the newspapers). Terry.

haha like your style!

hey talent borrows. genius steals!

[seriousfun]

Likechord rogressions, piking patterns are limited and are used in many songs. There are thousands of songs that use the travis pick for example. Where you could come unstuck is if you pick an unusual pattern, like that used in hotel california and then applied it to the same chord progression.

[Jess]

Thank you, that's really helped reassure me that I'm not doing anything illegal!

[Stephen Palmer]

In a nutshell - "ideas are not copyrighted."

What is, is individual pieces made by individual creators.

[Neil C]

Yep for me its the melodies and lyrics which are to be avoided, anything else is fair game so long as your end product is unique.
Interestingly I did a exercise on a Boo Hewerdine song writing course ( totally recommended ) where he gave 6 pairs of writers the same chord progression and we came up with 6 very distinct songs. Then he told us they were from " the first time I ever saw your face' by Ewan MacColl made famous by Roberta Flack and I can assure none sounded like that!!

Neil