Quote Originally Posted by Garland View Post
I have a Yamaha Motif ES 8 synthesizer workstation with two Event studio monitors. I've been playing the keyboard since I was about 5. I've joined a handful of no progress garage bands, but only play for myself now. I think I'd rather be a one man band like NIN. If I only had the creativity. I'll start playing a song, doing some tracks, and I'll think: "Wow, this sounds cool. If it's cool, it's probably not original." Then I go listen to all the songs I like, usually finding something close, and throwing out the song. My biggest fear is giving out a song, and someone saying: "You ripped off X, you loser." Good music gets so deep in your brain, it's hard to know when you have something new.

Interesting. When writing music, I believe that it is very important to draw outside influence, rather than listening to bands which play the same type of music you are playing. It helps to bring something new to the table, as well as keep you from indirectly taking riffs from someone else's work. For instance, when I write my music, I do it with middle-eastern folk in mind, or very bombastic orchestra music.
In fact, I want to incorporate orchestra music somewhat into what I am doing now, but I sadly have no keyboard player.