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Hello all. I'm mostly addressing to composers here.. One thing that is a bit of a constant fear and agony that I have is this: when I come up with a theme, a specific melody, I don't know if it is something I've heard before and unconsciously stuck into my mind without knowing. that's why most of the times I make an error probably, by trying to build difficult melodies with skips and generally very active, so that the chances of this combination of notes to have been thought by someone else too, are a lot less.. but when i want to build a simple melody? How do you know if that that you wrote, hasn't been written again? I'm not talking for the gereral background and orchestration of a piece, but a very specific combination of notes that comprise the melody along with its harmony. one funny story is this (maybe I have told it again): Years ago, i wrote a little song tune for a kid's play (it wasn't done eventually). one year later, Pearl Harbor is released, and when i heard a theme from Zimmer's soundtrack I realised to my BIG astonishement that it was EXACTLY the same with mine (except for a note)!!!! of course noone would say that Zimmer copied me! But if it was the other way around? If I had heard the Zimmer theme, forgot it in the back of my mind and then composed a theme that was the same more or less and didn't realise it? Even if you have listened to lots of soudntracks, you can't remember all the hundreds of themes (except the obvious ones)..