Imitation or copying

I am very confuse by the both words in the composition circle. What does it mean by copying somebody's composition and imitating somebody's composition.Could someone here define those words and give me examples of the both.Thank you

This is something of a grey area in composition. the way see it is:

if you were to take another composer's melody, motif or even entire composition that would be copying. However if you did this on purpose to create an effect, i.e. a musical joke then that would be acceptable and is usually termed as a 'qoutation', for example the prelude to schnitecke's gogol suite ends with a qoutation of the opening motif from Beethoven's 5th symphony.

Imitation is a different matter. Imitation is the copying of a style of writing rather than specific musical examples. For example one write music which immitates the classical style. Another example would be that you could imitate the style of a Mozart piano sonata, this instance would be deemed pastiche... such as Manuel Ponce's sonata for guitar in the style of Schubert.

I hope this helps

It's a matter of taste, too. Someone who hears a piece and goes, "Well, I've heard that before," could be listening to the same piece that another person said, "I love how it sounds like this other thing."

Er, copying a piece is literally doing a 1:1 copy. Like a transcription.

Copying a style is using style guidelines while providing the content yourself. In other words, you're writing in that idiom without necessarily having to literally copy anything, though it'll look similar and most likely share common aspects.

Er, copying a piece is literally doing a 1:1 copy. Like a transcription.

Copying a style is using style guidelines while providing the content yourself. In other words, you're writing in that idiom without necessarily having to literally copy anything, though it'll look similar and most likely share common aspects.

Is it possible to provide some examples of above.Thank you

Er, sure.

Bach transcriptions for Organ of Vivaldi's concertos. That's literally copying (and some arranging.)

Then there's, say, Honegger's Chopin pastiche for piano which is a style copy (more or less.) Or, Schumann's own Chopin-pastiche in his Carnaval for piano. Pretty good examples of using someone's style without literally copying them. Also worth mentioning to a lesser extent is Cage's "cheap imitation," in style of Satie's Socrates.

In between is stuff like Bach using fugue themes from other people, for example. It's not his original idea 100%, but the development of it is.

Er, sure.

Bach transcriptions for Organ of Vivaldi's concertos. That's literally copying (and some arranging.)

Then there's, say, Honegger's Chopin pastiche for piano which is a style copy (more or less.) Or, Schumann's own Chopin-pastiche in his Carnaval for piano. Pretty good examples of using someone's style without literally copying them. Also worth mentioning to a lesser extent is Cage's "cheap imitation," in style of Satie's Socrates.

In between is stuff like Bach using fugue themes from other people, for example. It's not his original idea 100%, but the development of it is.

Is there such a thing known as a direct coying from a composer's composition.

is this called copying

1 changing the original piece key signature and little varaition
2 no key signature change but variation to the melody
3 exactly same harmony being used

1 changing the original piece key signature and little varaition
2 no key signature change but variation to the melody
3 exactly same harmony being used

I'm curious why you want to know this. Intend doing one or more of the sugestions above?

I'm curious why you want to know this. Intend doing one or more of the sugestions above?

Yes, I have the word imitation many times, But i have not tried doing it.

Is there such a thing known as a direct coying from a composer's composition.

is this called copying

1 changing the original piece key signature and little varaition
2 no key signature change but variation to the melody
3 exactly same harmony being used

Depends who you're asking.
Are you asking a composer, or a copyright lawyer?