What music is not derivative?

Hummm....Every music is derivative. Nothing bad about that. In fact, it's a good thing. You stand on someone's shoulders...you can see further. I'm not one to say there is nothing new under the sun but there is nothing completely new. Are you going to create a new scale or something? Even Coltrane had his debts. Shakespeare read Ben Johnson and the Bible.... In undergraduate school we had a discussion group we named "de novo ex nihilo", roughly translated "the new from nothing."

Looking back at it.... what a ridicules conceit!

I remain,

I love Mark Knopfler but he would be the first to acknowledge his many heros and main sources. Among them Chet Atkins and J.J. Cale. Look at the chord progressions of Cale. It runs through all of Knopfler's stuff. Unmistakable.

I remain