Copyright and melody and chord progressions

[Steve Martin]

Hi to the forum,

this may seem like a dumb question, but if you are writing some music, and you are using a chord progression, or arpeggio pattern, or melody from a classical work, but the publisher of the music still has the right for the publication of that classical music that is in the public domain, is there anything wrong with that? I've always thought that there is nothing wrong with this, but in thinking about it, I'm just trying to clear this up in my head.

For example, I'm writing my own prelude for piano, and I'm using some of Chopin's chord progressions from an Etude of his, do I have to copy that from an imslp score that is Public Domain, instead of copying the pattern from a more recently published edition of his Etudes?

I'm not copying the actual etude physically from the book such as photocopying it, but I'm just copying the chord progression that the music is based on.

thanks is someone can confirm this for me.

best,

Steve.