I think the rule of thumb is that if it's recognisable you can't use it without breaching copyright.
I know people used to say less than 7 notes or 2 bars is OK but that has proved a fallacy from court cases. I'm sure when I was at uni one case stated was of 4 notes, from a well known News theme/opening credits.
Also; pretty much every phrase/sequence of notes has been written and used many times. Find the same phrase from a classical piece, even if written for a completely different instrument, and claim you were inspired and translated it from that.
Isn't it Andrew Lloyd Webber people claim takes most of his music from old classic, compositing different pieces together with different instruments to original and then only the words are original?
> Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:47:21 +0100
> From: julien@mail.upb.de
> To: linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
> Subject: [LAU] [slightly OT] Musical citation (what is allowed?)
>
> Hello everyone!
> I'd like to cite from a relatively recent work (1970), which of course is
> still copyrighted. So can I do it per se? I'd just like to cite a main phrase
> for a bit (2-4 bars) I suspect. any hints on that would be very much
> appreciated.
> Warm regards
> Julien
>
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