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Post subject: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure but:
Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 6:02 pm
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Have you ever thought you made up a great and catchy guitar riff and then you realize it is the same exact riff to a band you are not too fond of?

Well . . . I am still a novice to guitar but I thought I made up a sweet melody then I realized . . . . Hey . . . . this is the same riff to The Counting Crows "Mr. Jones and me"

Not to poo poo that group . . . But I am not the biggest fan of their music.

Have any of you guys done that? Thought you made up a great riff but realize it is to a band you don't really like?

Well I thought it was rather funny!


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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 7:58 pm
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Its happened to me quite often.
I'll be really into jamming a riff or progression, thinking
I've really got something here and then it starts to sound
familiar. Then I realize that its already been written.
I wrote a song in 1994 that has a similar chord progression and rhythm
to Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That song came out in 1999.

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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 4:56 am
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I wrote a really cool sounding Pink Floydy tune, loads of Fender Rhodes piano and slide guitar. Then someone pointed out it was the chord progression to Gloria Gaynor's classic I Will Survive. I had to pretend it was a cover version, no one believed me.

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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 5:11 am
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My wife's cousin was just learning to play guitar a few years back and he was telling me about this awesome thing he'd written, and his wife goes "you know you didn't write that -right? It's an AC/DC song." and he argued that it wasn't, and played it for me. sure enough. He totally wrote the main riff for Hell's Bells ...30 years too late.

cant find the quote, but Kurt Cobain said something pretty spot-on about how there are only so many frets on a guitar, and after a couple of hundred years of course things are going to sound the same. "smells like teen spirit" and "more than a feeling" for example. :)

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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 7:18 am
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reno2atlanta wrote:
Have any of you guys done that?

Hee-hee: I went through a little phase of working out walking bass lines and then sticking them on top of blues progressions - only to discover Brian Setzer had nearly always got there first. :lol:

Still. I'd rather sound like a poor man's Stray Cat than a lot of other things.

Originality can sometimes feel hard to come by...

Cheers - C

EDIT: spelling - base/bass... for f-f-flip's sake!!! :roll:

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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 11:09 am
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I started writing an acoustic song in drop D for my mother shortly after she passed away in 2010. It was a way of helping me cope with her dying. It's a pretty sounding, easy listening, sort of country/rock style song. I thought I had done a bang-up job coming up with an interesting riff and I was so proud of it. I played it for a friend who is a lot more interested in country music than I am and he pointed out it was very similar to a Keith Urban song (Only You Can Love Me This Way) and so he played it for me on the computer. My song has a slightly different timing/feel as well as a slightly different chord structure and it also has a bridge whereas Keith's has no bridge but the riff is very, very similar. So much so that now I don't feel I can play it for anyone because they'll assume I plagiarized Keith's song. I've lost interest in the project and never did finish the song.

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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:01 pm
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Hi Matt, everyone writes riffs and even whole songs that sound like ones that have been recorded but your song will have a different vibe and different lyrics. The finished song will be great I'm sure and anyone you play it for won't confuse it for another song. Continue to work on it from time to time, it will be a positive process. Again I'm sorry for your loss Matt, hang in there, missing loved ones doesn't go away but you get better at it over time.

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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:01 pm
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BMW-KTM wrote:
I started writing an acoustic song in drop D for my mother shortly after she passed away in 2010. It was a way of helping me cope with her dying. It's a pretty sounding, easy listening, sort of country/rock style song. I thought I had done a bang-up job coming up with an interesting riff and I was so proud of it. I played it for a friend who is a lot more interested in country music than I am and he pointed out it was very similar to a Keith Urban song (Only You Can Love Me This Way) and so he played it for me on the computer. My song has a slightly different timing/feel as well as a slightly different chord structure and it also has a bridge whereas Keith's has no bridge but the riff is very, very similar. So much so that now I don't feel I can play it for anyone because they'll assume I plagiarized Keith's song. I've lost interest in the project and never did finish the song.


You were writing that for your mother. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. Finish that song and play it for her.

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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:42 pm
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I have a hard time accurately recreating other people's riffs, chords and progressions properly. It is a source if frustration when I am playing a cover tune or in a cover band whose members are sticklers for such details.
However, this inability is helpful, because while I'm trying to play someone else's song, I'll often stumble upon a new riff that is different enough to be considered original...a lot of Screamin' Armadillos original songs have been written that way.

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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 2:18 pm
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One of the CBC radio hosts sometimes enjoys creating a small segment where he takes two songs each which share the same progression and key, with the EXACT same bpm (191, for example), and plays one song immediately followed by the other. He explains that because the songs share these same traits, they should sync flawlessly, and he is correct.

He's done many of such segments, using both songs new and old. Though both songs are different, you might say in another light that they are one and the same. It happens more often than most people realize.

IMO, often it's unavoidable. Doesn't mean you can't rock a song harder than the last guy who wrote something similar. :wink:


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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 2:53 pm
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I recorded it (very roughly) onto my phone back then so I could think on it while away from home if inspiration ever struck at an inopportune moment. It least it's not lost unless my phone craps out.

I may revisit it yet.


Thanks, Roland. I've said it before. You are good people.

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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 3:37 pm
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lameandcliche wrote:
cant find the quote, but Kurt Cobain said something pretty spot-on about how there are only so many frets on a guitar, and after a couple of hundred years of course things are going to sound the same. "smells like teen spirit" and "more than a feeling" for example. :)


"Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "More Than a Feeling" plagiarized: No. Sounds the same : No. Sounds kind of like: No. No again. :|


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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 3:46 pm
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Don't forget, we only have twelve notes to work with, so I guess it's just a matter how you make it your own thing.

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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 3:52 pm
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CPL wrote:
Don't forget, we only have twelve notes to work with, so I guess it's just a matter how you make it your own thing.


Pffff, a song is MORE than just notes and riffs/chord structure (intended for OP, CPL and all others in the thread). :|


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Post subject: Re: Thought you made up a great guitar riff/chord structure
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 4:31 pm
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Of course, I know that a song is more than notes or chord progressions. My point was that it's impossible to write something musically that's not going to be eventually similar with something else, as far as notes are concerned. You just make it your own with other elements.

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