Even musical geniuses like Joe Satriani can make mistakes sometimes. This one has nothing to do with his guitar playing.
The recent commotion over whether or not Coldplay ripped off guitar whiz Joe Satriani is nothing less than surprising and mystifying. My bewilderment has nothing to do with Coldplay however, but with Satriani, the guitar teacher-turned instrumental rock god.…
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— go to most recent comments26 - Condor
"still, mozart? psh. boring old fart. pre-20th century classical is just about the only musical style i have no love for." ZingZing
Zinger, if you ever took a Music Theory course you would find out that Bach INVENTED western Musical Theory. He figured it out, wrote the book based his catalog on the ideas and now all we hear in western music is the Bach inspired theoretical renderings. How's that for some old fart classical master. I'd say pretty impressive. Also, if you spent enough time in the genre' you would notice the basis of all the music made in western culture.
And no I'm not just talking about Country and Western!
Enjoy music, all of it. It helps the brainwaves.
27 - zingzing
i didn't say anything about bach. and no one invented musical theory. it already existed. maybe he wrote it down... but i doubt he was anywhere near the first to do that either.
and i would be mighty impressed if pre-20th century music DIDN'T influence 20th century music. that would take time travel or something, if it wanted to avoid that. but the basis of all music made in western culture would go back much further than that, now wouldn't it?
look, i do listen to classical, although not much before the 20th century. after the 20th century rolls around... i would bet my life i listen to more of that stuff than you've ever heard of.
my main problem with mozart, beethovan, bach, etc... the main ones that people bring up when they say "classical" is just that i'm not a big fan of baroque or romantic classical music. and most of those big names fit into that. i don't even like hearing those qualities (baroque or romantic) in later music, so obviously, it's got nothing to do with disliking the composer, just... disliking the style.
28 - Levon Sultanian
Martin's vocal line sounds like the same exact line that Satch is playing. Different keys yes, but still sounds like the same thing with lyrics to it.
Wasn't Coldplay faced with another similar charge of ripping off another song earlier this year? Except, it was some no name artist that claimed they ripped his song off of a video on YouTube.
29 - Charlie
Levon, that no name artist is the Creaky Boards group (that's on You Tube) I referred to in the article and in the comments section. Their accusation is more of a bitter joke and publicity stunt than a serious accusation of plagiarism - they even claim that Chris Martin was at one of their shows, which is preposterous. That guy's vocals sound like Chris Martin for a second or two, and that's about it. His song and Coldplay's go in totally different directions, which is probably why the band refused to air their ENTIRE song on the You Tube clip/comparison countless people have seen.
Tons of vocalists have melodies that sound like someone else. Think of all the Robert Plant and Kurt Cobain wannabes over the years.
Remember all those singers--Scott Weiland aside--in the late 90s/early 2000s that sounded like Eddie Vedder? Eddie didn't sue them (i.e. Scott Stapp of Creed, for one), did he? Creed's "My Own Prison," in fact, comes real close to ripping off Pearl Jam's "Present Tense," but again, no need for a lawsuit because similarity is different than substantial copying.
And I seriously doubt than when "Viva La Vida" first came out, that anyone thought they were ripping off anyone, whether it be an obscure band or an equally obscure (and great) Satriani instrumental from an album not too many people outside of loyal Satch fans (like myself) have heard of.
Usually, when an artist rips someone off, you can recognize it instantly. Off the top of my head, I'd say Jet's hit "Cold Hard Bitch" is a ripoff of AC/DC, especially "Shoot To Thrill." (So I would half-jokingly ask:) Anybody want to petition AC/DC to sue Jet now? Heck, AC/DC rips themselves off nowadays.
Point is, everybody's been sort of ripping off or taking a riff (or two) and putting their own stamp on it since the invention of rock and roll/rhythm & blues, whose early artists ripped off the black artists like the Fats Dominos of the world. And nobody blinked, let alone sued.
30 - Condor
"i didn't say anything about bach. and no one invented musical theory. it already existed. maybe he wrote it down... but i doubt he was anywhere near the first to do that either." -Zingzing
Okay, so we've established that you haven't taken a college level music theory (or music history) course.
College texts and professors would disagree with your statement. You're confusing the physics of harmony (2nd's, 3rds, octaves etc...) with putting time, point, counterpoint, music structure (the list goes on) all of which Bach formulated in such a way that others who came after Bach, analyzed the work of Bach (scores and other studies), giving rise to the theories we have today. But Bach laid out the premises naturally, and compounded the "language" time after time, building upon previous material and continuing the musical dialog.
31 - zingzing
now condor. i made the point that bach didn't "invent" music theory. and he didn't. that was an overstatement.
music theory, like music itself, grew organically. there are texts from the 12th century, maybe even before, that discuss music theory.
you're trying to tell me that music theory was built out of the STUDY of bach's music? maybe certain problems were solved by people who used bach's music while studying it, but you'd have to be completely bonkers to really make the statement that bach "invented" musical theory.
and yes, i have taken college-level musical history classes. so far, you haven't really convinced me that you have done the same...
and again. I NEVER SAID A DAMN WORD ABOUT BACH. so what's this all about?
32 - Condor
Zing,
I did say western music...
Bach is known as the father of western music because he helped shape the the major and minor scales with one of his many masterpieces, The Well-Tempered Clavier. He wrote a piece for every major and minor scale in this work, and since it was in a WELL-TEMPERED clavier, it shaped what a minor a major scale sounds like and what composes them. Major and minor scales are fundamental for wstern music. Hence, the title "The Father of Western Music". The well tempered clavier helped promote performances of pieces in all the different keys, that was it's point - to promote equal tempered tuning which was a new idea at the time.
Bach is the father of western music because of his development of theory, in fact much of what we call "music theory" is in fact sets of guidelines developed from the study of his music.
He is considered a synthesis of musical styles that came before. His time period was the bridge into counterpoint, meaning parts are complete unto themselves. Most music before him was a series of chords with a melody above, the chords were "pads". Bach composed the underlying parts to also be there own melodies, hence counterpoint.
He is also unmatched in the art of writing fugues, which can be a very complicated compositional game after the third part chimes in.
And yes you didn't say a thing about Bach, but you did refer to classical music in the negative sense. The point I'm making is that music has a history, it's linked, it has been constructed over time. To dismiss foundational periods of history in music, shows a complete lack of understanding the underpinnings of what we presently are experiencing in the artform.
Bach was pivitol, just as Louis Armstrong or Hendrix was pivitol, that said... while Bach was genius... Hendrix was a technical master on his instrument. Armstrong was a mix of both genius and technical mastery.
Now... about your vast listening experiences. Please share with all the people you don't really know just how vast and refined your ear has become listening to the infinate number of musical groups you alluded to above. That's a pretty broadbased statement. Have you been out of country? Perhaps Africa or spent extensive time in the Carribean, perhaps Austin or New Orleans. Or was it the Pacific rim and the other areas around the globe that brought you to your current state of vast musical knowledge and experience? Extensive study of field recordings at the library of congress? A military tour in Europe perhaps? A sister who's a retired celloist from the LA symphony? An uncle who was plying his jazz skills all over America during the 20' through the 50's? Years of slugging it out in bar bands up and down both coasts? Inquiring minds want to know.
33 - brad laidman
Someone give George Harrison back his money
This Song
34 - JC Mosquito
Didn't the Residents have the last word on this - "Bach is Dead (Bach Bach Bach)"?
But, as far as I understand it (not having had the benefits of a college musical education, unless you count episodes similar to the Louie Louie scene in Animal House), Bach didn't invent modal scaling or improvisational playing, which is pretty essential to a lot of western music, including styles based on folk, blues, Celtic and African roots.
35 - zingzing
ok condor. wanna play? yes, i do know enough to know that bach's "well-tempered clavier" was something played in all 24 keys of what we westerners think is harmony. it's very famous. but it is really just equal temperament, which is not anything close to real harmony.
yes, it's a system we have come to know, but it's not true harmony. have you heard true harmony? do you know what happens when true harmony occurs?
go listen to la monte young's "well-tuned piano." that's true harmony, in every key, all at once, on one piano. let's see bach do that. thing is, he never would have thought to do that. but that's not his fault. he was...
as doc says, the residents say he's dead. and the residents are (really) quite an authority on music. (look them up.) (thanks doc.)
i know my shit, so you better come up with something better than that. and yes, i have traveled plenty, maybe not to the places you have, but you haven't traveled to the places i have, i'm sure. and yes, i listen to library of congress stuff quite a bit. and i have been to new orleans, and got quite drunk there.
look, you aren't going to get anywhere trying to say i haven't listened to enough stuff. music is my thing, and challenging myself in every musical way is something i do almost every chance i get. i've heard bach. you'll have to come up with something better.
bach is not the father of anything. he's just another cog in the machine. it all comes from somewhere, and so did he.
and so did the one that made him.
36 - ElCoco
I know nothing about music...But according to the author's article...If I take a song from another artist and change the instruments and the tempo or even the key, I am "composing" a new song?
37 - zingzing
"well tempered clavior" is just a catolog of our fucked up idea of harmony. it's important within that idea, i'll give it that, but anyone who's moved beyond those definitions is going to look at bach as old hat.
music has moved a long ways in the last 200 years.
38 - zingzing
clavier
39 - JC Mosquito
No, you can't just make a key and tempo change and call it your own. Musical plagiarism is a fine line - music is built up of phrases of notes (or melody) in a harmonic context and it depends how much of it is the same and how well you can convince the judge - better yet, the general public.
Actually, track down the sad story of Solomon Linda and see how music can be taken away in a plain daylight robbery. He wrote the original Wimoweh (he Lions Sleeps Tonight).
(Et ou es le "doc?")
40 - Dr Dreadful
I'm right here, Skeeter, but I'm pretty sure I never mentioned The Residents.
Look, our Western music scale only contains eight notes, plus flats and sharps. It's entirely possible to compose a phrase or even an entire song that bears a close resemblance to someone else's even though you might never have heard it.
For instance, the track 'Here She Comes' by The Las is strikingly similar to a song my friend Jules wrote several years before that single was released. I'm fairly confident that The Las never heard Jules's song since he's not even a serious musician and doesn't record or perform. But the last thing to cross my mind would be to suspect The Las of plagiarism because that song has a fairly simple and replicable melody.
Even if they had somehow heard it, that doesn't mean they plagiarized it. It could simply have been the case that they heard the tune somewhere - perhaps Jules was rehearsing in his bedroom with the window open and one of the band members happened to be walking by the house, caught a snatch and subconsciously stowed it away in his brain. He could easily have resurrected it later in the completely honest belief that he'd thought of it himself.
Plagiarism has to be conscious theft, and that's pretty difficult to prove, especially with such a simple form of communication as music.
41 - JC Mosquito
Sorry, Dr D - forgot you were in on this earlier.
I had a similar thing happen - a net acquaintance in Germany wrote essentially the same melody & chord change as a good friend of mine 'cross town within about a month of each other. There's no way either had anything to do with the other. As you said, to qualify as theft I would think it has to be pretty intentional.
42 - Mark Saleski
i actually wrote "The Black Page" but decided to leave Zappa alone. lawsuits are so messy.
43 - bliffle
Ha ha. This is funny. The whole piracy thing is now rebounding against the 'artists' and their whore-mongers, the Record Companies.
A'hoist their own petard!
44 - Tom Johnson
Sorry, Charlie, you are way off - Satriani is perfectly within his rights to go after Coldplay on this one, and this guitar teacher has very compelling proof as to why. It's much more than the solo that most people are focusing on - it's the very basic structure of the song itself. Watch the video and you'll see for yourself, but if you're impatient, skip to 6:40 and he'll demonstrate exactly where the songs are nearly identical. I have a feeling many of you who are saying it's only coincidental may change your minds after seeing this. Not that Coldplay intentionally stole the melody, but that the two songs are basically the same at their core, and that is all Joe has to prove in court. You can commit murder and not intend to do it . . . but you've still killed someone, even accidentally, right?
Now, does that mean I think it's in Joe's best interest to do this? Not necessarily. I think he would have been better off just letting this lie, making a point to bring it up in interviews and letting it make its way into public knowledge. And Coldplay should have been less smug than they've been about the whole thing, in general, which may have played a part in why Joe opted to go forward with it. They should have said, "Mea culpa," paid up, given him a credit, and been done with it. It would probably have cost less than this lawsuit is going to cost them.
45 - JC Mosquito
The guitar teacher guy on youtube ought to know better. Many songs share similar tempos and chord changes but their melodies set them apart from each other.
46 - charlie
Tom, of course I disagree with you here but greatly appreciate your point-of-view on this.
But see, after reading and watching your YouTube link, you have to understand the guy in that video's flaws in the comparisons between the Coldplay and Satriani songs: the underlying instrumental parts do not match up note for note, chord for chord, at any time.
And Tom, at the 6:55 mark of that video, while making comparisons between the two songs' structures, he absolutely made up guitar chords in "Viva" that don't exist! [He started playing a G major chord - what he calls the VI - and then played "Fly's" riffs again as if they were present in "Viva" as well, which they aren't] That kills one of his main points about the basic melodies of the two tracks being the same or too similar.
And his first point of how interesting it was that both songs have around the same (136) tempo is a non-starter. Millions of songs have the same or similar tempo. So, according to his outline of music, 1) rhythm 2) melody 3) harmony, he's 0-2 and doesn't even consider #3 (for good reason).
Here is the real deal instrumentally (since I already broke down the "harmony" aspect, the Coldplay vocal-to-Satch electric guitar comparison earlier and found only a measly consecutive 3-4 note match, which means next to nothing in terms of plagiarism): I believe the Satriani chords for "Fly"s 2 choruses starting at :49 seconds and later at the 1:45 mark (on acoustic guitars) go something like: Em7, A major, D Major7+9th(orSUS), B minor. [The YouTube guy got that part right]
However, "Viva's" choruses/verses/any other song part have no similar guitar chords, and since we know the synths/keyboards/drums don't imitate Satriani, the only other real comparison to make is between the songs' bass guitar parts. And since "Viva's" verse progressions aren't much different from the choruses, one of the main bass progressions you hear again and again goes something like this: D flat (Db), E flat (Eb), A flat (Ab) and F.
Satriani's five-string bass (unlike Coldplay's four-string bass) goes like this for the two choruses: (open) E, slide from G to A, low D on your fifth, heaviest bass string, and low (open) B string on your fifth, heaviest bass string.
So what we have here are two completely different progressions on bass, guitar parts that don't match up, drums/beats that are different (even if they carry a similar tempo) and very little harmonic similarities between these two great songs.
NOW you (and hopefully others) should see why I think the two songs are fundamentally different and why it was a big mistake for Joe Satriani (one of my all-time favorite guitarists) to file this lawsuit.
47 - Condor
"music has moved a long ways in the last 200 years." Zingzing
It's still a "tree" with branches and... the everfeeding, foundational roots. You can't ignore the roots, despite what your non-authoritative source tries to dictate in a public forum (i.e. "the residents" quote).
Jc alludes to Bach as "Bach didn't invent modal scaling or improvisational playing , which is pretty essential to a lot of western music" which I agree with, there are lots of influences incorporated into western musicsince Bach's era, there's abosolutely not doubt of that. But my original point to ZZ is that Bach IS part of the overall picture, Bach is foundational, as are many other early composers. To discard those or minimalize the great contributions is showing or feigning ignorance of the overall holistic artform.
Additionally, I'm not so sure Bach didn't improvise, he may have and managed to put it to paper for the ages, others certainly did. Artists today have the technology to let go on the fly, digitalize it, then print out using scoring apps. Which, in my mind makes the generations past so much more incredible, that they could process their thoughts from the instrument to the manuscript accurately, albeit slowly, but documented nonetheless.
'nuff said.
48 - Charlie
JC Mosquito, you're absolutely correct: the guitar teacher in the YouTube video Tom linked to SHOULD know better. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about bat first but then makes shit up to prove his points. I admire how hard he tried though. I'll give him that.
49 - zingzing
condor: "But my original point to ZZ is that Bach IS part of the overall picture, Bach is foundational, as are many other early composers. To discard those or minimalize the great contributions is showing or feigning ignorance of the overall holistic artform."
of course bach is part of the picture. no one is denying that. and no one is saying that he wasn't a brilliant composer. one can recognize importance and influence without having to be a fan of the person behind it.
say i'm a big fan of cubism. certainly european portrait art of the 18th century played into that. without that portrait art, many facets of what cubists chose to reject or retain would not be there. but it doesn't mean that a fan of cubist art has to be a fan of portrait art.
certainly bach and his classical peers were important, and fundamental to what was to become 20th century music. without what they added to the musical language, music as we know it wouldn't exist.
but i just find them more interesting on paper than coming out of speakers or at the concert hall. and i also find that it's the rejection of their ideas that interests me more than the continuation of them. yes, i know that a lot of music that i do like is, whether or not it is acknowledged, a continuation of their ideas. but it is the active rejection that turns me on. continuation of classical ideas is par for the course. it's going to happen, just because all music comes from somewhere, and classical is what came before.
50 - Marcia Neil
Being led into a lawsuit and courtroom to benefit oneself and attorney representatives and being led into a courtroom to investigate the entertainment industry as a whole are not so different when such investigation becomes necessary one way or another. 'Ravi Shankar' and 'BJ Thomas' tunes sound alike but terrorism in India is the action.
51 - Charlie
I'm not sure what terrorism in India (as awful as it is) has to do with musical comparisons, but thanks for your input.
52 - Dr Dreadful
Nothing Marcia writes has much to do with anything...!
53 - keysplayer
First, thanks for this post, it was enjoyable to read. You've done your homework and worked through the real notes and music theory, and if anyone disagrees with what you've said, let them also post music theory to contest it. It's become annoying to me seeing so many people ready to burn Coldplay at the stake, based off of highly modified "mashup" videos and half-baked music theory that someone else told them. I'm not out to side with either artist, but rather to help correct the misinformation.
I wanted to add an additional comment about the YouTube guitar teacher's analysis of the two songs, since people seem to blindly accept what he says as correct (by the way, I'm a world-famous scientist who's opinion you can totally trust, and I'd like to show you all these complex equations to show you that the world is actually flat... er ok I'm not, but same issue... don't assume he's correct simply because he's a music teacher naming off seemingly complex music theory examples). I am absolutely certain that his chord progression analysis is substantially wrong. Many (as noted here on this page, on YouTube, and on his blog) have politely posted the correct chord analysis for him, but instead he's still trying to defend his incorrect chords. This just adds fuel to the flames.
Firstly, my comments are targeted at pop/rock/etc music, and I'll exclude my comments below from necessarily applying to classical music, as I love classical as well but have no experience writing it myself.
The correct keys are Ab major (Viva) and D major (Fly), and the core of each progression is a IV V I and ii V I, respectively. The additional chords in a few spots (e.g. IV in Fly, vi at the end of Viva's progression, etc) are the same simple additions of countless other songs, and constitute nothing unique at all. A chord progression is not properly analyzed based on what the melody or soloist is doing over the top of it. A chord progression "is what it is". You can definitely analyze the melody separately from the chord progression though - you could say, "this line of the melody is an F lydian scale played over the vi chord" or something... but you cannot say "well the melody is playing F lydian here, so even though the chord in the previous identical part of the progression was the IV chord, in this case it's the vi chord" (of course I'm making up completely random examples - that might sound horrid haha). No, the progression simply "is what it is" and you can apply any kind of fancy theory analysis to explain just what the melody is doing over the top of that progression, after the fact. Given the near ubiquitous nature of these progressions, it is almost a guarantee that the melodies (of both songs in question) were written against the chord changes, not the other way around.
If you "did" write a melody first, and then had to come up with the chord progression to go with it, you would still (for the benefit of the other musicians in your band who have to figure out and play it) use correct application of music theory/key center, and use the most basic and straight-forward approach possible (e.g. you give the guitarist a vi chord, and it's up to him to decide what mode he feels like soloing over it with).
As an added weight to the opinions of those who feel the progressions are different than those he proposed, please feel free to view published sheet music of both songs (there are sample pages online), which are all in the keys others have suggested (Ab and D), and would be analyzed correctly as such. Even all the free tabs/chord sheets I was able to find for both songs are correctly analyzed this way.
Anyhow, I'm going to write more to respond on the creativeguitar blog, discussing the melodic analysis (of which the first excessively simple bar matches as he says, and honestly nothing else does if you take the time to look note by note instead of "assuming"). I'm also writing a full article of my own to assess the melodies note by note, posting notation, audio, and midi examples, etc.
I, like many fellow musicians I've talked to about this, would prefer Satriani to fail in this particular lawsuit. If someone can sue me and win over 3-4 completely non-unique notes of a melody played over the most common chord changes in the world, I'd best start looking for a new career ;) Or at least get a really great lawyer :)
54 - JC Mosquito
I read somewhere if you play Steve Miller's Take the Money and Run, Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama and Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London softly enough, you'll find they're all versions of John Cage's 4'33", especially where the X minor 7th crosses the mixolydian accidental melody at the top of the ninth with runners on base.
55 - keysplayer
Haha awesome :) This conclusively proves the point I've always maintained, that mixing baseball and music theory can lead to copyright infringement if you're not careful :D Be really careful if you hit a home run though as that's guaranteed trouble (you'll violate that part of some other Satriani song where it goes something like... um... root, 5th, I think it was?).
56 - Marcia Neil
The songs are all-vocal, and instrument performances only mimic them.
57 - Dr Dreadful
No, keysplayer, but watch out for John Fogerty...!
58 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
t's become annoying to me seeing so many people ready to burn Coldplay at the stake...
I'd rather see them Drawn and Quartered or perhaps a nice Keelhauling.
59 - Dennis Rose
I study music theory for a living and go to school for it... The author who wrote this has no music theory in which to back up what they said, I mean i had trouble not laughing through this article. Coldplay like it or not did rip off Satch and, they will settle or satch will win. To win in court they wouldve had to have had prior time to hear,"if i could Fly" which they did as it came out in 2004 4 whole years ago... weird isn't it... also they have to have similarites and if your a coldplay fan of course you deny they sound the same but are you really trying to tell us all that the chorus in, "If i could fly" isnt the same as the lyric and melody of "vida la vida" Joe has everything he needs to win this sorry you cold play fans he will win try this out, for you people that like coldplay out there listen to "if i could fly" and really ask yourself if they didnt copy it because your retarted if you dont think so I hate to say it but your little hero's coldplay did copy them and will lose thats all i gotta say peace...
60 - keysplayer
Thank you for the highly educated single run-on sentence you've graced us with Dennis. From your myspace page which you've been kind enough to post, I see you've been studying at your community college for under 2 years, and from the proliferation of guitar references on your page (and yes I see that you play other instruments too), don't you suspect the slight possibility that you're a bit blindly biased towards Satriani, whether he's right or wrong? From what you've written at least, that would seem to be the case.
Dennis, since you have established yourself as an expert in music theory, if you believe that you can post "better" music theory to prove your point, please do so my friend. Post your "correct" music theory, right here, right now. Post proof that the chord progressions in question are unique in any way, and that more than a common, simple sequence of 3-4 notes is identical between both songs. Those 3-4 notes, by the way, are the same ones all the other songs that have been pointed out have too (Creaky Boards, Enanitos Verdes - Frances Limon, etc).
Lest you intend to strike back by calling me more harsh names like "retarted", let me reemphasize that I'm not defending or accusing Coldplay or Satriani. My intent is only to discuss the "correct" music theory, which to date has been in short supply.
And "Brian aka Guppusmaximus", that's despicable. I'll try my best to ignore anything you say from now on.
To everyone: I came across an interesting discussion on the NorthernSounds forum the other day, which has some very thought-provoking comments about people judging music (the comments of Bruce A. Richardson are interesting, in particular).
61 - Mark Saleski
"...because your retarted if..."
anyone ever notice the higher than normal percentage of rock guitar-related comments that have this bit in 'em? scary.
62 - JC Mosquito
Because rock guitart is scary.
63 - El Bicho
"'Brian aka Guppusmaximus', that's despicable. I'll try my best to ignore anything you say from now on."
wise choice.
btw, Bruce A. Richardson is retarted.
64 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
wise choice.
*Sniff,Sniff*
Spurned by someone whose choice in handles is both despicable & retarted...HA!!
Honestly, Coldplay doesn't produce anything that needs music theory to prove that it just plain out sucks @$$! The mere fact that they are more popular than the Creaky Boards Group already defies logic...
65 - Marcia Neil
We're talking suites, not copying -- a suite continues in time. Later songs in a suite are not copies of former songs -- they are continuations of themes (one album/set = one theme) or new themes begun in an overall suite. The RIAA doesn't worry about suites in popular music mass-production -- they worry about sales.
66 - Marcia Neil
Furthermore, the performers of album-theme 'Coldplay' are being sued solely because they are British; that is the real legal issue.
67 - JC Mosquito
"Furthermore, the performers of album-theme 'Coldplay' are being sued solely because they are British; that is the real legal issue."
Because you can't sue them if they're retarted - which means of course, they've been tarted twice.
68 - Charlie
Well well well, I see that the comments section here is still alive and kickin' (as is the overall readership, which is very cool).
To many of you, lately keysplayer, thank you very much for your responsible input.
And to some others, like Dennis, please do not insult anyone's intelligence here and instead, back up your views (like keysplayer said) with your own demonstration of how "Fly" and "Viva" are similar, music theory-wise. I had years of music training and lessons in theory as a pre-teen, a teenager and continue to study it. I purposely did not write this article using musical language that the average viewer wouldn't grasp (like "intervals" and "relative minors") and instead laid out my song comparisons in mostly layman's terms.
I am a fan of both Satriani's and Coldplay's but have only bought Satriani records and videos cuz he's in my Top 5 favorite artists of all time - Coldplay is not one of my favorites but I greatly respect their work, much as it has been maligned by some over the years.
But for this article, I had no trouble putting any biases aside to examine the melodies and chords of these great songs in order to see if Satriani really had legitimate grounds to sue here. He does not, as I and some others have demonstrated. (See my other comments, particularly at #46 for further, more musically detailed examinations of how these two songs are fundamentally different if you've already read my article).
69 - Marcia Neil
Have a look at JC's website -- the youngster appears to be ready and waiting for a new pre-recorded song with his name on it, so all the college grads (or not!) can toil away listening to it and assigning the correct notes by ear, writing out the scores, printing out sheet music and mass-marketing discs/tapes that feature the find while JC might pass time performing a rendition on stage to collect a paycheck or donate to charity.
70 - JC Mosquito
Thanx for the the compliment, but I gotta be honest - like most promo photos, this one too was airbrushed - gotta look young to impress the hepcats, y'know. It's all in fun - I figure neither Satriani nor Coldplay nor any other rock gods are gonna care what happens in this little part of the universe anyways.
71 - jack
sariani is just rubbish and runnin out of money
so he finds somethin vaguely similair and points it out the day after the band get 7 grammy nominations
72 - Lono
I was going to put up a big piece on this, and so wanted to do research to see if anyone else had. I liked your piece, it was thoughtful (which is critical to me). Interestingly, I disagree though. I do think the hooks sound too similar to be dismissed.
My verdict is guilty, but I don't necessarily think it was done with malice.
However, after reading the comments here, I forget how pissy and war like everyone gets. So, I will just post back at home so I don't have a hundred people telling me how much I suck (even if it is true).
anyhow, thanks for the post! It was a good read.
73 - Dr Dreadful
Isn't it odd that these lawsuits always just happen to involve a song that was a massive hit?
I can't remember ever hearing about one that was over an obscure track tucked away in the middle of an album.
Coldplay didn't steal 'A Whisper' from someone? Come on, whoever you are out there - sue!!!
74 - charlie
Lono, thanks for your kind words, though below I will show you why you should agree with me on this. And Dr. Dreadful, you're on to something. Isn't it funny how Satriani filed his lawsuit the day after Coldplay snatched up some Grammy nominations for this song and album? I didn't include this fact in my article because I can't prove Satch had this in mind, but no doubt it had to be in the back of his mind.
What I can't believe (and never will) is that Satch instantly thought this Coldplay song ripped him off and that a few fans emailed him thinking the same way. (He has said he spent years trying to finish writing "Fly" and is apparently upset that someone has written anything even remotely similar to a song he starting writing in 1990, since the "Flying In A Blue Dream" sessions. Geez!)
The fact is, there is no succession of 7 notes that match up at any point in these 2 songs, which is what one commenter on my blog www.chucko33.blogspot.com told me needs to be proven to qualify for copyright infringement. Chris Martin sings 4 C sharps, then a 1/2 step up to D and down 2 steps to B-flat before ending his verses in a lower register.
Satriani's guitar (in the 2 choruses of "Fly") its onset goes: F-sharp, then a 1/2 step up to G and then 1 and 1/2 steps down to E. This is a similar but clearly inexact pattern to Chris Martin's main verse vocals, and only if you don't count Martin's first 3 C sharps that introduce those verses. But you CAN'T skip notes when alleging copyright infringement, and if you play these patterns together with or without pitch alteration, you won't hear similarities, just musical chaos.
This case isn't even a close call. Coldplay is 100$ innocent here. And I'm way more a Satch fan than I'll ever be a Coldplay fan. [I actually used my white Joe Satriani Signature guitar picks to compare the songs' patterns on my guitar. How ironic, I know]
75 - charlie
I apologize if I've said this in previous comments (too lazy to look now), but you know who should consider suing who? AC/DC should be suing Jet, whose hit song "Cold Hard Bitch" clearly rips off (at least 3-5 successive chords and maybe more from) AC/DC's hit "Shoot To Thrill." Or Aerosmith, who could easily sue rock legend Neil Young, as Young's 9/11 tribute song "Let's Roll" has a main riff that almost exactly rips off Aerosmith's "Last Child"'s main verse guitar riff.
But there's a reason you don't go to court over these rip offs: jurors, the average of whom aren't ear-trained musicians, no matter how well advised, shouldn't and can't be trusted to settle musically creative disputes. I still think George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" didn't rip off the Chiffons' "He's So Fine" either, but he lost his lawsuit. I hope (and don't believe) Coldplay doesn't suffer that same injustice.