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> Physically it is the result of sliding an open E chord down the neck to produce higher notes then, la piece de resistance, taking a finger off. Radiohead adde

> Physically it is the result of sliding an open E chord down the neck to produce higher notes then, la piece de resistance, taking a finger off. Radiohead added a killer feature of turning the gain up on the amplifier for the chorus, genius. It's the kind of thing teenagers everywhere find in their second month of guitar mastery. E major, G# major, A major, A minor The song is in E major, yet G# major and A minor are not chords in that scale. > Why should you get paid for the guitar equivalent of pressing all of the white notes on a piano? Firstly, no. All the white keys are consistently in one key, e.g. C major Secondly, although Lana's infringement may have honestly been accidental, the progression and melody are extremely similar to Creep.

jimnotgym 9y ago
> The song is in E major, yet G# major and A minor are not chords in that scale. Guitarists learning scales? I mean like the names of the notes rather than the shapes they make on the neck? I am suggesting that knowledge of musical theory had no part in this at all. You need to think in the terms of an indie guitarist of average ability like Thom Yorke. Open, the fret after the one with the dot on, the next fret with a dot, now take your little finger off. That is how I learnt to play Creep in the mid-ninetees! That is how (non-classical) guitarists tend to learn, and why so many people can play guitar. > Firstly, no. All the white keys are consistently in one key, e.g. C major The equivalent, not the same as.
- Joeboy 9y ago
  > Guitarists learning scales? I mean like the names of the notes rather than the shapes they make on the neck? I'm probably not supposed to say this sort of thing here, but you're surely trolling.
  - jimnotgym 9y ago
    I think I may have got the tone wrong here, but it was more self deprecating than trolling. I am a competent guitarist, but know little musical theory. The same was true of many of my friends. The guitar is easy to start out on and impress some non-players with. You can get a very long way with a few chords and tab. However I would never claim to be a musician. I don't read music, I don't think in scales. I used to hang round with music students who marvelled at my solo improvisations, but I couldn't compete with them when it came to music theory. I learned the blues scale shape and added the interesting notes which my friends had proper names for..but it didn't stop me playing songs. Those who do learn music theory have my utmost respect, they could do harmonic things I can only marvel at, but I knew 20x more guitarists that just learned songs from the magazines (before the internet), song books and each other until they had enough building blocks to do their own thing
- billsix 9y ago
  Try not to judge a musician's talent and knowledge based off of their popular hits. John Mayer is a phenomenal guitarist whose commercially successful songs require few of his actual abilities. I find that Radiohead creates quite interesting music from a theory perspective. Learn to play songs like "no surprises" and "paranoid Android" from Ok Computer. They venture outside of normal key in various ways. Being able to learn an existing song via memorization without understanding does not imply that the creator didn't have a clue.
  - jimnotgym 9y ago
    > Learn to play songs like "no surprises" Sorry if I gave the wrong impression here. I base my supposition about how Radiohead constructed their early hits from learning to play them. I like 'No suprises', which I learned for the vocal challenge, but I think this bears me out. IIRC the song opens with an arpeggio using a simple open-D shape behind a capo high up the neck which gives that interesting tone. The second chord just involves shifting a finger to change the bass note, and the D shape can be maintained right through to the little ditty before it repeats. It sounds pretty but I can't believe he wrote that on a score and then found a way to play it. It seems to be that he had been fiddling around with the classic guitarists trick of holding a chord shape and moving the bass note around, noting what sounds good. The skill is surely in taking that little ditty and translating it into a song. From the same album IIRC was 'Fake Plastic Trees'. I remember being staggered by the exotic chord names and the amazing sounds it made. then I set out to learn it, and again they are classic chord shapes with shifting bass notes etc. So I wont credit Thom Yorke with having been a great guitar player back then, or even having somehow composed those songs with the aim of trying out interesting theoretical concepts. I will credit him with a great ear for turning those little tricks into songs. Since this is HN I will note that his wiki says he does not read music[0] and that the rest of the band take his little sketches and develop them harmonically. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Yorke#Artistry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Yorke#Artistry
    - billsix 9y ago
      Fair enough :-)
mbrameld 9y ago
It doesn't matter that they're not musically in the same key. It's their physical position on the fretboard that is being compared to the physical position of the white keys on the piano
- billsix 9y ago
  Proof that Creep cannot be played using only white keys. https://youtu.be/mp64EY_WAcs https://youtu.be/mp64EY_WAcs Q.E.D.
  - agf 9y ago
    You're missing the point. He's not claiming that musically sliding a chord and playing the white keys are the same, he's saying physically they're the same. Both are physically natural and so could be chosen for physical rather than musical reasons. There are, of course, also musical reasons to select those options -- like you said, the white keys are C major -- but that is not necessary to motivate the choice in either case. If I didn't know that the white keys on a piano were C major, I'd still be likely to play them because they're physically convenient.
    - billsix 9y ago
      (sorry, I had edited my post before I saw your reply)
soundwave106 9y ago
The progression is I / III / IV / iv. "Get Free"'s verses (not chorus) is in this progression in B. "Creep" is in G. Not the most common progression, but a Google on it led to Reddit where a few other examples came up -- part of the chorus of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" ("this is ground control to Major Tom") or ELO's "Tightrope". One problem with "Creep" is that it is a simple four chord loop, unlike the above songs. Nothing wrong with a four bar chord loop, but four chord loops alone really aren't unique enough to be copyrightable (MHO). Four chord loops are a staple of basic rock and roll (garage rock and punk etc.). Because the scope of triad movement is limited in these styles, the chords you are playing (and even to some degree the melodies that come from this) have probably been done before a long time ago. Think for instance what would happen if the "12 bar blues" progression or the "doo wop progression" (I-vi-IV-V) which dominates 1950s music was placed under lock and key. Inevitably bands in four chord loop mode step on each other and produce similar sounding songs. When I played in a cover band, we played with this sort of thing to deliver "two songs at once" moments. For example, Puddle of Mudd's "She Hates Me" has the exact same chords (and pacing!) as Suicidal Tendencies' "I Saw Your Mommy" -- both are Emaj Amaj F#maj Bmaj. The chorus of the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" and the Troggs' "Wild Thing" (I-IV-V-IV in Amaj, somewhat similar rhythm) are also similar enough where you can swap between the two mid song. In modern times, enough modern country songs used the exact same chord loops and pacing (roughly IV-I-V in Bmaj) for someone to make a mashup of six of them playing simultaneously. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY8SwIvxj8o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY8SwIvxj8o) It would have been fun to cover this mashup. :) Radiohead has a stronger case on the melody, but there's a point where I wonder where the threshold of uniqueness should lie. Due to the relative complexity, it would be IMHO pretty difficult for someone to accidentally come up with "Space Oddity" or "Tightrope" chorus. On the other hand, I personally can easily see accidentally coming up with the Creep melody with these chords (this seems like a very similar situation to the Tom Petty "I Won't Back Down" / Sam Smith "Stay With Me" situation). IMHO, if something is easy to accidentally create, it shouldn't be unique enough for copyright protection.

jimnotgym 9y ago

> The song is in E major, yet G# major and A minor are not chords in that scale. Guitarists learning scales? I mean like the names of the notes rather than the shapes they make on the neck? I am suggesting that knowledge of musical theory had no part in this at all. You need to think in the terms of an indie guitarist of average ability like Thom Yorke. Open, the fret after the one with the dot on, the next fret with a dot, now take your little finger off. That is how I learnt to play Creep in the mid-ninetees! That is how (non-classical) guitarists tend to learn, and why so many people can play guitar. > Firstly, no. All the white keys are consistently in one key, e.g. C major The equivalent, not the same as.

Joeboy 9y ago
> Guitarists learning scales? I mean like the names of the notes rather than the shapes they make on the neck? I'm probably not supposed to say this sort of thing here, but you're surely trolling.
- jimnotgym 9y ago
  I think I may have got the tone wrong here, but it was more self deprecating than trolling. I am a competent guitarist, but know little musical theory. The same was true of many of my friends. The guitar is easy to start out on and impress some non-players with. You can get a very long way with a few chords and tab. However I would never claim to be a musician. I don't read music, I don't think in scales. I used to hang round with music students who marvelled at my solo improvisations, but I couldn't compete with them when it came to music theory. I learned the blues scale shape and added the interesting notes which my friends had proper names for..but it didn't stop me playing songs. Those who do learn music theory have my utmost respect, they could do harmonic things I can only marvel at, but I knew 20x more guitarists that just learned songs from the magazines (before the internet), song books and each other until they had enough building blocks to do their own thing
billsix 9y ago
Try not to judge a musician's talent and knowledge based off of their popular hits. John Mayer is a phenomenal guitarist whose commercially successful songs require few of his actual abilities. I find that Radiohead creates quite interesting music from a theory perspective. Learn to play songs like "no surprises" and "paranoid Android" from Ok Computer. They venture outside of normal key in various ways. Being able to learn an existing song via memorization without understanding does not imply that the creator didn't have a clue.
- jimnotgym 9y ago
  > Learn to play songs like "no surprises" Sorry if I gave the wrong impression here. I base my supposition about how Radiohead constructed their early hits from learning to play them. I like 'No suprises', which I learned for the vocal challenge, but I think this bears me out. IIRC the song opens with an arpeggio using a simple open-D shape behind a capo high up the neck which gives that interesting tone. The second chord just involves shifting a finger to change the bass note, and the D shape can be maintained right through to the little ditty before it repeats. It sounds pretty but I can't believe he wrote that on a score and then found a way to play it. It seems to be that he had been fiddling around with the classic guitarists trick of holding a chord shape and moving the bass note around, noting what sounds good. The skill is surely in taking that little ditty and translating it into a song. From the same album IIRC was 'Fake Plastic Trees'. I remember being staggered by the exotic chord names and the amazing sounds it made. then I set out to learn it, and again they are classic chord shapes with shifting bass notes etc. So I wont credit Thom Yorke with having been a great guitar player back then, or even having somehow composed those songs with the aim of trying out interesting theoretical concepts. I will credit him with a great ear for turning those little tricks into songs. Since this is HN I will note that his wiki says he does not read music[0] and that the rest of the band take his little sketches and develop them harmonically. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Yorke#Artistry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Yorke#Artistry
  - billsix 9y ago
    Fair enough :-)

mbrameld 9y ago

It doesn't matter that they're not musically in the same key. It's their physical position on the fretboard that is being compared to the physical position of the white keys on the piano

billsix 9y ago
Proof that Creep cannot be played using only white keys. https://youtu.be/mp64EY_WAcs https://youtu.be/mp64EY_WAcs Q.E.D.
- agf 9y ago
  You're missing the point. He's not claiming that musically sliding a chord and playing the white keys are the same, he's saying physically they're the same. Both are physically natural and so could be chosen for physical rather than musical reasons. There are, of course, also musical reasons to select those options -- like you said, the white keys are C major -- but that is not necessary to motivate the choice in either case. If I didn't know that the white keys on a piano were C major, I'd still be likely to play them because they're physically convenient.
  - billsix 9y ago
    (sorry, I had edited my post before I saw your reply)

soundwave106 9y ago

The progression is I / III / IV / iv. "Get Free"'s verses (not chorus) is in this progression in B. "Creep" is in G. Not the most common progression, but a Google on it led to Reddit where a few other examples came up -- part of the chorus of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" ("this is ground control to Major Tom") or ELO's "Tightrope". One problem with "Creep" is that it is a simple four chord loop, unlike the above songs. Nothing wrong with a four bar chord loop, but four chord loops alone really aren't unique enough to be copyrightable (MHO). Four chord loops are a staple of basic rock and roll (garage rock and punk etc.). Because the scope of triad movement is limited in these styles, the chords you are playing (and even to some degree the melodies that come from this) have probably been done before a long time ago. Think for instance what would happen if the "12 bar blues" progression or the "doo wop progression" (I-vi-IV-V) which dominates 1950s music was placed under lock and key. Inevitably bands in four chord loop mode step on each other and produce similar sounding songs. When I played in a cover band, we played with this sort of thing to deliver "two songs at once" moments. For example, Puddle of Mudd's "She Hates Me" has the exact same chords (and pacing!) as Suicidal Tendencies' "I Saw Your Mommy" -- both are Emaj Amaj F#maj Bmaj. The chorus of the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" and the Troggs' "Wild Thing" (I-IV-V-IV in Amaj, somewhat similar rhythm) are also similar enough where you can swap between the two mid song. In modern times, enough modern country songs used the exact same chord loops and pacing (roughly IV-I-V in Bmaj) for someone to make a mashup of six of them playing simultaneously. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY8SwIvxj8o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY8SwIvxj8o) It would have been fun to cover this mashup. :) Radiohead has a stronger case on the melody, but there's a point where I wonder where the threshold of uniqueness should lie. Due to the relative complexity, it would be IMHO pretty difficult for someone to accidentally come up with "Space Oddity" or "Tightrope" chorus. On the other hand, I personally can easily see accidentally coming up with the Creep melody with these chords (this seems like a very similar situation to the Tom Petty "I Won't Back Down" / Sam Smith "Stay With Me" situation). IMHO, if something is easy to accidentally create, it shouldn't be unique enough for copyright protection.