Did slash really stoled some riffs from Black Sabbath?

[NeonKinight]

 

I've always heard that he copied Black Sabbath's riff for "Zero The Hero" and used it in "Paradise City"

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1:21 

This one is clearly a copy. 
WTJ = Mob Rules?
0:00 

 

0:37 

 

This one is a bit confusing. It uses the same chord progressions for "Never Say Die", but the two songs are in different tunings.
 

0:20 

0:00

 

[soon]

Zero to Hero and PC is a rather compelling comparison. It would be Izzy and Slash doing any potential copying there. The other two dont really stand out as being very similar to my ears. Never Say Die doesn't remind me of Brownstone but it does remind me of both Radar Love and The Boys Are Back In Town.

Sabbath being one of the founders of heavy rock and metal and having multiple incredible riffs per song and a rather large catalogue means that its hard to not sometimes come up with a similar riff, I think?

It is also interesting about Zero and PC because iirc that is the same riff that multiple GNR members claim to have brought to the band. Slash and Alder say they brought it in and also Duff says he brought it from a punk band (and that recording is available online). Meanwhile it sounds like Izzys writing to me. Would be very Spinal Tap to have all of GNR believe they wrote a riff that all of them were subconsciously ripping off from Iommi! 

[Silverburst80]

I agree with Soon, Zero to Hero has some similarities to Paradise but the other two sound nothing alike to me. Guns are abit unique in that their influences are obvious but they don't rip anyone off.

[AxlisOld]

Learn how music works. You have 8 notes, and a finite combination of them. Riffs are gonna sound similar, it's the accompanying melodies that need to be different.

[WhazUp]

1 hour ago, AxlisOld said:

Learn how music works. You have 8 notes, and a finite combination of them. Riffs are gonna sound similar, it's the accompanying melodies that need to be different.

Just a small correction - 12 notes in the Western musical system

Edited August 11, 2018 by WhazUp

[WhazUp]

And yeah personally I would not consider any of those riffs to be stolen or taken for the GNR tunes.  A tiny bit of overlap in notes or a small overlap in melodic motifs happen sometimes, especially when you have a limited set of notes within the rock idiom which further gets you to a specific kind of guitar playing

- The Paradise city one does sound a little similar, but in my opinion, it isn't on copyright infringement territory.  Tons of riffs and licks in rock have similarities, that is just part of not having music in a vacum, and having a specific idiom within the rock genre

- The Jungle one, the first two chords are the same as Jungle, but the rhythm is slightly different and the riff after that goes to a completely different place as well. 

-  The Brownstone one is a different progression, in a different key, with a different rhythm.  The start of Never Say Die, if my ear is correct is in the key of concert A and is a I-II-IV-I progression, which is not in Brownstone at all.  But even hypothetically if it was the same progression, chord progressions cannot be copyrighted on their own anyways

Edited August 11, 2018 by WhazUp

[CheapJon]

I always thought Appetite verision of You're Crazy riff sounds a lot like Thin Lizzy's Cold Sweat riff. I've never gotten anyone to agree with me on it though.  

[soon]

40 minutes ago, WhazUp said:

Just a small correction - 12 notes in the Western musical system

This thread got me thinking about how some AFD riffs have chromatic lines. Like the PC riff in question or the of verse riff of WTJ. And I cant figure the best way to characterize the scales. Would we just refer to those chromatic notes as blue/accidental or would it be more accurate to have those chromatic notes define the scale? And if thats the case, would we just say that those bars are in a chromatic scale or that the entire song is in a scale that includes the chromatic run?

Since Slashs' leads are mostly blues - which can include chromatic runs - I dont know how to use that as a point of reference to clarify the scale. But Im thinking that unless Axl adheres to the chromatic runs in his melodies, then the scale is just basic major or minor with accidentals?

Edited August 11, 2018 by soon

[WhazUp]

Just now, soon said:

This thread got me thinking about how some AFD riffs have chromatic lines. Like the PC riff in question or the of verse riff of WTJ. And I cant figure the best way to characterize the scales. Would we just refer to those chromatic notes as blue/accidental or would it be more accurate to have those chromatic notes define the scale? And if thats the case, would we just say that those bars are in a chromatic scale or the the entire song is in a scale that includes the chromatic run?

Since Slashs' leads are mostly blues - which can include chromatic runs - I dont know how to use that as a point of reference to clarify the scale. But Im thinking that unless Axl adheres to the chromatic runs in his melodies, then the scale is just basic major or minor with accidentals?

So I would say that the chromatic note(s) in question, for example in Paradise City where you have the three notes in question being F, F#, and G, the F# would be considered a "chromatic passing tone", where it isn't technically part of the actual scale source itself but an embellishment

So yeah what you said at the very end, the scale being just the basic scale and the chromatic notes being considered merely accidentals, would be the most sensical way of looking at it

Sorry if these responses are a bit lengthy, I can go overboard with writing on these things because I am so used to overthinking things from my harmony classes haha

[soon]

5 minutes ago, WhazUp said:

So I would say that the chromatic note(s) in question, for example in Paradise City where you have the three notes in question being F, F#, and G, the F# would be considered a "chromatic passing tone", where it isn't technically part of the actual scale source itself but an embellishment

So yeah what you said at the very end, the scale being just the basic scale and the chromatic notes being considered merely accidentals, would be the most sensical way of looking at it

Sorry if these responses are a bit lengthy, I can go overboard with writing on these things because I am so used to overthinking things from my harmony classes haha

Thanks, man! 

No, not too lengthy at all - I really appreciate you taking time to help me out here. I think those chromatic parts being so central to the songs is what got me wondering if that changes things on the theory end. I was confident you'd know the perfect way to define it 

[NeonKinight]

5 hours ago, AxlisOld said:

Learn how music works. You have 8 notes, and a finite combination of them. Riffs are gonna sound similar, it's the accompanying melodies that need to be different.

First, learn how many notes there are in the western musical system, and then, you can try to be a smart ass. 

[NeonKinight]

3 hours ago, WhazUp said:

And yeah personally I would not consider any of those riffs to be stolen or taken for the GNR tunes.  A tiny bit of overlap in notes or a small overlap in melodic motifs happen sometimes, especially when you have a limited set of notes within the rock idiom which further gets you to a specific kind of guitar playing

- The Paradise city one does sound a little similar, but in my opinion, it isn't on copyright infringement territory.  Tons of riffs and licks in rock have similarities, that is just part of not having music in a vacum, and having a specific idiom within the rock genre

- The Jungle one, the first two chords are the same as Jungle, but the rhythm is slightly different and the riff after that goes to a completely different place as well. 

-  The Brownstone one is a different progression, in a different key, with a different rhythm.  The start of Never Say Die, if my ear is correct is in the key of concert A and is a I-II-IV-I progression, which is not in Brownstone at all.  But even hypothetically if it was the same progression, chord progressions cannot be copyrighted on their own anyways

Good point. The thing is : I played the never say die, and it is A - B - D - A, and in browstone it goes D - A - B.

[NeonKinight]

3 hours ago, CheapJon said:

I always thought Appetite verision of You're Crazy riff sounds a lot like Thin Lizzy's Cold Sweat riff. I've never gotten anyone to agree with me on it though.  

it does sounds similar. 

[AxlisOld]

16 hours ago, NeonKinight said:

First, learn how many notes there are in the western musical system, and then, you can try to be a smart ass. 

OK, cool dude, anything that shares similar notes must be a ripoff.