Why this riff is actually BRILLIANT! (BLUR)

okay so there's riffs that just don't sound the same when you play them and this riff [Music] [Applause] is definitely one of those song two by blur written as a joke but there's actually a few clever things going on in there that many seem to miss one of these things can be found in this screenshot but that's not all that's happening because in the chorus man that's where the magic happens there's things going on that many tabs and lessons seem to miss well it's exactly those things that make this riff so awesome so the core of this riff is a jangly but very catchy riff that graham coxson played on the guitar it's a sort of smells like teen spirit meat smoke on the water just play it on one string it sounds like this [Music] but of course that's not all because he fattens them up by turning those notes into power chords i mean that's just the ingredient for every iconic riff out there right like this [Music] all right and then you only have to throw in some muted notes and that is the entire verse [Music] but now we go to the chorus and that's where things really get interesting so he steps on a distortion pedal [Music] and a fuzz of course [Music] [Applause] i mean i hate to be that guy but obviously it's played with a detuned guitar it's in all the tabs as well it's so obvious that's why it sounds so heavy in the choruses because it's played one octave lower that guy sucks well okay let's play drop d tuning and play it all one octave lower yeah it sounds alright ish but it's not the same man no so i'm sorry to all guitar tabs everyone tuning their guitars down it's not what's happening in the song so the answer lies in this screenshot so the multiple live shows i've seen in combination with the recording actually proves me he's playing in standard tuning and these videos also show me uses an awesome trick to make his power chord sound so much bigger almost as if it's played one octave lower it's actually super easy it's called well an inversion you can see it so clearly because in the verses he grabs the chorus like this like this and in the chorus he changes the shapes to this and this and ladies and gentlemen there we have it just look at his index finger he's barring it over the low e string as well creating an inversion he's playing the fifth of the chord as lowest note and that sounds just this is the normal chord here's the inversion wow [Music] that adds some growl to the chord right it sounds like we're adding a lower octave in there but we're actually not and that in combination with the bass guitar still playing those fundamental root notes gives us a sound die for a wall of sound it is amazing so that's actually one mystery solved but still we're missing out one key ingredient that makes this riff so epic so if you listen closely to the chorus there's this note on top of everything and it just gives so much energy to the whole riff so i pulled some audio magic again and uh yeah listen to this so this is what you get when you uh put the left and the right channel out of face of each other and then this is the result and you hear no that going on [Music] that note it's an a flat the minor third in the key of f minor the key replaying it and it's on top of everything so this technique is called a pedal note it's named after the pedals of an organ this just ringing throughout everything and that note the a flat just is split in a simple eighth note rhythm on top of these chords and it gives so much more complexity to the sound listen to this you gotta love that minor second in the vora so beautiful so how does it sound in the mix let's find out [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is nuts i love this stuff so if you think this is it nope the song has started as a joke they wanted to make as much noise as possible and they succeeded because in that very last layer of the last chorus they add something else again to me what sounds like an f power chord you can't hear it that clearly but i think they're adding that on top of what we just played as well so let's have a listen [Music] that is so awesome so what actually happens right now is we're playing an f minor chord on top of everything [Music] over all these other power chords inverted power chords and let's just have a listen how it sounds slowed down because then you have a good grasp of how complex these sounds actually get if you add these layers [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i'm very sorry for that but i think it sounds absolutely phenomenal so whether this song started as a joke or not that really doesn't matter musicians do all of these tricks all the time intuitively by learning from others like we did today or just having fun in the studio experimenting or possibly even both so i'd love to hear from you did you ever hear these parts so well in this song i'm sure you can't unhear it right now so how did you used to play did you tune it down i hope by doing this you start to listen to music in different ways because almost always there's so much more going on than it seems on first glance on first here and that is something i just love so much so if you like this video a gentle thumbs up would mean the world to me thank you so much and i recommend watching one of these videos anyway envelope and see you soon cheers

Channel: Paul Davids

Views: 1,372,655

Keywords: paul davids, guitar, riff, epic riff, epic riffs, guitar riff, hard riff, cool guitar riff, top 20 guitar riffs, iconic guitar riff, tabs, lesson, tutorial, guitar tabs, video, picking, difficult song, harmony, telecaster, fender, guitar riffs, guitar intros, blur, song 2, graham coxon, gorillaz, coxon, Damon Albarn, britpop

Id: fPGpq_n_cSE

Length: 7min 22sec (442 seconds)

Published: Fri May 20 2022