Ok I finally listened to this. The chance of Rolando ripping this off seems, to me, to be none. The "ornament" that begins both Jaguar and the other string part, is a CLICHÉ, easily found in many "spanish" sounding type songs, movie scores, mariachi trumpet parts, etc. Like I said just now, if we really prosecuted every "substantially similar" musical idea, there would be no music at all. All styles deal with a certain number of musical clichés or riffs that are substantially similar, those are the building blocks of music from which, hopefully, something more creative comes.
The similarity between the two songs is very much on the surface and a coincidence, in my opinion. They both derive from a cliché that is the hallmark of some Spanish type music, and happen to use a similar string patch. _Dave -----Original Message----- From: Robin Howells [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 8:08 PM To: 313@hyperreal.org Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: (313) "Jaguar" Strings on 80s House record? Hate to disagree, but it actually seems obvious to me that the Jaguar strings weren't sampled from this. For a start off, as I believe someone observed, there would need to be some sort of breakdown where the strings were unaccompanied. Not sure what's meant by 'cleaned up' here, but if you were thinking that the drum track etc. could be removed through EQs or stereo phase inversion or something then, on the basis of my experience at least, that would be basically impossible. Secondly, the synth patch sounds different to me, although admittedly use of effects (some distortion? the Jaguar strings are rawer and punchier to my ears) could maybe create the sound that's on Jaguar. The elements of the riff that are identical are the twiddly bit (i think mordant might be the word?) that introduces them and just one instance in the track when it's followed by the same intervals as you find in Jaguar (although even then the rhythm is slightly different). The rest bears no relation in my opinion. One implication of this limit to the similarities is that even if you could cleanly sample those strings, it'd be a hell of a lot more bother cutting and pasting and pitch shifting bits of the sample to end up with what you've got in Jaguar than just playing them in yourself, so I think we can rule out Rolando sampling... So did he copy it? Well, the core musical idea here seems to me to be that set of intervals I mentioned above. It's three notes, and it's not exactly what you'd call a feat of lateral thinking to come up with twiddly bit if you were playing around with that idea. I guess this is the way I understand the suggestion that there's something 'generic' about the riff... The impression I get is maybe of something that's been developed by going for fairly generic and conventional musical options out of all the ways that little melodic hook could have been expanded upon. So I don't think it would be a TOTALLY freakish occurence if Rolando had never heard this thing and came up with his string line independently, but I admit that's not too likely. The rest of Rolando's string line is made up of the same idea subjected to certain chord changes, which, as it happens, are not found in this other record. I think the reason the similarity really hits you is because that twiddly bit is so prominent and so distinctive, so despite there not being much else that's the same, it's hard to escape the comparison. Maybe he was in fact inspired by this piece of music (given all the things in Jaguar and even the string part in question that aren't similar to this record, I don't think that's an unreasonable way of putting it). Maybe it was a subconscious thing, which I don't believe is as silly as it might sound. It's very easy to hear something once and later on hear in your head some sort of musical idea that you can't place or to let the music you're writing be affected by some such idea that's lurking in your brain without you realising it. More important than all of this toss though - no, I don't know why I bothered writing this email either - is that (hopefully) no-one gives a french-connection-uk. Knights of the Jaguar is great tune, and what's wrong with nicking stuff anyway, eh? Surely you have be at least 50+ these days (possibly also with a large back catalogue to your name) to believe in copyright law? (By the way, in case you hadn't guessed I'm being tongue in cheek; no offence to older list members, who I'm sure are way too 'down' to take the 'kids these days have no idea of their own' line anyway.) All the best, you eagle-eared sample spotters (I think another animal is needed here), Robin > > To me it sounds like he cleaned up the sample plus gave it a tempo > adjustment or played it note for note (but it's so close it sounds like a > sample) - it's quite obvious a lift from that tune. > And we were all able to ID right away - nobody has said - "gee that sounds > like the strings used in Strings of Life" - no we all said Knights of the > Jaguar so it's not generic at all. > > It's a prosecuting copyright lawyer's wish come true > > "The legal test is whether a sample is recognizable. It is not true that > you are allowed to use up to 4 bars or 10 seconds or any part of another > song." > > MEK > > > Kent williams > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: 313 list <313@hyperreal.org> > cc: > 08/04/03 01:08 PM Subject: Re: (313) "Jaguar" Strings on 80s House record? > > > > It also is note for note the same as the beginning couple of bars of the > strings in Jaguar ... just interesting to compare. > > My friend who found that thought that Rolando was copying; I argued that > the string line on both are fairly generic and depend on the context for > any distinctiveness. > > On Mon, 4 Aug 2003, Klaas-Jan Jongsma wrote: > > Well they use the same (Oberheim?) synth for sure, but that is where > > the comparison ends i think? > > > > On maandag, aug 4, 2003, at 19:48 Europe/Amsterdam, Kent williams wrote: > > > > > My friend Rich found this: > > > > > > http://www.psychiatry.uiowa.edu/~kent/Carino-TCOY.mp3 > > > > > > Listen to the string synth at the beginning, contrast and compare with > > > synth strings in "Night of the Jaguar" > > > > > >
