DT vs. Queen - I didn't know about this

[Mladen]

Yes, those two do sound similar. I heard that Queen track about a year ago, I played it only once and the arpegio from Surrounded immediately came to mind - on the other side, there's Through the looking glass by Symphony X, which begins with the exact same arpegio.

And this is what bothers me a bit. People tend to talk about how Dream Theater sounds like a ton of other bands in their recent work, but they've always done this. There are a bunch of Queen influenced bits in their early music, as well as some Maiden and Metallica. Not to mention that When dream and day unite has Rush written all over it.

Is it a bad thing?

No, the music still fuckin' rules. 

[Orbert]

To me there's a difference between wearing your influences on your sleeves as Dream Theater have always done, and outright "stealing" riffs.  Because of all the DT moments that are so clearly influenced by other bands/artists, this actually makes me think it's less likely that they would just steal a riff intentionally.

[emindead]

No one mentioned the "Endless Sacrifice" and "That song of Michael Jackson with Slash" that share the same intro.

[5]

DT and Queen?

Yeah, the Wither solo sounds awfully like Bohemian Rhapsody

[TAC]

Heck, even Rush copied Sabbath's A National Acrobat in The Main Monkey Business.

Hmmm, gotta a time stamp on that (in regards to both songs)?  I always thought the lead guitar in "The Color of Right" sounded a bit like the keyboard part when "The Thrill of It All" picks up about halfway through the song.  Pretty subtle, but I caught it the first time I heard the Test for Echo disc.

Take A National Acrobat from the beginning and compare it to TMMB at 50 seconds. It jumped out at me the first time I heard it. The sabbath one is played at a slower pace.


I've compared The Thrill Of It All (great song BTW) and The Color Of Right..but I'm having trouble picking it up.

[robwebster]

It's a bit of a bummer that a band of that stature has to face the constant criticism of plagiarism. I'm obviously not frequenting other bands' board at all, is that a common type of discussion, or is this DT specific?

rumborak

Pretty common. Muse get it a lot, too. Plus I've seen Doctor Who criticised for "stealing plots." They're the only three communities I really look at in any detail (although I've become really bored of Muse fans so I don't bother any more) and all three of them get a little flag every now and then.

Less plagiarism, more "nothing is 100% new."

[noxon]

UK - In the Dead of Night: https://splicd.com/uwDnNGskWUY/190/260   and Trial of Tears  -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-6FD6CFriM

Rhythm, and solo phrasings...

[rumborak]

^^^ That one for me is the biggest, yeah.

I'll add this song to the fray:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHk_Emakefg

Skip to 4:17 and you'll know which DT song I'm talking about

rumborak

[Birch Boy]

[rumborak]

Every time I hear that ending I'm waiting for the French horn

rumborak

[King Postwhore]

It's a bit of a bummer that a band of that stature has to face the constant criticism of plagiarism. I'm obviously not frequenting other bands' board at all, is that a common type of discussion, or is this DT specific?

rumborak

Rush,  when they first came out was called a Led Zep clone.  

Rush--What You're Doin'   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBvJRI_Ftm0

Led Zep--Heartbreaker   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npoYQMPCOvU

[Birch Boy]

Damn, that's an AWESOME song! I really need to get more into Rush.

[King Postwhore]

Damn, that's an AWESOME song! I really need to get more into Rush.

They changed their style from that album BB.  That was from the only album Neil Peart wasn't on.

[Birch Boy]

Damn, that's an AWESOME song! I really need to get more into Rush.

They changed their style from that album BB.  That was from the only album Neil Peart wasn't on.

Yeah for some reason despite not knowing much of their material I actually knew that. "Working Man"'s on that album if I remember correctly. Anyway, I'm sure I'll like a lot of their stuff because I've heard all the hits plus the new single, and now that song. I'll probably get 2112 or Moving Pictures.

[emindead]

Mr. Roboto's intro and Trial of Tears.

[Mladen]

Every time I hear that ending I'm waiting for the French horn

rumborak

Oh God yes, that little French horn bit almost brings me to tears when I hear it. And I can tell the rest of the guys find that part significant - if you watch Schmedley Wilcox, James waits for French horn melody to end, and then he says goodbye to the crowd.

[TL]

I'll just leave this here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaXP6Ua8MXI&feature=related

[jonny108]

Also so heard the Six Degrees theme in that Kansas song!!!! Tut Dream Theater...what a bunch of rip-offs 

[JayOctavarium]

omg @ the vid YtseJamittaja posted...

Love Of My Life vs Hour Glass! I here it everytime I listen to Hourglass but I have never been able to peg it

[KevShmev]

Heck, even Rush copied Sabbath's A National Acrobat in The Main Monkey Business.

Hmmm, gotta a time stamp on that (in regards to both songs)?  I always thought the lead guitar in "The Color of Right" sounded a bit like the keyboard part when "The Thrill of It All" picks up about halfway through the song.  Pretty subtle, but I caught it the first time I heard the Test for Echo disc.

Take A National Acrobat from the beginning and compare it to TMMB at 50 seconds. It jumped out at me the first time I heard it. The sabbath one is played at a slower pace.


I've compared The Thrill Of It All (great song BTW) and The Color Of Right..but I'm having trouble picking it up.

Hmmm, I don't really hear the Sabbath thing in TMMB. 

Mr. Roboto's intro and Trial of Tears.

Actually, I always say that the beginning of "Trial of Tears" has the keyboard intro from "Mr Roboto" and many of the same drum fills from Rush's "Xanadu" (down to the timing of them).

[robwebster]

^^^ That one for me is the biggest, yeah.

I'll add this song to the fray:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHk_Emakefg

Skip to 4:17 and you'll know which DT song I'm talking about

rumborak

I'd heard that mentioned countless times before, so when I clicked the link I was expecting to find myself very disappointed in DT...

As it turns out, doesn't seem all that close to me. I can hear a vague resemblance, but honestly it reminded me more of Six Degrees than Octavarium.

But then, on a scale from one to drunk I'm approximately "drunk."

[YtseJamittaja]

omg @ the vid YtseJamittaja posted...

Love Of My Life vs Hour Glass! I here it everytime I listen to Hourglass but I have never been able to peg it

Just what I thinking as well 

[wolfking]

Check out This Dying Soul/Blackened (Metallica).

This Dying Soul/Noose (Ark)

I was thinking of this one as well.

B.Lee

Yep, always thought this one.  It's very similar.  Check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLY8XKf4f50

Ark's Burn the Sun is one of my favorites of all time.

B.Lee

Me too.  One of the most amazing underrated albums in the last 20 years.

Ark is some of Jorn's best stuff.

Absolutely, this album could be Jorn at his best.

[pmahoney1337]

OMG! I noticed this not too long ago as well, I showed it to a couple of my friends and they agreed with me. I never thought of making a thread for it though, or even googling it for that matter.

[ShadowWalker]

There's a song on one of the bonus discs of BC&SL that sounds a lot like a Queen song...

[Lynxo]

 

[reneranucci]

^^^ That one for me is the biggest, yeah.

I'll add this song to the fray:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHk_Emakefg

Skip to 4:17 and you'll know which DT song I'm talking about

rumborak

I'd heard that mentioned countless times before, so when I clicked the link I was expecting to find myself very disappointed in DT...

As it turns out, doesn't seem all that close to me. I can hear a vague resemblance, but honestly it reminded me more of Six Degrees than Octavarium.

But then, on a scale from one to drunk I'm approximately "drunk."

Agreed (despite your drunknes). The ending is much more similar to Six Degree than to Octavarium.

[MirzekDT]

This whole is it plagiarism? Is it intetional? thing doesn't make any sense IMO and i have no idea why this thing can be seen in music the most when there can be found a lot more senseless examples of "plagiarism" in movies, photos, paintings and so on. Why isn't everybody who painted a winter country or a house on grass and some trees called plagiarist? Because people realise that it doesn't matter and that all those "same" patterns are displayed with different emotions and in 99% the artists didn't want to "steal" someone else idea. So why don't people realise this fact in case of music too?

I think that you can't create at the current moment of your life anything that isn't based on perception by your senses that happened at some point of your life before... Yes your brain can combine it and associate it with millions and millions of different perceptions from past the possibilities are endless so it seems new and in some way it is new but it's always based on something. That means if you haven't ever seen a square in your life that doesn't mean you won't draw one but you must have seen a line before, process of rotation of line and many many different things like that...

So when there are two similar patterns in two different songs it doesn't mean that the one was stolen from another at all.

For example the beginning of Digital Ghost by Shadow Gallery is totally same as the beginning of Take The Time...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnZhUom9qI8
But do you think that when they were writing the song they were like "Guys do you know that song by DT Take The Time? What about using that intro rhythm in this new song as intro that will be amazing. Yeah absolutely let's do it!". Or do you think that they naturally felt that rhythm so they put it there... I think the second scenario is how it actually happened and I can't see anything wrong with it even though it's completely same as Take The Time and probably other at least 50 parts of other 50 songs from which maybe 30 are the songs which we on this forum have never heard and never will because they not available through internet or music store.

[rumborak]

Sorry buddy, but there is such a thing as plagiarism. And, despite the fact that it may happen that you inadvertently plug a section into one of your songs that you actually have heard before, it is also your responsibility as an artist to mitigate the effect. Change the arrangement, whatever.
And just to once and for all get rid of this pseudo-mathematical argument "there's only so many notes, you're bound to run into this":

In a single 4/4 bar of music, the probability of creating the same sequence of notes is:

(1/2* 1/96) ^ 16

1/2 from note on or off
1/96 from 4 octaves of notes to choose from

0.000000000000000000000000000000000029%

=> 2.9*10^-37

And that doesn't include choice of instrument, tone, multiple notes etc. etc.

Yup. In a single bar of music, your chance of accidentally hitting the same sequence of notes is about the same as playing the lottery which planet of the universe to land on, and then landing on Earth.

rumborak

[MirzekDT]

If that mathematical probability you mentioned above was meant in a way that there's almost no way that somebody would NOT intentionally come up with similar pattern as someone else then you really didn't understand my point at all

First of all composition of music doesn't work in a way you mentioned above which is choosing random notes where every note has the same probability of choosing. By this way of composing you would very rarely end up with something that is music and not random mess. Actually I think that at least two thirds of all those possible theoretical note sequences you mentioned doesn't make any sense at all and nobody with sane mind who is trying to compose some music in any way other than randomly hitting notes without any sense wouldn't ever come up with those note sequences.

Another thing is that as you mentioned note sequence isn't the only important thing about music there are endless other factors that will make the same sequence of two notes or chords sound completely different...

And the main point is that everything you come up with and you come to a conclusion that it sounds great always comes from different patterns you have already heard. You may have heard it from your self as you were experimenting with your instrument but the majority of things you've heard in your life will always come from someone else or basically from environment you live in.

[hefdaddy42]

Yeah, rumby, that way of looking at it isn't realistic.

[robwebster]

Yep... the key of a piece may reduce your choices of notes to eight (or five!) per octave, a melody transposed up an octave is still just a melody transposed up an octave, certain note lengths and intervals work better with others to create cogent rhythms and chords, plus you're also limited by your own proficiency on the given instrument. The maths isn't really applicable.

[Lowdz]

Was listening to this in the car today and thought it sounded somewhat like the About To Crash Reprise riff.  DT probably haven't heard of Danger Danger so it's unlikely to be a steal, but sounds similar to me.

Riff starts at 0.42. It's a great 80s style track with a cool Andy Timmons solo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o6J4qMSd4w

[reneranucci]

If that mathematical probability you mentioned above was meant in a way that there's almost no way that somebody would NOT intentionally come up with similar pattern as someone else then you really didn't understand my point at all

First of all composition of music doesn't work in a way you mentioned above which is choosing random notes where every note has the same probability of choosing. By this way of composing you would very rarely end up with something that is music and not random mess. Actually I think that at least two thirds of all those possible theoretical note sequences you mentioned doesn't make any sense at all and nobody with sane mind who is trying to compose some music in any way other than randomly hitting notes without any sense wouldn't ever come up with those note sequences.

Another thing is that as you mentioned note sequence isn't the only important thing about music there are endless other factors that will make the same sequence of two notes or chords sound completely different...

And the main point is that everything you come up with and you come to a conclusion that it sounds great always comes from different patterns you have already heard. You may have heard it from your self as you were experimenting with your instrument but the majority of things you've heard in your life will always come from someone else or basically from environment you live in.

Absolutely this. You cannot present a mathematical argument that is reasonable if you miss this.

[rumborak]

If that mathematical probability you mentioned above was meant in a way that there's almost no way that somebody would NOT intentionally come up with similar pattern as someone else then you really didn't understand my point at all

First of all composition of music doesn't work in a way you mentioned above which is choosing random notes where every note has the same probability of choosing. By this way of composing you would very rarely end up with something that is music and not random mess. Actually I think that at least two thirds of all those possible theoretical note sequences you mentioned doesn't make any sense at all and nobody with sane mind who is trying to compose some music in any way other than randomly hitting notes without any sense wouldn't ever come up with those note sequences.

Oh, definitely, there's stuff like harmonies that need to work. I totally agree, the vast majority of sequences would be considered completely unmusical. However, the calculation was also only for one measure of a whole song. Even if you factor out a lot of unmusical sequences, the sequence of possible melodies and chords are still staggering.

I think the greater point is that, it is not an inevitability to produce familiar music. There's a chance, no doubt, but I have the impression that chance is over-estimated because many bands are just trailblazers of other bands. There's the occasional times where I hear some music and think "Holy shit, this is nothing like I've ever heard before". And those artists prove that yes, new music can be written.

rumborak