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There's this riff I hear in many demos, sids, and tracker songs. I took examples from 4 songs and put them here; can anyone identify what its origin is?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbA2ze0KZUo

dontknow, maybe something by randy rhoads ?

I'd say that riff is basically the foundation of the entire genre of Italo-disco. It's probably safe to assume that the typical 16-year-old demoscene musician in the 80s was listening to a lot of Italo-disco, so those influences were bound to rub off into demoscene music.

...mind you, my stock answer in these circumstances is always "they all ripped it off from Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor", and that seems to work here too.

Meh.. I've written a longish replay about what this is, with explanation on the funtion and everything, but my browser eat the reply..

In short: it is harmonic minor played decending with some arpeggios on top. Its very common.

Its a pivot riff where you pick a "pivot" note and dance around it with other notes from the scale. It's a common technique in classical music, particularly violin, almost to the point of being cliche.

You can make the pivot note move to a simple progression also, which I think is whats happening in your video.

It's such a common technique I don't think the examples you showed actually share anything more in common - it's a general technique more than a "signature" riff.

As soon as you start mucking around in harmonic minor, continually bouncing back to a pivot note you'll get some stuff that sounds very similar.

Vinnie Moore (a not-so-well-known but still legendary 80s guitarist) does it a lot in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Wcf_j--FZc . Which is where I first heard of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU0RpSElca4

:]

Thanks, this answers my question!

This riff is called "Martin Smith".

this riff needs a spliff ;)
(sounding like sth with Dave Lee Roth afterwards maybe ;) )

that riff is so uninspired that it was probably re-invented by each musician independently.

sounds good nevertheless. where is the first excerpt from?

Also sounds like tune #1 from this sid, remixed here

@vectory
The first one is MISTER BEEP's ZX Spectrum tune 'Press the corresponding number', the 3rd is his 'The ninth fighter-ship', and 2nd & 4th are versions of Aurora.

funny, i know this riff from here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jO38u__aTs

The chord sequence sounds pretty phrygian which isn't pop at all, although quite common in the chiptune world. I agree with Skreb that the pivoted leads sound quite uninspired and probably mimic some mid-80s guitarshred phrasing rather than Bach himself :)

reminds me of this btw dj shadow ;)

hi, i'm searching for an old demo. i'm not sure if it was on a c64 or amiga. i recreate the melody of the credit part: http://www.mediafire.com/file/ei1t98ti0e3s9o9/c64dem.mp3
the credits part was a simple background with a dragon and a pacman.
maybe someone can help? :)