Representative Riffs

Podcast Transcript

Music is a very powerful thing. It can invoke a wide variety of emotions and moods.

Particular songs we’ve heard might invoke memories of when we first heard them.

However, there is some music that actually can server as a cultural shorthand. Not even full songs are necessary. Just a few notes can provide a very specific cultural reference.

Learn more about representative riffs, what they are, and how they came to be on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

This episode is going to be a bit…..different.

This isn’t a topic that you can really find much written about. I had to cobble much of this together personally and what I’ll be covering in this episode is by no means comprehensive of everything.

This entire episode results from a minor obsession I developed about 20 years ago.

It all stemmed from a very common series of notes that I’m sure all of you are familiar with.

It is so short that you can’t even call it a song. It would be better classified as a riff.

Yet, it has appeared in many popular songs, movies, and video games.

Here are the nine notes.

These notes have become widely used in music to denote Asia generally, or sometimes China or Japan specifically.

It appeared in the 1980 song “Turning Japanese” by The Vapors.

It appeared in the 1974 Carl Douglas hit “Kung Fu Fighting.”

Variations of it are in the 1983 David Bowie song “Little China Girl” as well as in the theme song to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

On television, it has appeared in Looney Toons and Pink Panther cartoons and The Simpsons

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In movies, it was in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” accompanying the rather embarrassing portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi, played by Mickey Rooney.

It was also used in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Team America: World Police.

It was used in Street Fighter II and Mortal Combat video games.

…and it has been used in countless commercials.

I’m pretty sure that all of you thought the same thing when I played those notes.

The thing that obsessed me was “why was this the music used to denote Asia?” and “Where did this music come from?”

This was, at least at the time, a very difficult thing to research. How do you do a search for nine musical notes?

As I said it was a minor obsession, but I always sort of wondered about it.

Well, thankfully, I wasn’t the only person who was wondering the same thing.

About ten years ago, I came across a story that was published on National Public Radio that answered all my questions.

The notes have a name. It is known as the “Oriental Riff.”

It does not come from any Asian music. It is 100% an invention of Western music.

The reason why we associate it with Asia and why it was used for that purpose is because the riff’s melodic structure is based on the pentatonic scale, which is prevalent in many traditional Asian music systems.

The pentatonic scale is a five-note musical scale commonly found in traditional music from various cultures, including East Asian, African, and Celtic traditions. Unlike the heptatonic (seven-note) scales prevalent in Western music, the pentatonic scale omits semitones, creating a simpler, more open sound that avoids dissonance.

During the vaudeville era, the riff began to appear in performances featuring Asian-themed acts. It was often played on instruments like the piano or gong to introduce “Chinese” or “Japanese” characters, usually portrayed as caricatured or stereotypes.

It reached its peak in the 1970s and 80s and isn’t used that much anymore unless it is satire.

A team of NPR reporters stationed in Beijing went out on the street and asked regular Chinese people if they recognized the tune. No one had heard of it, and to them, it sounded like Western music, not Chinese music.

(Sort of how there are YouTube videos that serve PandaExpress to people in China, and they don’t recognize it as Chinese food.)

However, learning about the origins of the Oriental Riff wasn’t the end of the story. I began seeking out other very short musical riffs that were used as cultural shorthand.

Here is another that you are probably very familiar with.

This piece is called the Arabian Riff, and it serves a very similar function to that of the Oriental Riff. It serves as a shorthand for references to Arabia and/or North Africa.

The origin of this, however, might actually come from the region. There is no conclusive proof as to its origin, but many musical historians think it stems from an Algerian folk song known as Kradoudja.

When France colonized Algeria, the music may have found its way into French music. There is a French song from 1719 that uses the first several notes.

Its modern origins can be traced to the 1893 Chicago World Fair. There there was an exhibition called “A Street in Cairo” which had camels and snake charmers. There it was used in a song titled “Streets Of Cairo or The Poor Little Country Maid.”

The riff typically employs the Phrygian dominant scale, a scale that has a distinctively “Eastern” sound to Western ears. It gained widespread popularity in Hollywood and vaudeville during the early 20th century, appearing in films, cartoons, and performances depicting deserts, camels, or belly dancers.

Unlike the Oriental Riff, the Arabian Riff has been used many more times in modern music, including up to the present day.

So, these musical stereotypes developed over the years to a point where they the really have no other purpose other than to represent those regions. They are become so ingrained that you instantly think of it when you hear it.

Are there more?

Yes. Many of the musical riffs, again we’re talking just a few notes here, can be used to identify a country, but they usually are parts of a longer song. In fact, the few identifying notes are so popular that many people have never even heard the original song.

What country does this remind you of?

<Insert Mexican Hat Dance>

This is part of the Mexican Hat Dance, or as it is known in Mexico, Jarabe Tapatío.

Jarabe Tapatío is the national dance of Mexico and the music was written in the 19th century by Jesús González Rubio, with the modern arrangement being made in the 1920s.

Today, you will most probably hear this played by a mariachi band.

Here is another one that I’m sure you can associate with its country almost immediately.

To be fair, the bagpipes are a big part of what makes these notes recognizable. You could probably play anything on the bagpipes, and people will associate it with Scotland, but this is “the” bagpipe song.

The song is called Scotland the Brave, and it is a rather recent tune.

Scotland the Brave emerged in the late 19th or early 20th century, with its melody first published in the 1911 collection The Scottish Student’s Song Book.

The song gained popularity as a traditional pipe tune and became an unofficial national anthem of Scotland, often performed at sporting events, military ceremonies, and cultural festivals.

Here is another riff that you should be able to recognize immediately.

The name of this tune, which you might remember from The Godfather Part II, is Tarantella Napoletana.

Tarantella Napoletana is an Italian folk dance and musical piece originating in Naples, often associated with southern Italian culture. Its history traces back to the 17th century, rooted in the belief that dancing the tarantella could cure the bite of the tarantula spider (hence the name “tarantella”), as it was thought to expel venom through frenetic movement. Over time, the dance evolved into a celebration of courtship and joy, characterized by its fast tempo and 6/8 rhythm.

The riff was also used as the basis for the 1950 song “Lucky Lucky Luck Me,” performed by Evelyn Knight and the Ray Charles Band.

Here is another European country that you can probably recognize immediately….

<Insert Rule Brittania>

This is from the song Rule Brittania!

??”Rule, Britannia!” was first written as a poem in 1740 and set to music by the composer Thomas Arne the same year. Written during a period of growing British naval power, the song celebrates Britain’s maritime dominance and liberty, encapsulated in the famous refrain, “Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!” Initially a theatrical piece, it quickly gained popularity as a nationalistic hymn, especially during the Napoleonic Wars and the height of the British Empire.

Believe it or not, it actually hit number 10 on the UK singles chart in 2020.

Of course there are some riffs that were designed to be representative of their countries. These would be national anthems.

The truth is that most national anthems are quite poor and forgettable. However, there are a few good ones out there, or if not good, at least they are instantly recognizable.

For example, this one.

<Insert La Marseillaise>

This is, of course, La Marseillaise, the national anthem of France.

It was composed in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, an army officer, during the French Revolution. It was written to inspire troops defending the revolutionary cause against foreign monarchies. The song earned its name when it was adopted by volunteer soldiers from Marseille, who sang it as they marched to Paris.

If you remember my episode on my 1812 Overture, those opening bars are a musical reference to France that are used in the composition.

I remember a group of Frenchmen drinking heavily one night in Uluru in Central Australia one night, and they were singing La Marseillaise, to which I have to commend them for having a national anthem that you can sing while drinking.

Speaking of which….

That is the current national anthem of the Russian Federation, which uses the same melody as the national anthem of the Soviet Union but with different lyrics.

Those opening notes have often been used to reference Russia or the Soviet Union in movies.

My biggest memory of it is when Nikolai Volkof sang it before his matches in the WWF in the 1980s.

Here is another national anthem you can probably name in just the four notes.

<Insert Oh, Canada>

Canada has a pretty good national anthem, as national anthems go.

The song, Oh Canada! was originally commissioned in 1880 for the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations in Quebec.

It gained popularity across Canada, with several English translations emerging over the years, but the version by Robert Stanley Weir in 1908 became the most widely used.

The anthem officially became Canada’s national anthem in 1980, following a century of widespread use, replacing God Save the Queen for that role.

I should also mention a country that, quite frankly, doesn’t have a very good national anthem…..Australia.

Sorry Australia, no one outside of Australia knows what your national anthem is. It is so boring I’m not even going to bother to play it because there are no riff in it that are memorable.

I remember standing for it at the semifinals of the rugby world cup in 2011 in Auckland and not knowing what I was listening.

However, believe it or not, between 1976 and 1980, they could use Waltzing Matlida at the Olympics for Gold Medal ceremonies, which was awesome.

Thankfully, Australia, you have a very easy solution to your problem. You could adopt a song that has one of the most identifiable riffs in music and is intimately associated with your country.

A song that every Australian would be proud to hear at every sporting event.

Australia, that is my gift to you.

I want to end by going back to the start of the episode. The Oriental Riff is a piece of music used in the West to represent Asia.

That raises the question….what music do Asians think represents the west?

Well, a survey was conducted, and this was the most popular answer….

<Insert Vivaldi’s Four Seasons>