Why this riff is actually GENIUS! (THE POLICE) 

Those were the days when there were no slow down software and no youtube tutorials and reliable tabs were difficult to comeby. We use cassete tapes and pause and play try to figure it all out by ear.

@@westprogamer3294 yes cassette tapes,pause and play... old is cool!

I was thinking chorus/ some sort of detuned effect, but I don’t listen to the band so I’ve only heard the song randomly over my life.

@@westprogamer3294 Notes are for musicians, tabs are for amateurs.

@@westprogamer3294 play, pause, rewind.. and play again, until we fetched it..

I'll bet it would be cool to hear Tony Levin play it on Chapman Stick.

Yeah, I had jazz jerks try to tell me it was all played live with add9/13 chords and stuff with crazy jazz fingerings. I watched live vids, and thought it was nuts because he never played any of that stuff. Of course, now I know he was playing overdubs on the album. Jazz jerks: told you so.

It comes in too hard with the first note, you can tell this right away, it's not surprising.

You just jam along to master it

It’s may favorite riff off all time. My dad introduced me to the Police as a 13 year old and I stretched my fingers to the absolute limit to get play it. To this day it’s one of the first riffs m I reach for when I pick up a new guitar. I’ve been trying to capture that harmony and I always thought I was doing a good job, but I was just adding one of the notes in there

Totally agree!!! The riff is cool but the harmonic riffs are just so much fuller of emotion. Rips your heart out is Well Said!!!

I also like to watch it being played.

It takes a lot of patience and skill to parse this riff, but PD is the man for the job!

I could listent to the Police just to hear Stewart Copeland alone - wow! And Summers was and is insanely underated as you wrote. And if you listen to RU-vid personality Rick Beato, Sting is the second come Christ of pop music.

He is a great textural guitarist, but I find his attempts at soloing pretty terrible.

@@drooskeedoo3388 Driven To Tears, would be an exception. He wanted an "angry solo" in response to the human suffering in the lyrics... one of the most unique solos I've heard.

@@drooskeedoo3388 In live yes, often. But some solos like in Message In a Bottle, So Lonely, Next To You, It's Alright For You, Bombs Away, No Time This Time and even Peanuts are pretty good!

@@drooskeedoo3388 Sting wouldn't didn't want any solos in Police songs, because they can be so cheesy and often take away from the actual song. That's why he only got a few over the years, and all of them were non-standard, he was trying to make solos that were unlike other solos of the era...which were nearly all - cheesy.

That's so cool to hear. Stewart Copeland does seem like a great guy... indeed Andy Summers too. It's always nice to hear when the musicians that inspire you are also down to Earth people willing to give some of their time to people who appreciate their work.

Sting wrote the riff/harmony, not Andy

@@squareversesine yes, there’s a great video on here of sting explaining his writing process and playing the harmony

@@user-ct1ns6zw4z I live in Houston

@@squareversesine No, I think you are wrong, Sting wrote the song with rather boring chords, but Andy came up with the riff, rather spontaneously I hear

I had the exact same man!!

Same it sounds diferent from all the live versions from the song compared to the recorded one.

It felt off when I played it but I couldn’t place why

Same broooo

Same, I always thought it was some weird trickery with a chorus pedal that I couldn't figure out xD

Yes, Andy Summers is a real innovator.

He and his good childhood friend Robert Fripp!! They’re in the same category imo. Their collab albums are amazing.

Yes! Do a search on Andy’s solo efforts right after the breakup - so very innovative and lush.

If you haven't listened to a song with headphones, then you've never heard it.

Absolutely. These crazy, interlocking things. I even listened to "It's All Right For You" from the second album on loud headphones and the guitar arranging was so creative and punchy. Amazing.

That Chorus is an excellent pedal, though.

I'm sure that he used effects, especially chorus, to start hearing these kind of interactions in real time over the years, and then just became adept at composing parts this way.

@@dthorne4602 He also used a Roland Jazz Chorus amp extensively. It's trademark "out of tune" sound is all over Zenyatta Mondatta, though I'm not sure if he used one on Regatta de Blanc.

Andy Summers has been frustrating my ears and brain all these years with that sort of subtle harmony work. ;)

Actually, the riff was written by Sting. :)

@@TommasoPaba Everyone forgets he is an excellent guitar player too.

Can I ask you how you know and also explain why you believe he's underrated? I never understand why folk leave comments saying people, as in this example, are "underrated", when just by saying that it clearly means they're not. If you like music in the slightest you will know this song and AS has been a massive part of the history of music in one of the biggest bands in the world and therefore known and appreciated by millions. I'm pretty sure most, if not all in the music business rate him quite highly, as I'll also suggest will music lovers in general.

@@gibsonduvall Summers never got the same level of constant adulation in the guitar press that many other "guitar heroes" of his era did. And the average person listening to the radio in their car is just not as interested in this stuff as we are. They remember hooks and melodies, and the frontman. And they know a relatively few massively popular guitarists like Hendrix and EVH, that's about it. I'm certain you're correct that most or all "in the know" respect him, but that's really a very small number of people in a country of 300+ million.

p.s. Saint Wretched was fondling himself as he wrote this.

Here is somebody falling in musician! How cute.

agree... to be a great guitar player ( which he is ) and to be able to "convey" to the audience ( which he does) ... he doesnt have many equals in my book... one of the greatest tricks I learned from him which seems like a "no brainier" was to go to the little "cog-wheel" icon on you tube and slow down the playback speed of videos ( because I dont have time or equipment to sample each note etc) ...he is very good :)

@@voornaam3191 dont understand your grammer, can you clarify?

What a nice thing to say. I agree.

"analysis", not analyze. {:o:O:}

Don't forget Mr Beato, now, will you?!

is

Andy Summers was the Jimi Hendrix of the Stooges

@@prodevus Andy Summers is Andy Summers of The Police.

All three members are phenomenal talents

Clearly the Sid Vicious of Queen

Did not realise that Fripp was a friend of the Police

Check out their "I Advance Masked" Collab for some interesting stuff...

He also explained the left hand as 'Marching Soldiers' as they walk up and down the fret board. I used to play this, but it's quite hard work on the LH.

Sting explains it here at the Montserrat studio with Jools Holland ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ci-yIVsDIdk.html

@@carbonatedlifeform It was in a video on youtube a few years back - not sure if I could find it again. He was talking mainly about his style now which is modern jazz.

Old classic rock fan. I distinctly remember early Police, and definitely considered them punk-like, but not truly punk. Their sound was very distinctive, and thus appealing.

Please don't use punk as a pejorative. There are tons of plenty capable and innovative musicians playing under the punk umbrella, just listen a little deeper and wider.

I loved their almost Reggae sound quality. They almost always had this fun energetic reggae sound that was unlike anything before and after. "Cant stand losing you" is one my favs.

@@joeyrogerson83 The Police were never Punk! Progressive rock? Maybe but not really! Or just something different! But it was beautiful and very clear!!! RUSH 2012 blows my mind but the mix on RUSH The Twilight Zone is awesome! Listening to this with headphones in my bed at twelve in in 1982, it changed my world!!! Bloody amazing!!!!🤯

It is a tremendous unjustice to credit the human collectivity for The Police riffs being that Andy Summers is the sole responsible for them and he is clearly an alien.

This and Do do do do de da da da are two of my favorites. And Synchronicity 2.

@@cdubbau135 I know exactly what song this is lmao

@@AndrewFerguson1 I was referencing what the guy was teaching, which was Message in a Bottle.

@@cdubbau135 I loathed Do do do do de da da da when I first heard it. I am sitting here now, trying to recall which was the stand out album for me, and I'm really hard pushed. These 3 blonde guys changed music and I think they all brought something unique with them. There's simply no getting past Andy Summer's guitar playing but I have to wonder if Gordon's voice hadn't shrilled our eardrums with Roxanne, if they would've become the mega rock gods that they should've been acknowledged as. I both loved and loathed Roxanne. As a fifteen year old, I heard it and as an aspiring punk who loved reggae, it was pushing my buttons at the time. Then I read critics talking shit about the band, simply because they didn't fit into any real genre except 'rock'. Not punk rock, not reggae, not pop, just everything in one technically exceptional trio. I was hooked.

That's what you get, when you let a bass player write songs for the guitar ^^

@@kiwischolz9811 Andy summers still wrote the riffs, sting wrote the melodies

They have some pretty complex songs. "Murder by numbers" has a complex chord progression, great melody and complex drum patterns

@@SoneNando Correct. I'am a drummer and some of Copelands patterns and rhythms are very tricky (well for me anyway) The Police were a long way from being a Three Chord post -punk band. All very talented musicians.

@jmorrisey79….Andy Summers is a classically trained guitarist. During the punk era, those skills were frowned upon and Andy went to great lengths to conceal them!

Riff, harmonies, bewildered Jools, in all it's glory: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ci-yIVsDIdk.html

@@chriller666 yes indeed! great find ! Incidentally the live version of Message in a bottle (only found on the Wrapped Around Your Finger 12" - With "I Burn for You" (another masterpiece!). Anyway on this live version recorded somewhere around 1982-3 Andy uses a harmonizer (i think pretty new and amazing tech from Eventide at the time) and you hear the 2 part harmonies clearly. Its also one of the best latter recordings of Message in a Bottle, quite a difference from the 1979 Hatfield Polytechnic first televised version.

@@chriller666 ahh yes... filmed during Sting's brief "sniffle phase" in his life.

Something like this? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ci-yIVsDIdk.html

@@chriller666 Fantastic. Thanks for the link. I think I remember this from TV back then or it may be another interview. I remember Sting telling Jools to "start playing that piano, or you'll look like a bloody idiot" or something like that.

Rick Beato is also a very talented kind man, loved by many

Agreed - I knew there was more to it, but pulling it out of the vinyl was really hard.

So you never had the pleasure of pulling a riff off cassette tape then? For me It gave me all that much more reason to not try and copy, and come up with my own stuff. I mean shit, I listened to Zappa, King crimson and that sort of thing. Makes lifting up and placing the needle (which I also did sometimes) a lot easier, and then it wore out the records and the needle faster! Now it's a cinch!

@@Bob-of-Zoid I was a teenager in the 80s so cassette was actually the thing at the time. But Regatta de Blanc was a bit older and my older brother had it on vinyl. He's now a company executive and doesn't play guitar anymore. I however am still a musician. Kind of broke; kind of working; doing some gigs. Who won: me or my older brother? I think I won this battle but he maybe won the war :D

@@druidjuicer636 Not all that uncommon. I am a guitar builder of the kind who when learning was also studying electrical and mechanical engineering (Machine engineering). The books I was learning guitar building from went against the sciences I was learning about "Tonewood" and all of the nonsense that supposedly effects the tone of the instrument... Even where true, the quantification of the effects was all wrong, and it seemed they understood the basics, but often never did the actual math and were often looking at things backward, and so energy loss in one frequency gets reported of amplification of the others... As my fret jobs got more accurate and I can deliver more stable necks and more accurate fret boards entirely by hand, in industry the tolerances for what is considered a low action has gone up because they can only go so low because of physics, but want to create the illusion of ever better results when no amount of CNC mashining can change that, and their accuracy is useless when used on woods that are not dry enough... but hey they can pop them out en mass for ever lower prices and many (everyone and their dog) is now making guitars because it's easy: Only when you cut corners and sell a false sense of what is good. I was using carbon fiber in my necks, 2 way truss rods, full access cutaways, stainless steel frets, fine tuners, no string past the saddles and nut, alternative woods and other materials, high tech glues... all the way back in the 80's. These are things more than sufficiently shown beneficial, and yet are still not offered on a great many instruments flooding the market, and those plecked fret jobs are worthless, after the low wage badly trained and treated people doing the final sanding and polishing throws the geometry off, which the Machine cannot do yet, or it all goes to shit in time as the wood dries. I get so many great looking instruments in for repair that are hard or near impossible to play, where the owners have to learn the hard way, that no amount of better hardware and electronics can make up for that, and a truss rod adjustment can't do jack shit for individual high/low frets, and yet countless self proclaimed guitar gurus on social media just plow forward spreading bullshit, because it's what people want to hear above actual understanding. Their channels grow, while the few skeptics and debunkers channels who don't fall for it are stagnant or gone already, and anyone new who tries to spread the actual reality are slaughtered by faith based believers. I knew that would happen, and it's why I don't have content, I just troll believers! (

@@Bob-of-Zoid Interesting! I've witnessed my fair share of circular, unending arguments about which design or materials features effect which variables. And whilst I've played some actually beautiful sounding instruments that were cheaply made, it's not how you'd choose to go about designing something to sound beautiful no matter how many iterations of the design you made. It's more like blind luck than "refinement". But once you get close to what your ear perceives as perfect, even the promise of some near imperceptible improvement becomes desirable. People become obsessed and I think this is the changing room the Emperor takes his clothes off in. Cheers

Facts

I know in my heart as a musician...any one of those guys could have sat in any one of those positions...but ...to find the other 2 guys...and then decide...ok... I will be the drummer... I will be the guitar player ...oh...ok... I guess I will play bass... Im just saying...all 3 are genius's ....Andy was the one as a guitar player I went for as a "listener" ...but then... I think you know what I mean ...... I agree with your comment ..I have the flu right now...hope not rambling :)

I agree but Sting wrote this riff

I think that's nowadays. Back in the beginning of the 80's, Andy Summers' style and tone (chorus and delays included) was one of the most imitated by young players. Here in South America, in Argentina and Chile, and maybe Brazil too, there were hundreds of new bands with a huge influence by The Police, most of them trios.

@@gabrielloyola4429 That is very true. Another player who used similar effects during the same era was James Honeyman Scott who played for The Pretenders.

Metal is for children.

@@jamesharris6960I'm sure your genius is just unrecognized.

Would have said Stewart and Andy are phenomenally gifted musicians written off by half a generation because Sting took all the credit.

@@AidanMillward No doubt Sting took the lion’s share, but he was the hit maker, and you can’t deny he’s extraordinarily talented and gifted. Andy and Stewart would agree. Yeah Sting seems a bit too pompous at times but the guy is unquestionably a genius.

I've always loved the Police! Along with Yes, Rush, Genesis and Jethro Tull.

Seriously. People need to adapt and grow more hands, as needed 🤣

Check out The Revenge of Vera Gemini, off the same album as Don't fear the Reaper.

DFTR riff is humanly playable tho! Love it too.

Dang, dude, now I'm hearing cowbell in Message in a Bottle. I'll never unhear it.

MORE COWBELL !

Might be favorite song by them

Has some of the best vocal harmonies I've heard too

Quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life was a pissed Japanese businessman singing this at Karaoke.

im very sure sting wrote both riffs, check out his interview with jools holland. But Andy Summers surely brought the perfect sound for this song.

@@sweetwater94 I remember that interview.. it was definitely Sting's idea which proves once again what a genius he is

I will play a minor 3rd to the world. I will play a minor 3rd for the world.

The production value and level of thought is just incredible. Always has been with him.

Likewise. I could hear the harmony line when the song was getting radio airplay. I just had to buy the album.

probably fairly virtuosic when it comes to chords etc

That’s because their songs weren’t good enough to keep them as popular as “the greatest bands of all time”. They could technically be the best musicians of all time but if they can’t write a bunch of timeless classics like the GOATs, then the band itself wasn’t at the top. Nothing against The Police. Great band, and I’m sure you’re right about their musicianship, but not the greatest. For all the late comers. Who’s songs do you know more of, Queen or The Police? Guns n Roses or The Police? Jimi Hendrix or The Police? Led Zepplin or The Police? Like I said, are they a good band? Absolutely. Should they be considered “one of the best bands of all time”? Absolutely not. But that’s ok. I love Florence and the Machine and Justice. Are they the best bands of all time? Hell no. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t love them and value them as highly as I do.

@@LexanderMiller “can’t write a bunch of timeless classics” Every Breath You Take Message In A Bottle Walking On The Moon Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic So Lonely Roxanne And if you don’t want the classics but equally timeless songs.. Voices In My Head Spirits In A Material World Can’t Stand Losing You Wrapped Around Your Finger Invisible Sun Walking On The Moon King of Pain Bed’s Too Big Without You Omegaman Synchronicity I Synchronicity II Walking On Your Footsteps Don’t Stand So Close To Me

@@LexanderMiller You really don't know what you're talking about to be honest. The Police were probably the biggest band of the 80s, they split up after Synchronicity which meant they didn't have a very long career together (though as individual musicians arw still going) but given the amount of time they were together they had an insane impact on music. The Police should be in any greatest bands of all time list because they are, great songs, great musicians, easily on par with the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, U2, The Doors, etc.

@@LexanderMiller LOL, you really don't know much do you?

@@jones848 yet, they aren't. Rolling Stone has them ranked 70th, Louder sound doesn't even them have them ranked in the top 50 rock artists. Parade has them 46th. RadioX doesn't have them listed. You can say "they're the best" or whatever because you think your opinion matters more than everyone else's, but the reality is most the world doesn't agree. Hard to be the "Greatest of all Time" if you can't even break the top 40 on any list.

You’re right, Andy made up guitar parts that were so unique, inventive and beautiful sounding!

@@1DaTJo Yes Nigel Gray (GP) at Surrey Sound was part of this too, sadly no longer with us, I did have contact with his Son & on his Dad's passing told him I thought his Dad's work with The Police should be recognised more than it is.

Yeah but Sting wrote it.

@@Leatherfacet He had basic ideas but the other both had their share at the songs also, they were not his slaves

You're right. Now this song is called "message in a battle of crystalline glass made of sand that once were the rocks carrying the earth"

He was a prolific studio session player, too! Changed the landscape at the time when it came to what a guitarist could do with effects, chord voicing and guitar playing!!!

yeah i could totally see the chords of the main + harm fitting into a song by Itsue or MasuDore easy

There are solid reasons why some guitarists (including Ed O'Brien) are fans of Andy Summers

Doom lol

Yes the flange makes it harder to hear truly :-)

I'm fascinated to learn that, because I was just thinking that might be a good way to sort of "cheat."

I do this by accident 😤😤💪💪

What? Stings the bassist. Missed the part of the song where’s there’s a huge bass solo, so you must be talking shite

@@joshuaevans5943 he means Sting as a solo artist, on an acoustic guitar

@@Honestandbrokecameraguy And that's a perfectly valid reason to play in keys that fit what your guitar is tuned to, or use a capo. Mistakes from open strings just blend right in. Or of course you can actually use the un-fretted strings on purpose.

And way underrated

Charming Snakes is one of my desert island records...

Just dont let him solo🤣

sting wrote the riff but yeah summers is amazing

Thank you so much for this wonderful comment! All the best from another Andrea😊

Sting, not Andy Somers? I know that Sting can also play guitar, and keys too. Now I wonder how they did it live.

Thanks also for shredding some light.... 🤣🎸🤘😝

@@Robil63 I see what you did there! 🤣🎸🤘