That’s crazy. That would get Melodyne’d instantly in modern recordings. There’s also a ton of classic rock songs that have the whole band out of tune by less than a half step. Highway to Hell is a perfect example.

See what happened is Tony wanted some polytonality in his song

" Cant play more because of copyright reasons" sad times my friend sad times.

Brooo thank u for this vid I’ve been wondering about this for so long.

I checked out the recording, and it sounds like there are more than one wonky notes in that riff. That combined with the fact that they play it the same way each time makes me feel like they are intentionally bending out of tune to make it sound creepier.

Try Fairies Wear Boots! I think a lot of 70's rock bands just tuned to each other. Or maybe the tape was running a bit fast, who knows...

Same goes for the following songs: Metallica - For Whom the Bell Tolls Kiss - I Was Made For Loving You AC/DC - Highway to Hell

The fact that Tony was using prosthetics probably contributed too. He likely wasn't able to control the pressure of his fingers as much

Also, geezer and tony bend a ton of their notes anyway, to help make a more "full" sound. Also also, tony often drop tuned to decrease the tension of the strings even more.

Yeh I realised I "fret" to hard, I hear my chords sounding horrible, I self-check and realise for some reason I'm really pressing way too hard on the string. Ease off, pitch resumed and chords sound great again.

Always blame the bass player! He's the most likely to be IN TUNE 4+ heavy strings v 6 thin stretchy guitar strings. Bloody guitarists( I play both, but I started with bass).

Tony accidentally made microtonal guitar a thing.

Stuff like this is why I gravitate to seeing tons of live music. It's the imperfections that can make music so much more interesting and gives it life and character. Making it "perfect" sucks a lot out of what can make music so great for many of us.

Mike I love your videos where you get very detailed! The subtleties are important. You rock man!

You can’t play a whole riff without copyright man KZfaq rules asinine

You can't even play riffs on KZfaq anymore. I'm out.

always so in depth and detailed, love all your lessons and explainations--keep rockin

You're always so damn positive... It's really a breath of fresh air. Thanks for the awesome vids. My online lessons are kicking ass too. Great platform you have.

Excellent! Great tutorial/explanation. And I love the thumbnail!! Keep up the fine work!

master of puppets too, theres versions on youtube adjusted for proper A=440 thankfully

I saw your artists series, but NO KEITH RICHARDS! He's a legend and a hell of a rhytm guitar player. Could you please do that? It would be great. Nice video btw.

Actually Tony's guitar is tuned a little bit sharp of standard tuning on every song on the Paranoid album. My guess is that he was using an out of tune piano to tune up. If you play along with War Pigs using the open low E string at the beginning, I get his guitar to be about 20 or so cents sharp of E, maybe more. Whenever I tune my guitar to that and play along with any song on Paranoid it sounds right.

I think it's important what you said there at 4:47 "It adds to the desinence and mood of the song...". It is true that analog era or tape recording mostly before DAW is the real world where everything is doesn't have to be perfect. We also look at everything with 12 notes prospective and we are locked into that model by first Piano and now fretted instruments. Half note and even micro note aka Shruti (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shruti_(music)#The_Evolution_of_22_Shrutis_from_Shadja_(Fundamental)_and_their_natural_arrangement_on_a_string), are fair game or composition personality as long as it tells the story and has an artistic creative side, well that's what my thought on this :)

Interesting, I always bent the notes sharp by ear. I just assumed that the way it was recorded was the way it was intended, that those sharp notes were an intentional ornamentation. I mean, that's how they published it, and if microtonal bends are "wrong" then the entire genre of Blues is "wrong". I remember being taught by a crusty old blues man that the third and fourth bent a quarter step sharp were "blue notes" (notes in between piano pitches) and that in rock music any note can be manipulated that way if the composer/singer/soloist chooses. I know that marks me out as a bit of a pitch anarchist, but its Rock and Roll, you're supposed to give the rules the middle finger. People "fix" so much stuff now that it makes the music boring. Watch Zep at Royal Albert Hall. They're all over the place, out of time, out of tune, meandering and improvising, and its the most awesome thing I have ever heard. If Sabbath, Zep, and Motorhead are wrong, I have no desire to be right.

Always appreciate your deep dives, man.

His vibrato is really astounding. Just like Alex lifeson and Jimi Hendrix. Of course it doesn't sound the way Can Halen, Brian May or even Yngwie would play, since they play mostly on the perfect pitch notes but heavy metal the sludge of that sound come from the hand and not the notes themselves. Which is why Blackmore is the maaaan!

Very cool and informative video! I've had that issue a couple times playing along to classic rock/metal albums.

Tony plays by ear, his bends are intentional. Makes for a larger more chorused sound against the bass. He’s talked about his unconventional methods, such as bending power chords too. Don’t underestimate the master. You should bend it sharp when you play it to match the intended style. The sharpness adds a certain tension to the part that you feel, (or should feel). You felt it before playing guitar to it and noticing that it was sharp, as most people.

Great video, Dr. Mike 🤘🏻

Your videos contain a wealth of knowledge. Thanks for making them.

Last time I was this early Mike still had a beard.

Watching these videos is so calming.

Spot on. Actually Tony used for many years a banjo string as a high E and a normal A string as a low E. In late 60's there was no light gaige string so he made his set.

Also, his early prosthetics were made of plastic. He melted down a soap bottle or something like that, made little “balls” and wrapped around what remained of his fingertips. This allowed his fingers to hurt less, but he lost some sensitivity of the strings, so it was easier to accidentally apply more pressure.

This has been driving me nuts for DECADES! I always used a looser technique on parts of this song with slight bends and subtle vibrato to adjust to pitch for as accurate of a sound as I could get. I just kinda figured that's how he was doing it. Like, a little nuance that he threw in maybe cuz he was recording live, and getting into the groove. But this makes a ton more sense. Thanks for both helping us realize what was wrong here.... And for giving me validation as I was probably playing the song about as right as I could have been.

I love how you get analytical about these things. I was playing along on bass, hated the off way it sounded, then switched to a fretless and I found if I intentionally went past the fretline a little it sounded better. Now it all makes sense!

Your guitar looks sick my dude! I love the black cherry or dark wine red color

Imperfection makes perfection.

For whom the bell tolls always gets me with this, it’s a quarter step up or something like that

It's the same with for whom the bell tolls

Great discussion! Sounds like a sound theory.

I kinda always bent that note a little in that riff, unconsciously. Amazing what I don't notice

I'm just now learning Iron Man and ended up bending some notes a little because it sounded right (exactly in the riff you were talking about). Nice to get a bit of validation for that choice because I was wondering if I only heard that in my head.

I didn't know Michael McIntyre played guitar that well.

I always thought it was me whenever I tried to play along to Metallica’s Kill Em All, Ride the Lightning and ...And Justice For All. It drove me crazy, thinking something was wrong with my guitar... until I realized that they raised the pitch, or sped up the tape or whatever the common theory is that they did with those three albums. I’ve discovered that standard tuning in 445 is nearly perfect for playing along with those albums. Master of Puppets is the only 80s Metallica album that doesn’t suffer from that, so I just keep my guitar in 440 when playing along to that one.

He didn't just get those prosthetic fingers either, I think he melted some plastic thimbles himself.

A very astute, and intuitive observation. 👍

Thank you for proving I still have my sanity. I was learning the solo and went to play along to work on it and checked my tuning several times because my guitar sounded so awful along with the recording

I didn't notice really until I saw this video in my recommended feed. And sure enough. Tuned my guitar up and I noticed it immediately.

I’ve actually always been cynical and assumed it was from when they remastered these old albums and got them on streaming services. Listening to an older album like paranoid on vinyl vs on my phone using Spotify it always seems like there’s a quarter step difference in the guitar tracks. But this makes even more sense, and why they started tuning down on later albums to give him more freedom to throw people off and be in their own league

Ya I like the idea of it being an imperfection that adds to the song. I love bands that do that either on accident or on purpose. It adds life to the song. Some bands want it all perfect and when they do that. Their song means almost nothing and it sounds super robotic

I just learned to play this yesterday. So I'll keep it in mind.

yes you are so right on this subject lol now with my experience playing any sabbath song i dont have as much of the out of tune sound because of having the toni iommi signature sg model i get a very good sound since its set up like his sg including string size. only problem i had was getting used to such light strings at first it took awhile since normally i play 10s and 9s lol

3:50 I though he was gonna say , you can chop your fingertips lol

Music is the Great Art. It's about feel, not calculation or "fix at the mix". Well showned here by. Thanks!

Never clicked on a vid so fast

It's what makes songs special! I love that things that are a little different, gives character. Rock-n-Roll doesn't have to be perfect! With that said, it would drive me crazy not being able to play it correctly! Since I'm a beginner "hack" one thing that has bothered me is when I go onto KZfaq and there are 30 different ways to play a particular song! I'd like to know how the artist plays them. My current nemesis trying to figure out the studio version of Deuce by KISS. Just that one little part where it sounds like it's stutter picking (for lack of better terms). Anyway, enjoyed the video!

That's why I love the riff.. It's a little off, just like Tony.

I think those wonky kinda notes are really what makes the song what it is and fits the idea of the iron man, who walks a bit wonky and sludgy

When I started playing in the late 90’s I started getting 9’s or 10’s and did drop d because of him; and that riff. I learned to play with that dynamic in certain ways. It got hard for me though when I started lifting weights for football in hs. I’ve switched to the bass now because my hands are too strong for subtle dynamics anymore. If I get into any riff or passge I start squeezing too hard. And even then a play like a heavy handed cave man.

There’s a similar thing when Angus Young holds say an A chord to feedback - it can go up and down like a wave but actually it’s just press/release slightly and against the open string it gets that wave effect

Funny I fond this after years of wondering why it sounded like he played a bend into the note instead of the double strum on the one note.... I never understood why I couldnt hit it right. This was beautiful.

The mole on Marilyn's face accented her beauty! Same thing here.

You are more than a musician. You are a guitar scientist

I didn’t know about this but I always put a slight bend I the note. But it’s interesting find out what’s actually going on.

The other thing is also that SGs tend to go sharp due to the Neck joint, your arm touching the body can send a note off. It's how I play the dissonant bend at the beginning, just anchoring my arm on the bout and it puts enough pressure to hit it dead on.

Maybe it was just some of that “at the moment magic “ that can never be recreated. Its what makes it stay with you instead of being forgotten😁😉 anyway thanks for sharing.

This reminds me when I try to play along with anything off of Peace Sells...it's a 1/4 step off.

I have always bent that note and added a little vibrato. Never thought of it as an issue.

It might also be that back then a lot of guitar and bass players tuned by ear. It has sounded to me for a while now Black Sabbath and many other bands back then always seemed to tune slightly sharp. Just use your tuner and tune your guitar about half way of a half step (50 cents or a 1/4 of a step) and there you go! Enjoy. Thanks for this video Mike!

It adds to their “eerie” sound.

Also, my guitar teacher said the guitars on the recording are slightly out of tune from each other and probably went unnoticed when he was multi track recording which wasn't so easy then. We dissected the shit out of this song when i was first starting 20 years ago. Good video

ive used 7s my whole life, love them

Through The Fire and Flames by Dragonforce ends with Li’s guitar string breaking off. When he plays it live he hits the guitar trying to break the string.

Exactly. I would totally agree with this. My favorite band, Metallica, has a lot of these traces left in their songs that are great to learn about.

This is the case with quite a few songs i've felt

Nice explanation. I always figured issues like this were due to incorrectly ripping from the CD, eg re-encoding from 44.1 to 48 kHz. Some songs on Metallica - Ride the Lightning suffer from this imho, including For Whom the Bell Tolls. I never feel like I can play that correctly :/

I thought it was from bending the low E string behind the nut at the beginning that threw the tuning off

Playing Paranoid on bass gives me the same pain, but I suspect that's just a tuning issue. I had the same trouble with pressing too hard when I switched from bass to guitar so I had to use heavier strings to compensate.

I think this is because alot of bands/Studios back then tuned to a piano. So for each studio, middle C or E or what have you is actually a different frequency, depending on how often the piano was professionally tuned..

Beautiful SG mate. What color is that? Oxblood?

I'm gonna have to listen to that....

That was a very useful video

Question on ear training. When you're listening to the song, do you have any specific methods? Like headphones versus speakers? Or do you isolate the guitar track in a program? I'd like to get better at ear training. Thank you!

Wear thimbles on the fingers that would be the ones he loss the tips of. Lol. Recently bought a 61 maestro reissue. Of course I've tried some Sabbath and some AC~DC on it. I've noticed in the past when I had a cheap SG knockoff this was an issue.( about 40years ago when I was hitting my early teens) I actually went to lighter strings because it made the guitar easier to play. Only problem I would pop the .008 E every so often. Was glad to find strings that came with 2 High E s. Eventually though i switched to .009 sets. I think the set that was on them had 011 strings originally. I also tried different tunings like sharp and flat depending on what i was playing.

That is so weird to hear you saying that about that part because i always slighlty bend the string when playing it.

I had the same Problem!

I believe I have an Answer or theory to this, I think this also goes for the entire Paranoid album. I Think that Iommi's guitar is tuned a little bit sharper, since he uses 8 string gauge strings1, he tuned his guitar to Standard, and tuned it up a little sharper than ussual, I was playing Paranoid and Iron man and I compared the guitar track to my sound, Tony's guitar is Tuned Sharper than usual, currently I'm trying to make a video about this, I hoped this helps!!

I always played this riff bending a little, kind of intuitively following the song.

Tony : i feel this sounds good

glad to see I'm not the only one playing 9 and a half on gibson scale length guitars :) feels much better than regular 9's while still more slinky than 10's

"Can't play much because of copyright issues" Jesus Christ, this got out of control hard. The internet is a really depressing place now.

The same thing happens in the chorus of Beast And The Harlot and it made me so confused the first time I tried to play along

Hey Mike do you have any online courses?

I've had the issue of pushing too hard making me sharp for a while. I notice I do it more with certain shapes as opposed to others like the A shape.

I thought this for years! Finally!

I already know that his injury is to blame, he said he used banjo strings or something, so I connected those dots as soon as I saw how out of tune it was

this is why i play iron man (the entire paranoid album) a half step down! I also use .9s to . 46s

Ive been watching for a while and all i want to know is what that mechanism is on the stop bar on the sg is

What's up dude !