The Spose song Gee Willikers came up on my Pandora station recently, and it contains a sample that sounds very familiar to me. It sounds like violins or some other stringed instruments; three groups of five notes. I think it's from an early 2000s or late 90s song, but for the life of me I cannot identify which one.
Here's a YouTube video of Gee Willikers, the riff is first heard a bit after the 25 second mark.
After another hour of additional research I believe I have the answer.
I think it's not actually a direct sample, but merely reminiscent of a melody present in the song People in the Front Row. Although that song includes a very similar stringed instrument riff, it's mostly flute.
I'm pretty sure this is what I was thinking of, though it's likely I heard it by way of The Nosebleed Section, which directly sampled it rather than just being very similar.
That's a basic arpeggio, probably the simplest and most common way to elaborate on a chord. I'm guessing it's not even sampled, it's probably being generated by a synthesizer. That makes it hard to trace to any single source.
However, given the timeframe, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it reminds you of Bittersweet Symphony. It's a different and slower arpeggiation, but the chord progression and instrumentation is very similar.
