Example of a 'Notes section'
N.B. Most 'Notes sections' will not be so lengthy or detailed: this example is from a particularly long track (a full band piece):-
Start of 'Notes section' example
On the Intro, the bass feels as if it ought to be busier than it is, but this is because the drums pull everything together. The clean(er) guitar keeps the octave F's going throughout this intro, and also contributes other parts to the rest of the intro, but after that, is pretty much tacet.
There are quite a lot of 'almost repeat' bars, so you need to be quite careful if you want to recreate the sound exactly. (I was trying to be as accurate as possible, and as faithful as possible to the live version- i.e., to try to recreate every nuance of the recording).
- Bar 9. On the studio arrangement this phrase is slightly different. The clean(er) guitar in the live version plays an octave lower than on the studio version. (The studio version is played very high indeed).
On the studio version, I think that another instrument probably plays this very high part, as this would go beyond even a 24 fret guitar. On the other hand, the guitarist may have overdubbed this in the studio, and, on the very highest note, he might have bent from string one fret 24, to fret 25.
In fact I am not 100% sure that this middle stave instrument really is a guitar - it might actually be a keyboard.
The other guitar on the live version (i.e., middle stave in this score), actually fluffs it slightly: I wonder if he meant to play higher, but realised he couldn't then tried to rescue it by playing in position XIII (13)? This slight miss-hitting made me ultimately conclude that the middle stave instrument had to be a guitar, as the guitar has a distinctive sound when miss-hitting.
- Bars 33 - 34 (also repeated bars 37 - 38, and similarly between bars 36 - 37), the "Quartal Harmony Chord". I did not give this a name, as I regard these sort of chords, as being based on 4ths, instead of the usual 3rds. This sort of chord can arguably be seen as being derived from 'quartal harmony', whereas what we're used to is 'tertiary harmony' (meaning 'every other step').
The conventional Western harmony chord naming system is based on tertiary harmony, so to apply a name to a chord based on 4ths is a bit confusing, so I left it out this time: just think of Bb and take up two more perfect 4ths. This is superimposed on to the underlying chord of Eb5; in fact it contains two of the notes of this chord: Eb and Bb: the Ab therefore adds a 4ths quality to the Eb5 chord.
This style of chord has a very jazzy sound, and there's an American guitarist called Charlie Hunter (no relation!), who specialises in it - he even tunes his guitar in fourths.
- Page 5. The last bar on that page. I hope it's clear what the "x1½" repeat marking means.
It's just meant to show that the 8 bar sequence on this page is repeated altogether 3 times - with the first time bar actually kicking in on the last repeat.
(I.e., plays bars 45 - 52 twice, then play bars 45 - 51 again [this equates to the "½" marking], then go on to the second time bar - by which time this bar is really bar 68).
These bars really did seem to be true repeats & not 'almost repeats' which I usually notate. Repeats signs save you money and me time - so I'm pleased to incorporate these whenever and wherever it is practical to do so.
- Bar 75. Note the different fingering to bar 9, (on page one), - in the earlier bars I couldn't hear a slide, and preferred to keep the fingerings to within 4 frets.
- Bar 109 + (fills etc). The guitar player is using sustain, fuzz and delay initially, I think he uses the neck pickup at first - although it's quite a biting tone.
At first, Fm pentatonics are used, but then it switches to a mixture of F major pentatonics and an Ab note.
To me the Ab sounds like a b7th, but it can only be the b7th of Bb. The trouble is, the backing chord are F based rather Bb based; it's just that I'm used to this type of lick being used over Bb7. Therefore you have to relate this Ab to F, & call it a b3rd. In other words, you can argue that the guitarist is really using a selective mixture of F major pentatonics, & Fm pentatonics.
F's major third in bar 115 (A natural) is also played, so this again emphasises F major pentatonics.
- Bar 128. The first note of the bar is miss-hit, and strings two and three are inadvertently struck, and it's string three's Bb that rings out by mistake. Later in the bar he has another go and hits the target note.
There were a few fluffs in the next 4 bars as well, but I decided not to notate these, because you probably want to learn what was intended to be played (as opposed to learning miss-hits etc - although if you want to learn these, I can notate even mistakes).
This section is dynamite, and very hard to play at speed, at least without pull-offs and hammer-ons etc, (simply because of the fast tempo); I think it's meant to be exactly the same as the studio version.
There's another miss-hit in bar 160, although I haven't notated it: here, I think the Eb note is aimed for (fret 13, string four), but he accidentally hits the D note instead, (fret 12, string four). I wrote what I guessed was intended.
Watch out for the small variation at the very end of bar 134!
On the studio version the main drums mimic the guitarists 16ths. but on the live version it's the bongo player (or a similar percussion instrument) that does this - & goes quite crazy as well!
- Bar 141. A good example of rhythmic displacement. In this example, the phrase which is made up of a group of three sixteenth notes, which is repeated. So, because three into four does not go, this forces the constituent parts of the phrase to fall on different parts of the beat on successive repeats of the phrase.
I.e., the whole phrase, because it is played in '4 time' is displaced by a 16th.
In beat one of bar 141, the top note (Ab), occurs exactly in the middle of that beat, but in beat two, the phrase has been 'offset' (or 'advanced') by a 16th. Now that the top note occurs earlier in this beat - i.e., on the second sixteenth of that beat.
Likewise, in beat three, the Ab note is at the start of the beat - again it's been advanced by a sixteenth as compared with the previous beat.
As you can see, the phrase falls on the same parts of the beat every three beats, so that beat one and beat four of bar 141 have identical stresses and note locations, (i.e., with respect to the pulse).
- Bar 147. I'm not sure of the f/x or pickup change here, so I'd rather not speculate too much, but there seems to be a high degree of gain used, with a lot of 'chorusy' noise mixed in, in addition to the overall fuzz tone. Part of the background sounds almost like a ring modulator effect - although this is generally used to create out of tune effects with keyboard synthesizers.
- Bar 165. The notes in this bar are from F natural minor: F G Ab Bb C (r 2 m3 4 5). As the phrase extends into bar 166, the guitarist moves back into the F minor pentatonics which he has been dipping into throughout most of this piece.
Watch out for the small variation creeping into the bass line in bar 167!
- Bar 169. The 'slide/bend' is quite simple:
Slide (often from an indeterminate fret location, here I used Bb just as a rough guide), then once having attained the target pitch - Eb in this case - bend up as per a normal bend. In this example you don't re-pick after the slide, but in other examples you might do.
- Bars 171 - 172. The playing is somewhat lost in the mix here, especially in bar 172, so I'm not 100% if these bars are accurate (they do work though!).
In bar 173, notice the slightly different fingering for essentially the same notes as (e.g.,), on page 5 - here, there is a slide on the first note.
- Bar 182. The synth plays a very soft augmented chord, here it is arranged for the guitar:
Example chord String Fret Note 5 5 D 4 6 G# 3 5 C 2 5 E You can see this as A augmented/D, or even D9b5(no 3rd) - or anything else you can logically think of!
- Bar 196, the feedback. I'm not sure how to direct you to recreate this feedback, because the control of feedback is not something I am expert in, in these, my 'unplugged' days.
From what I remember of experimenting with feedback as an enthusiastic youngster, this is what you need to do:
You need to experiment with striking a note, (G bent up to Ab in this case), then hold the guitar in front of the amp. Next, play around with bringing the pickups closer to the amp, then further away from then amp, until you notice some feedback kicking in, and try to maintain that feedback by holding the guitar in the optimum position. Hopefully, a feedback loop will be created, so that the whining high-pitched feedback sound goes on and on without any strings being played.
Now you can try to experiment with coaxing the string that you initially plucked in and out of pitch - like at the end of bar 198, where the pitch of the bent note is momentarily released back to G, then quickly bent back up to Ab again for bar 199.
In this particular example, you need to try and aim for a high Ab in the feedback 'note' - exactly one octave above the actual (bent) note. This is not easy, as feedback noise reveals many of the harmonics of a note which are not normally heard.
These harmonics are also known as so called 'partials', and 'upper partials', & they make up any given note - even though you cannot usually hear all of them..
E.g., the note C actually contains lots of other notes such as C (the 'fundamental' or 'first harmonic'), C an octave higher than the original note, (aka the 'first upper partial' or 'second harmonic'), the next is G a 12th above the initial note, and so on.
Here are the first sixteen parts of the harmonic series for any given note:
Harmonic Series No Partials 1. R 2. R + Octave 3. R + Octave + 5th 4. R + 2 Octaves 5. R + 2 Octaves + 3rd 6. R + 2 Octaves + 5th 7. R + 2 Octaves + b7th 8. R + 3 Octaves 9. R + 3 Octaves + 2nd 10. R + 3 Octaves + 3rd 11. R + 3 Octaves + 4th 12. R + 3 Octaves + 5th 13. R + 3 Octaves + 6th 14. R + 3 Octaves + b7th 15. R + 3 Octaves + 7th (i.e., major seventh) 16. R + 4 Octaves As you can see, it's easy for feedback to bring out unwanted (non-harmonic notes).
In this case, Ab might accidentally generate Gb (b7th) as the main audible component of the feedback, so it's a question of lots of experimentation & regular practice, until you can develop the skill of controlling feedback.
The reason I am trying to explain all of this, is because the feedback is an important part of the sound at this point - the player deliberately uses it to keep the Ab note ringing.
If you can't re-create this, don't worry, you can always try to use a sustain pedal for a similar effect, or perhaps go for a pinched harmonic (above the neck pickup, or fret 24 if you have it).
If all of this fails, no matter. I've seen guitarists go over to the cabs for some controlled feedback, fail, just shrug it off, then do something else - it doesn't always work, even for the best of players!
[End of 'Notes section' example].