Back from hiatus: My Generation

Hey there
I know I've been away for a long time, but now I'm back. I've loads of new (and old) transcriptions I want to share with the world.

Let's start off with a quickie. The Who's hit My Generation took the world off guard with it's 1965 release. Featuring a punk-before-punk attitude and aggressive, stuttering vocal performance it remains one of the most iconic songs of the decade. But what really caught everyone's attention was John Entwhistle's bass solo. Coming straight after the first chorus at 0:55, Entwhistle's chops, distorted sound and sheer balls just blew everyone away. The solo is performed in four bursts of two measures each, between which John plays the changes. I've decided to transcribe in a key signature with one flat, since the notes being played are clearly from the G-minor pentatonic scale (G-Bb-C-D-F).

From a technical standpoint the solo is fairly unimpressive by today's standard, but the attitude and conviction in every note makes it true classic never the less. Legend has it that Entwhistle had originally wanted to perform the solo on a Danelectro six string (baritone guitar tuned E-A-D-G-B-E) but that his right hand attck was so hard that he kept breaking the strings. Now the Danelectro was brand new instrument at the time and the local music store didn't carry replacement strings. So after going through three separate six string basses Entwhistle finally gave up and chose to play it on his regular four string (Fender Jazz Bass or Gibson Thunderbird).

The Who continues to perform My Generation live and have done so throughout their carreer, including a memorable, extended version from their 1972 Live At Leeds album. But in my book, they never surpassed this original recording.

Don't Let Me Down

This amazing gem is perhaps best known for being one of the numbers of the famous rooftop concert in 1969, where it was played twice, but was also the B-side to the Get Back single. Recorded during the Let It Be sessions it was ultimately left off the album by producer Glyn Johns.
Lennon's lament of love to his wife-to-be Yoko Ono is soulful song in 4/4 with a few pickup measures in 5/4 giving the verses a very special pull.
McCartney delivers a bassline truly embodies the ideals of Let It Be;free, driving and sponteneous (and he sure sounds to have a good time).
Peppered with pentatonic 16th fills it's busy, fun and very much improvised (a stark contrast to the composed lines of Sgt Pepper and White Album).
Paul used his well worn Höfner (which hade been previously retired as he got his Rickenbacker in 1964) for much of the Let It Be and all of the rooftop concert. Due to its mucher lighter weight and shorter scale it made busy lines such as this much easier to play.

Thoughts or feedback? Drop me a line in the comments.

Think for Yourself

Today let's look at George Harrison composition. By 1965's Rubber Soul Harrison had started coming into his own as a songwriter. His songs differed quite a lot from the Lennon/McCartney in that they often featured odd chord progressions and melodies. Think for Yourself, for instance, heavily features the Bb11 chord (Eb/Bb). A quite strange chord in the overall G-G7 tonality.
Anyway, on to the real point. The melody of the song became a bit difficult to pull for the, then, quite inexperienced lead singer Harrison so producer George Martin suggested a second bass line - a fuzz box laden lead bass line to guide him to the right notes.
Not only did it help him hit the right notes, it also helped this filler track really stand out and introduce a virtually unheard of bass sound to the world. There is also a standard bass line, similar to the basic but soulful playing on the album.
I've uploaded three different versions of this transcription; one with just the regular bass line, one with the fuzz bass and one with both so you can pick and mix.
The latter is probably your best bet if you want to play the song live, as the bass line is quite dull and the fuzz line is fun but a bit to sparse to work as a stand alone bass line.

Thoughts or feedback? Drop me a line in the comments,

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

This gem off of the white album is a strong contender for the most complex song ever performed by the fab four. As stated in my previous post, this song was an inspiration for the Let It Be-project due to the fact that it required everyone to be on the top of their game and not simply session men for the songwriter.
 Lennon's composition is almost schizophrenic in it's constant change of style and time signature. But it all sounds very natural; an effect of this being a very tight group who had played together about ten years at this point in time (a couple of them far longer). Everyone pulls together and the result is really amazing. McCartney is on fire and John delivers one of his most compelling vocals of the whole album. Give it a few good listens whilst reading along with the music to get a feel for the song before attempting to play along.
A few clarifications may be in order; 12/8 is of course shuffle, so 9/8 is basically 3/4 in shuffle time. I orginally wanted the 5/4 measures in letter F to be 10/8 but Finale doesn't recognize this as a valid time signature. Just listen and read along and you'll get it.

Two Of Us

The Let It Be album is a very interesting listen, especially when you consider the circumstances in which it was conceived. Orginally, after the tumultuous recording of the the white album, McCartney's idea was to get the band on the road again. A certain spark had been lit in the sessions where they had really had to work together as group to acheive the best possible result. In particular the sessions for the very tricky Happiness is a Warm Gun. He was quickly vetoed by his band mates who were convinced it would never end well. Instead a new idea was hatched; an album recorded live with minimal or no overdubs, and the whole thing was to be filmed as well. To really show that the band could still play.

To say the least, the project failed. Instead of getting the group closer together it really mad light of how far they'd grown apart, with all conflicts coming up to the surface. Paul thought he needed to steer the band, whilst the others saw this as a need to take total control. Several clashes and fights made it clear that the mission had failed and the sessions were aborted.

But the band had still recorded a lot of songs during the sessions and some of them were really good. And the intimate sound of four guys playing together can be very compelling. And the musicianship is very impressive.

Two Of Us is a semi acoustic song featuring McCartney and Lennon both on acoustic guitar and Ringo on brushes. The very dextrous bass line is all courtesy of George Harrison, played on his Telecaster guitar. No matter which instrument it's played on it's undoubtedly the songs bass line and apart from the vocal leading melody instrumet as well.
In trying to replicate the line, pay great mind to Harrison's frequent use of slides. The main bass line during A should be played mostly horizontally, i.e don't stick in one position but instead move the hand along the same string. Two Of Us can be tricky to play, mostly because the line is more of a melody line than a bass line and therefore comes with different challenges. Try to relax and lean on the drums and guitars, in this song you rely on them more than they rely on you. Good luck. 

Thoughts or feedback? Drop me a line in the comments.

For No One

A quickie today. I've chosen For No One off of 1966's brilliant Revolver  to show McCartney's ballad sensibility.  Paul (who also played the guitar, piano and clavichord parts) manages to be melodic without ever getting in the way of the vocals.
While the sixteenths may look busy and can be tricky to pull off they never sound that way. And that is the real lesson here :)
The song is almost a solo song in that the only other Beatle on the recording is Ringo Starr on drums and tambourine.

Thoughts or feedback? Drop me a line in the comments.

With A Little Help From My Friends

What better place to start this celebration than the universially acclaimed Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The band were through with touring and dead set on making the most out of the recording studio. This can very much be seen as McCartney's record, featuring a wealth of hs compositions as well as him playing both piano and guitar on a number of tracks. This is where his meticulous attention to detail in his bass lines came to the forefront as well.
Each track features a unique line, peppered with McCartneyisms. Apparentley he often recorded the bass last, after the rhythm section was already in place, and was therefore afforded to really sculpt his line to fit into all the spaces left by the others. Even the usually throwaway song sung by Ringo got treated to a great line.

 With a Little Help From My Friends is usually attributed to Lennon, but the arrangement is very Paul-centric. This is a very good example of Paul taking the sub-hook role. The verse's descending line feature roots and thirds and is played quite staccato. The line is easiest to pull off if you star off around the twelth fret, that way the fills won't require you to change positions. Slightly palm mute (especially if you're using roundwounds) and play it with a pick.

Thoughts or feedback? Drop me a line in the comments.

 

Glenn Campbell - Wichita Lineman

Today's transcription is the cool, laid back line from Glenn Campbell's Wichita Lineman, featuring the always interesting pickstyle playing of session ace Carol Kaye.

The whole record starts off with  a distinctive rhythmic figure stated by Carol's bass, which returns in measure 3. She does a two-fret downward slide into the first verse. The bass instantly locks with the bass drum, making occasional fills on the fourth beat (measures 8, 10 and 11) to not interfere with Glenn's vocals and then doing another two-fret slide into the chorus.

The chorus sees Carol in a more subdued mode, outlining the harmony with a chromatically descending bass line and measure 16s rhythmically unison figure.
Carol then lays down whole notes behind the "morse-code" guitar of the interlude.
Verse 2 opens with a re-stating of the intro bass fill and then follows along the lines of the first verse.
What follows is the chorus, opening with a killer fill in measure 29 and then going into the descending line.
My transcription then abondons the bass line in favor of the solo, played by Campbell on Carols Fender Bass VI. If you want to keep holding down the bottom it's the same chords as the verse but I think it's more fun stepping out. Dial up a plunky tone and stomp on a tremolo effect for the best result. The solo is basically stating the verse melody in the bass octaveand adding some cool quarter triplets and a cool polyrhythmic sounding line in measure 42.

This is an incomplete transcriptions, but the are no other segments I've left out. The song only returns to parts we've already seen. I'll complete it someday.

Thoughts or feedback? Drop me a line in the comments.