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Here is a neat little piece I call 'Buster the Cat' ... he drove me nuts while I was putting this together last night: "I wanna go out, I wanna come in, I wanna go out, I wanna come in".
It's got a nice triplet feel to it. Triplets, of course, are the means by which pieces of music 'swing'. If it weren't for triplets, there would be no jazz, really. Triplets are three beats in the space of two ... in other words, when counting out the rhythm, you would count "one and a two and a three and a four" instead of "one and two and three and four". You can hear how each beat gets divided into three instead of two.
This is in the key of D, and deviates from the related chords in a predictable manner: the minors have been majorized yet again. You may be at the stage, after all these lessons, where you can 'hear' these changes, these deviations. If not, the ability to do so will come. You just have to listen hard to all music and soon enough you will be able to know which chords are which without even testing them out on your guitar. In this case, the vi chord becomes a VI chord; same goes for the ii chord. It becomes a II chord. They both become 7th chords too. Jazz loves 7th chords. In a 'pure' key of D tune, only the V chord becomes a 7th. Modern music allows any old chord to be a 7th. I also threw in a nice little passing chord, the F7flat5. It came into being because I wanted that F bass note to lead into the E section ... you'll see in the movie that I play it with my thumb curled over the edge of the fingerboard. This is a big no-no, but what the heck, rules are made to be broken. The main reason I avoid curling my thumb over the fretboard to play bass notes is because years ago the action seemed to damage my knuckle and it hurt like hell to do it, so I revamped my whole approach to bass notes. Now, I find I can throw the odd one in without too much trouble.
So, the progression in Roman numerals is (I won't numeralize that passing chord):
| I - VI7
(F7-5) | II7 - V - | I - VI7
(F7-5) | II7 - V - | I - I7 - | IV - II7 - | I - V - | I - - - |
The right hand part is a little trickier than usual in this piece. Keeping the swinging, lilting feel going is the tricky bit and the only way to get it is to do it over and over again. There are some subtle things going on to achieve that feel. For example, you'll see in the movie and the tab that the F7-5 passing chord is really not much more than adding the F bass note to the already ringing B7 chord that precedes it. That one note change to the bass line is all that's needed. That little introduction, which is over the V chord (the A) occurs again in bars
3 and
5. It's a little move that will need some going over too.
As always, the bass line holds everything together. It sort of doubles up in bars
7 and
8, alerting the listener that something new is coming up, in this case, the end. Not only does it double up in frequency, but does a climb up through D>F#>G>G#>A ... another clue that there's some sort of resolution coming up. At bar 8, the chord is D, the I chord, but the bass note is A. This also is a very common device used to set up the resolution.
I end it with a natural harmonic; I play the D triad at the 7th fret.
There's more on harmonics here if you're wondering how to do it.
Other than those details, all is pretty straight forward picking wise. As I say, the most important part is not the finger placements or picking patterns, it's the feel of it. It certainly is a fun one to play once you do get that swing going. I'll look at writing a second section for it perhaps, turn it into a proper tune. Have fun!
Full speed midi | Half speed midi | Guitar-Pro file | Mp3 file
(Pardon the tablature -- my lack of knowledge in the notation department prevents me from tabbing the the time values out properly.)
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