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Old 08.16.2008, 07:36 PM   #21
atsonicpark
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Anyone else want to take a guess at the tuning?

It's definitely open.. again, I'm guessing G....... Just wondering if anyone can "confirm" that..
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Old 08.17.2008, 08:23 AM   #22
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listen to it for a few times now in a sober state. and I even love it more. what an aweome album thanks again for the lin and stuff!
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Old 08.17.2008, 04:42 PM   #23
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Put your Captain Beefheart cover onto sendspace or something for me to hear!

I'd also like to hear your Blue Mamba and Passing Complexion covers
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Old 08.17.2008, 04:43 PM   #24
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atsonicpark already made a cover of it?
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Old 08.17.2008, 04:56 PM   #25
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No not that song, he said he made a cover of The Host The Ghost The Most Holy
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Old 08.17.2008, 05:04 PM   #26
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ah ok
a cover o that song would be insane
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Old 08.17.2008, 05:43 PM   #27
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Hahha I will sometime Derek. I'm not at the computer right now with those songs on 'em.

The passing complexion cover is over on the soundclick page if you have a soundclick account
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Old 08.17.2008, 08:05 PM   #28
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The more I listen to Ice Cream for Crow, the more I think it's his best album, but I'm probably in the minority. It's a shame he had to be afflicted with MS, he still had so much to offer.
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Old 08.17.2008, 08:07 PM   #29
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Yeah man really.. I've always thought it was his best album... from the moment I heard it...

I read an interview with him from in 1990 where he said he was still composing tunes at his house and he might come back to the musical world eventually. That never happened. But he wrote "the new stuff I've written is pretty wild." Sigh.
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Old 08.18.2008, 04:33 AM   #30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by atsonicpark
Hahha I will sometime Derek. I'm not at the computer right now with those songs on 'em.

The passing complexion cover is over on the soundclick page if you have a soundclick account
Hah, cool cool. soundclick doesn't work for me though sadly.
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Old 08.18.2008, 01:21 PM   #31
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Quote:
Originally Posted by atsonicpark
I'm sure some of you may know the classic song by Captain Beefheart, "1010th Day of the Human Totem Pole", if not:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/d1a6xp

You must hear it...

And answer the following:

1) Anyone know what tuning this is in? I'm guessing Open G...

2) How the FUCK does one go about remembering all those notes? There is another version of this song (on the original "Bat Chain Puller" album), played with 2 guitarists, and neither guitarist is the guitarist on this recording.. In fact, I think the whole band is completely different... but yeah, they play the EXACT same notes. I know for a fact they didn't have sheet music when playing this stuff. And I know the answer is just "they practiced a lot", but goddamn.. that's a lot of notes that don't really seem to go together to be played perfectly by 3 different guitarists...

I'll give scoring this a bash, but I can't be arsed to tab it... basically, there's 6 or 7 basic parts with minor variations - if you think of it like that, it's a question of remembering the 6 or 7 basic parts and then remembering the variations - I haven't started on it yet, but I'd guess you've got something like:

Riff one > variations 1, 2, 3 bridge to riff two, then variations 1, 2, 3 etc

I mean, remembering it would be difficult, and playing it in time with the drumming (the interplay there is ridiculous), and ignoring Don's sqawking would make it incredibly difficult, but it's not beyond the capacities of an above-average guitarist (the question is how the fuck Don wrote this...).

I'm not sure whether an alternate tuning is necessary, I can't hear any drones or intervals that are beyond normal reach.
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Old 08.18.2008, 01:54 PM   #32
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Glice, you genius!
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Old 08.19.2008, 02:09 AM   #33
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All hail Glice!
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Old 08.19.2008, 04:20 AM   #34
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Hail to the the god of ears
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Old 10.29.2008, 05:10 PM   #35
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Yeah, right so, basically - I was trying to transcribe the whole of the guitar line. The problem is that I don't have any means of blocking out the drums or bass and they keep interfering with the guitar line. Also, it's difficult to transcribe a song that is doing your fucking head in. Apologies for that, but I'm going to go insane if I have to listen to this song any more.

00:00-2:36

Notes are a blues Em - E, G, A, B, D (minor pentatonic less 2nd & 6th). The basic pattern is that G octave (opening notes) for 8 then Em (lower G with the E on the B string or on the 12th fret E-string). If you could imagine the opening bars, less the rests, it'd be a G octave for 2 quarter notes, G quarter, A 8th B 8th, G octave for two (it's actually one with a rest); second bar is 3 qG-octaves, 2qs EM. That's the first theme, and the one that runs through the whole of the first section.

The second theme is a melodic one - up around the 13th fret of the e-string, G, E, D, E, D-E (octave lower) [for the G-octave part) then B-D-E for the Em of our first theme.

So the theme for the first section is our Octave-Gs (8q) > Em (2q) [2 bars], followed by [blues] melodic for two bars - so far, so good. The basic theme in itself is a piece of piss - you could probably teach most 'playing guitar for a year' sorts that kind of thing; the problem is that Beefheart doesn't let the musicians settle into a groove. Notes aren't sounded for whole measures, and there isn't a bar from 00:00> 2:36 that doesn't have a rest in it. And this is why I started to get annoyed. There's very, very little here melodically - there's no variation on the basic blues pattern, the notes don't jump about modally. Not very much happens to the notes. They're cut in half, they stop when they shouldn't. If Beefheart was a genius, it certainly wasn't of melody, but it may have been of rythm.

In fact, what Beefheart does (something that ME Smith does from time-to-time) is to be the only one keeping time - the vocals are very steady, keeping a relatively constant time. "Ba da da be da be da-de-da [rest] ba da ba da [little rest] be da", or 1 2-3-4 5., 1 2 (3) [rest 2], 1 2 3 4 [5], 1 2 [3 4 5].

In terms of learning it - you could nail the basic theme in a minute; getting the rests in the right places would take longer, but not too long if you were commited. You'd probably have to commision someone to tab it though. You'll need a Beefheartphile, because I can't listen to this song any more.

2:36> 4:00

Brief section of a major scale E-G#-B-B[2]; D-C#-B-B>E taking us away from the Em of our opening section. Not very much on the guitar here, giving way to the clarinet (or other reeded instrument) 'solo'. This bit is a blues scale again, missing a 2nd and 4th (or has an 'ambiguous' 3rd if you prefer). I think it's melodic minor as it seems to have the raised third but the lowered 7th (fucking right too, there doesn't seem much point venturing into jazz at this point).

4:00> 5:30

We get some fiddling about with seconds (F) for three-note runs, and a little bit of moving the 8.-16-8.>4 of the earlier section (G-A-G>E) into A-G-A-B>E [16/16/16/8/4--rest]

5:30 - end

Little bit of spazzy guitaring.

The synopsis, from my perspective, is that it's going to be fuckin difficult for any poor bugger stuck with transcribing this. It's almost unbearable trying to decide which rest belongs where. Well, the truth of the matter is that I'm not a very good transcriber - let's not forget that.

Essentially, Beefheart doesn't borrow any notes (as in the classical idea of slurring notes between measures) or steal any time (as in Jazz's 'swinging') - it's very regimented. What he does do (which is also common to, say, glitch music) is to assume that a very simple melodic idea (G>Em is barely a song, I'm afraid) is a straight line and cut bits out.

Rather than Da dee dee da daaa, de da duh da daaa it's more
Dadedee ___daaa___, ded__du_da da__. I would be very interested to see if a proper musicologist could find a logic behind the rests - I can't help but feel that there's no reason for him to cut out sections of the (in-itself sparse) melody other than to bolster what is a melodically poor song. Maybe he's emphasising the lyrics...

Sorry. Poor effort on my part. I never want to hear this song again.

Edit: reading back my first post - there's only one theme, with 3 or 4 basic variations. After that it's non-repetitious, but maybe I'm actually an old man and don't consider that groundbreaking. I'M GOING TO LISTEN TO SOME MAHLER NOW.
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Old 10.30.2008, 04:39 AM   #36
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DAMN GLICE!

Best post I've ever read on this board! Thanks haha!
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Old 10.30.2008, 09:56 AM   #37
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Quote:
Originally Posted by atsonicpark
Okay, first, here's the whole album.

http://www.badongo.com/file/5181551

One of my favorites of all time.

...thanks for the link, man!
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