EARLY AMERICAN
by Sonic Youth

Tab by Chris Lawrence (silvercircle@shaw.ca)

TUNINGS
-------
Thurston: GGDDD#D# (?) w/ drumstick between neck and neck pickup (right)
Lee:	  GGDDD#D#  (left)


LAYOUT: A - B - C

A SECTION				00:00-01:56

Thurston has a drumstick wedged between the end of the neck and the neck pickup. For the first
part of the song, he basically just wiggles it around while picking a bit.
                 
Lee starts by trem picking a chord at the 10th fret:

D#--10--- 
D#--10---   (he doesn't play the whole chord at once, focuses mostly on the lower notes)
D---10---  
D---10---   (he may be bending the D strings rather than always playing on the D# too)
G---10---   
G---10---   

At 0:29 he plays:

D#--14---
D#--14---
D---10---
D---10---
G---10---
G---10---

He briefly lifts off to the open G strings then goes back to the 10th fret. Around 0:50 he changes to:

D#--12---
D#--12---
D---10---
D---10---
G---10---
G---10---

Around 1:10 he starts rapidly picking the low G strings, while slightly raising one of the strings 
up and down with the tuning peg while he picks. 

Right before the big bass chord that ends this section, you can hear him getting his next chord 
shape ready:

D#--10---
D#---8---
D----9---
D----7---
G--------
G--------

B SECTION				01:56-04:33

Thurston plays an arpeggiated triplet figure for quite a while, picking notes on the pick-up side
of the drumstick while wiggling it a bit with his left hand. 

Around 3 minutes in it changes a bit to add a higher note, but goes back to the main pattern pretty 
quickly.

He does change things up a bit but it's all basically just picking out two or three "note" patterns while
flexing the drumstick.
                 
Lee starts picking around this chord shape:

D#--10---
D#---8---       I would fret this without your index finger so you can use it for the 7th fret later.
D----9---
D--------
G--------
G--------

At 2:54 he lets the open D string sound while picking the riff, then slowly starts adding it to
the regular picking, stopping around 3:20. Around 3:33 he adds the 7th fret:

D#--10---
D#---8---
D----9---
D----7---
G--------
G--------

Just after 4 minutes in, he switches to something like this:

D#--9---
D#--8---
D---7---
D-------
G-------
G-------

C SECTION				04:33-06:03

For the outro, Thurston just taps the drumstick with his left hand along with Bob's beat. It's extremely 
subtle on the recorded version.
                 
Lee starts by picking at this one note:

D#-------
D#-------
D--------
D--------
G---13---
G---13---

At 5:23 he changes to the open G strings:

D#------
D#------
D-------
D-------
G---0---
G---0---		play til end!


Last updated: 08/31/23

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