a couple questions about a song, for musicians
 

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...

Something interesting to notice about this song... listen to the lyrics, the music often goes with the lyrics quite well. Like, "there was no way to get a helicopter in close", the drum sticks make a helicopter clicking sound. Also, "the eyes would roll together", a roll starts. It's pretty crazy...


APPROACHING WAS A SMALL CHILD. WITH STATUE OF LIBERTY DOLL.

It's probably some open tuning like you said, if I recall there is slide guitar on the album Ice Cream For Crow so it'd most likely use open tuning.

Actually yeah, open G.

Yeah, I know it's something open. Just curious if anyone knew what. :)

It sounds like Open G to me too.

the song is really awesome and I know now why you asked that question...

Yeah, it's unbelievable.

How the fuck does one memorize a song like this...

you got a live recording of it?
just to compare if they are really playing the same notes (which would be a whole lotta work)

No live recording but lemme dig up the original version.

Trust me, it's identical.. the other version's actually better I think.

I believe you, but its unbelievable :)
btw thanks for the link, that track rules

Get the whole album "ice cream for crow", it rules!

I'll upload the other version of the track in just a bit. It's ripped from a tape, so the guitars sound a BIT different but you can tell they're playing the same thing.

yeah cool. gimme more of that

Okay, first, here's the whole album.

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

One of my favorites of all time.

iCE CREAM FOR SHOW? NO, ICE CREAM FOR CROW!

Haha. Scissor Shock covered "the host the ghost the most holy-o"..

thanks man thats ace, really looking forward to listen to it. if the whole album got that style then it is the perfect soundtrack for today, for me

Haha...

The other songs aren't that complex but they're all really good. Really musical but somewhat bizarre... lots of slide guitar!! :)

fine fine fine, will let you know what I think after Ive listend through

Here's the original version of the song, with two completely different guitarists:

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

Even as a reference point for the final version of the song which I posted a link to in the original post, how the fuck can someone remember all those notes!?!!? There's no verse or chorus structure or anything, it's just insane.

And again I read an interview and they said they definitely didn't use sheet music, so...

Someone should tab this shit!

youd know better than anyone my man. and yes, brilliant song.

I want to hear!

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..

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!

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

atsonicpark already made a cover of it?

No not that song, he said he made a cover of The Host The Ghost The Most Holy

ah ok
a cover o that song would be insane

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 :)

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.

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.

Hah, cool cool. soundclick doesn't work for me though sadly.

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.

Glice, you genius!

All hail Glice!

Hail to the the god of ears

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.

DAMN GLICE!

Best post I've ever read on this board! Thanks haha!

...thanks for the link, man! :)