Thursday, August 11, 2016

"She"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

---&---


On to More of the Monkees with "She."

I don't know the introductory guitar figure perfectly yet (I know a couple notes, but I don't know what effect is going on there or how to achieve it), so I didn't include that.  I listened to the original recording quite a few times, and I think the guitar drops out at the beginning of the chorus and then plays a tremolo on an E note.  I'm still not very good at tremolos though, and because I played both an open E string and the E note on the fifth fret of the B string, it sounds a bit messy.

I probably could have included more of the organ part (I have just the solo), but while I know the chords, and I don't yet know how the organ plays them.  In what rhythm and fingering, I mean.

I learned the bass part of this first, and then I learned the organ solo, and I was surprised to find that while the song is in E major, both the bass part and the organ solo include D natural notes in chromatic phrases (although they go different directions; the bass ascends from C# to E, and the organ descends from E to C#).  That chromatic phrase is in the vocal too, so there's a strong coherence among the parts.

The bass figure after "Why am I standing here" is different in the second chorus.  I actually think it's just a mistake and that it was supposed to have been the same as it is in the first and third choruses.  I played it the same, partially because I think it sounds better and partially because I don't know how to play the erroneous version.