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I'd probably just cheat and play quartal shapes.
But I hear a Dm7b5 shape (Fm6)
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10-23-2023 11:08 AM
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So why is everyone online playing it xx1111? And everyone here thinks it's xx0111?
And why do I make it Eb all the time? What's wrong with me???
(None of you have posted any sound clips, I notice, only your say-so)
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Try redoing your soundcloud clip (if possible) so that it plays one chord Wes, one chord yours, one chord Wes, one chord yours etc. (instead of 4 Wes chords followed by 4 of yours).
I think that will make the difference clearer, you should be able to hear the change going back and forth as it were.
I agree it’s not easy to hear though. For some reason it’s more obvious on my tinny iPad speakers.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
'I've been doing this for an hour now and I keep getting the same result. If you start with the D then it sounds just fine but if the Eb comes first then you can hear the D fall.'
First Wes, then me with Eb, then Wes, then me with D, etc, several times. The Eb sounded the same, but you could hear the D fall away. As you say, it went back and forth, but the Eb predominated.
I better do it again and post it this time. Can someone else put in a convincing clip as well?
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Here you go. Starts with Eb, then D, alternately. You can hear the D go down. It's subtle but it's there. To my mind the Eb sounds the more similar.
Mind you, by the time you get to the end it all sounds the same. And I still want a film of Wes doing it!
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Silence, no clips... Oh, well.
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It's no good alternating between 2 different comparisons every time like that, the ear can't follow it. Also you seem to have altered the Wes chords somehow, they sound different. You didn't do what I originally suggested, i.e. take your first clip and re-edit it to do one chord of Wes, one of yours, one of Wes, one of yours, etc. Then it's quite clear that the lowest note is flipping between D and Eb each time. I heard this clearly in your first clip, but only in the one place where it transitioned from Wes to yours.
Anyway I've saved you the trouble, here's your first clip done the way I suggested. It's quite clear to me that each time, the lowest note goes up a semitone when you play the chord, after Wes. So just to spell it out, from 0:05 it's Wes playing the first chord, then you playing the chord, then Wes again, then you, etc. And the lowest note goes from D to Eb each time.
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Thanks.
I didn't alter anything. Bar the editing, of course. The Wes chords you hear are recorded direct from YouTube. It's highly possible that moving them to SoundCloud and then to here resulted in a loss of quality.
I did it again, this time using the second chord he played because someone said the first one was fuzzy or something. But I did do what you said. One Wes, one mine, one Wes, one mine, etc, starting with the Eb bass, then D, then Eb, etc.
To be honest, I heard the difference clearly at the time but now it all sounds the same. But I think if one actually played the whole tune, like that guy on the video, a Fm6 would sound different to an Fm7.
Anyway I've saved you the trouble, here's your first clip done the way I suggested.
Still sounds more or less the same. And I'm not being difficult, the difference really is pretty invisible for me. But I was hoping other people here might be able to produce something really clear because they've got expensive equipment.
It had occurred to me that most professional transcribers, like Carles Margarit, use hi-tech equipment to nail their extremely good transcriptions.
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PS. SoundCloud won't allow recorded music due to copyright issues. YouTube, otoh, will. The problem is that there's a very definite loss of quality by the time it arrives here.
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Well if you want clips, here's another one. This is a WAV file ripped from my copy of the 24-bit remastered 'Full House' CD. I slowed it down and noticed that Wes occasionally comes off the first chord a little less cleanly and leaves the D note hanging there for a moment. So here's a good example from the slowed-down WAV, which I have also EQ'd a bit to bring out the frequencies we're interested in. It is quite clearly leaving a D note after the chord. Just try playing the 4th string D on your guitar (assuming it's tuned properly), you can hear it's the same note. It certainly isn't Eb.
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Sorry for the delay. Domestic crisis involving a bank and some brain-dead call handlers in India...
Gosh, the clarity of that clip was pretty good!
I've just tuned the D string to concert, spot on. I don't think Wes' guitar was concert. Or the recording isn't concert. Neither my D or Eb coincide, which is a bummer. And re-tuning the string to the recording isn't logical :-)
... and leaves the D note hanging there for a moment
Just a theory.
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Incidentally, the transcriptions posted here have all got the Eb chord (in bar 5) wrong too. Slowed down, it is clear Wes is playing an Eb9, not Eb9sus, i.e. the lowest note is G, not Ab. (So xx5666 rather than xx6666). Makes sense that he just transposed the same voicings he used at the start.
Steve Khan's book has another error at this point, he has A natural (!) as the lowest note of the Eb chord. Either he (or the publisher) missed out the accidental (his key signature is Bb).
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I must tell you a story about Indian lady call-handlers from another time. The gf rang up from Germany where she was contracting and was told she had to go to a local HSBC branch to sort her query out in person. She said 'I can't, I'm working in Germany'. The woman kept repeating she had to go to a local branch and was given the same answer. That went on for some time.
It was eventually concluded that the only reason she wasn't getting anywhere was because, wait for it, the Indian woman didn't know what 'Germany' meant.
I jest not.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
No question, we need a live film of him performing it. With the camera on the fretboard!
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Originally Posted by ragman1
But like I said, it doesn't matter that much. People can play it either way and choose what they prefer.
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If he was playing xx5666 later he might well have been playing xx5656 at the start. Which is why the chord sounded constant. If you move from there it wouldn't leave a D ringing. Or falling, etc.
Absolutely, it doesn't matter much how one plays it. D at the bottom might even improve it :-)
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Let's argue about something more important-- is Wes voicing that chord x x 0 1 1 1 or x 5 6 5 6 x?
I know which one I'd use...
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We don't know. That's one of the points. That's why we need a film!
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Well, from what video is available of Wes it's clear he had no issue with jumping from position to position...
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True, he was pretty nifty.
I'd use xx0111. It's easier to get to xx3544.
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For some reason I find it easier to start from x5656x and jump across to xx3544 (also I don’t like using open strings in these fast block chord things, you have to worry more about damping them).
Probably because I spent some time practising Barry Harris 6-dim chord-scale stuff both up and down and across the neck a few years ago, and these chords all conform to the same shapes I was using (they can all be seen as either min6 or maj6 inversions). I found it really useful to be able to move them quickly across the neck, kind of ‘position playing’ but in chords.
Listening to Wes’ chord solos I suspect he could do it either way with equal ease.
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Originally Posted by ragman1
Of course there may be other unknown stuff out there, but I would have thought it’s unlikely by now.
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I didn't think there'd be a film. It would probably be on YouTube if there was. Never mind.
But I would like to know why the transcriptions, videos, and every single online lead sheet I've seen say Eb (or F with an Ab key sig) say Eb. And here everyone is saying it's a D.
It's not that I don't believe you but it means everyone else is wrong. Is that likely?
Here's a sheet with an Ab key sig. The music is simplified down to the tune. Now that makes sense, that's exactly what the tune sounds like minus all the surrounding noise.
According to you here that first note should be a scale tone lower, right? That would not make sense, it wouldn't be the tune. I don't believe a latin tune like this would start a semitone lower. It's too straightforward for that. Almost like a 12-bar blues.
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Originally Posted by ragman1
We are talking about the bottom note of the first chord as voiced by Wes. That note is a D, in my opinion.
The top note of his first chord is F, which is of course the melody note. That isn’t affected by anything under discussion in this thread.
The chord (from bottom up) is D, Ab, C, F.
In my opinion.
If you prefer, play it with an Eb on the bottom. It’ll still have F on top.
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A quick reminder (from the OP’s post) of what we are discussing:
Originally Posted by jackalGreen
Moffa Mithra
Today, 08:31 AM in For Sale