Intoxicated cowboy swaggers amid dustscapes and witnesses passingbys of celebration, climate disasters of varying degrees, and placid ghostly social events. Inevitably, he rides towards sunset. Also the cowboy is Nels Cline.
For The Golden Star
WOWOWOW what a doozy. These changes are whacky but thankfully there is a loose pattern to tie them together.
|| B- F#7/A# | B- Amaj | A min E7/G# | A- E7/G# |
|G- D7/F# | G- Fmaj | Bb maj69 | F#-7b5 B7 ||
This bit repeats, but instead ends with 2 full bars of Bbmaj69.
||Bbmaj9/D A7/C# | Cmaj69 | F-7 Bb13 | Eb maj69 ||
||: Bb- F7/A | Bb- F7/A | C- G7/B | D major7 :||
||D maj7 | Cmaj7/G | D maj7 | F#- |
|| E minor walk down you know the one that appears in tons of musical literature around the world it’s easier to type this than notate it exactly, resolve to C13, followed by B7b13. Then back to top. ||
The golden star is dark! What the heck. Maybe it is the sun after the earth is destroyed by climate change.
I never know if I notate slash chords correctly. The note after the / is meant to be the bass note.
Mr. Dark Golden Star uses a lot of normal minor triads and lower clunky voicings. His Bbmaj 69 is tabbed as follows : 6x5566. His C major69 is the same shape moved up two frets.
たそがれ (Tasogare)
Tasogare is a lot simpler harmonically than our previous pal. Opening with the E major hippy jam that pops up every now and then across music. The voicings are as follows, tabulated : 022100, 044200, 066400. The first chord is a big happy E major open style, then following shapes are nearly identical, but spreading the index finger out for a little stretch. All open strings are played. Strum it like you are summoning the god of peace and joy.
At some point Shinsuke Honda does some G#- and F#- triads, and back into the E major.
夢夜 (Yumeya)
||E - | E-/ D# | E-/D | Cmaj7 |
|A-7 | D maj | A-7 | Dmaj | With a transition D# bass note
The C maj7 is our open voicing.
プエノス ホノオ(Buenoshonoo)
Opening with a B-9 to B-13 melody thingy. Approximated xx7779 and then xx7797.
|| B-9 | Bbmaj6#11 | Fmaj7 | Fmaj7 ||
This is pretty much it. Buenoshonoo…Bansheenono…Buenoghost…slightly eerie wonderland.
The B-9 in form is voiced xx4635, one of those jungled gymnastics to reach the dramatic half step
Winter Space 1226
WINTER. SPACE> VOYAGER TWELVE TWENTY SIX. PRE-PARE, FOR . >> >> >> >> IG N’TION
Also known as The Horse with No Name. Open E minor followed by D major with F# in the bass, also sometimes with an open B string. D major is voiced roughly 200230. Play around with variations and it will be great.
Echo echo echo echo snow echo echo.. . . .
夕映え (Yuubae)
Okay we had fun jamming. Here’s another wonky Nels Cline-esque minor piece.
Intro is a play of B-9, A-9, G-9 resolve to E major. It’s that barre shape, so for B-9 xx7779, then move it downwards as needed.
||Dmaj7 (no3rd) | C#7/G# | Dmaj7 | Ddim7 |
|Dmaj7 | C#7/G# | D maj7 | Ddim7 | (Bar of F#-??) ||
|F maj7 | E7 | G-6 | Gdim |
|F maj7 | E7 | G-6 | Gdim ||
Then he does E major, E minor, D major, D minor, then repeat all. PLZ mind the form, not sure if I caught all the repeats.
白夜 (Byakuya)
More Nels Voicings ! Opening with A F G C E, on guitar x03010. A cool F major. Then A E G B E, X02000, E minor or A minor of some sort.
Kicking it into high gear we get D majorish and C major7; x54000 and x32000 respectively. Then an A-9 chord voiced x055000, or AGCBE.
A crash into our Cmajor 7 open, kind of vague but generally in the C/G tonality.
朝 (Asa)
Happy Happy E major sunset stuff. 0x6857, same shape as the B-9 from a few songs back. Followed by A major rain (Amaj9 open voicing) which is x066000, lovely chord.
Lots of guitar harmonies (in 3rds I believe) and conversation, there’s a geisha gal singing in the background !
There is a flop to F#-7 for a while before breaking free to E major7, D major 7 on repeat.
Then back into Sunset paradise.
Wow, unreal analysis! I had no idea this album is so harmonically complex. Thanks for the write up. Any good resources for learning how to analyze songs like you did?
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading and for reaching out!
ReplyDeleteI recommend singing the bass movement of chords. Go to a guitar tab website to look up some chords for songs you like, or look up jazz lead sheets online if that's your thing, and at first just practice singing the movement the bass makes throughout the chord changes. So if the chords are like G major, C major, D major, you would sing G, to C, to D. Then when you get comfy with that add the next note to each chord. So G, B, then C, E, Then D, F#. And when you get a handle of that just keep adding the next note to each chord, all the way up through the extensions like the 9s and 11s and 13s.
Most of the time the bass is going to play the root note of the chord, so that gives you an anchor to figure out what the rest of the chord will be. And when you practice singing the arpeggios of different chords it sticks in your head what major and minor sound like more clearly. And also singing the chord movements helps you sustain your tonal center of gravity if you will, in other words it helps you hear something and pause the sound in your head which gives you time to work it out on an instrument. And if you can sing the chord accurately, it means you can hear it and you can hear the differences between chord qualities (major or minor for example).
I hope that all made sense! Thanks again for reaching out, plz have a wonderful day !