Riffs
Recs
Friends of friends The Main Squeeze covered Pink Floyd’s Have A Cigar.
And I don’t want to be hyperbolic here, but:
Guitarist Max Newman plays maybe the best guitar solo I’ve ever heard.
If you’re pressed for time, skip ahead to where it starts at 3:26.
It’s five minutes well spent.
Charts
I didn’t transcribe his solo, but I did write a chart for Have A Cigar.
You can grab the .pdf, .sib, & .musicxml files here.
Smarts
Remember when I told you that music theory is just giving names to commonly-occurring things?
Well here’s a perfect example.
Check out the original recording, where the synth melody comes in at 0:23.
They play:
It’s a hit on one, a hit on the and of two, and a hit on four.
It’s called the tresillo.
It’s the most iconic collision of African and Caribbean cultures.
And it shows up in music everywhere in the world:
- It’s the “three side” of the clave rhythm.
- It’s the basis of the tumbao pattern that Latin Jazz bassists play for Son, Mambo, & Salsa.
- In western pop music terms, we call it The Big Three.
This month we’re going to focus on rhythm.
We’ll explore more rhythms like these, answer any questions you may have, and tighten up your time & feel.
Just hit reply if I can help you.
