I passed the 100,000 step mark of my ongoing tribute walk last night. Now...four more times.

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/halfamillionsteps.txt

There are a lot of elements to Kelly Johnson's guitar playing that I like: tone, vibrato, sense of melody, tasteful phrasing, spontaneity, plenty of other things. But it always seems to come down to that basic tone-vibrato combo for me; that's the basis of it. I think I've talked a couple of different times on the Girlschool Discussion Forum about what a spectacular vibrato she had. People probably start to think, 'yeah, yeah, tone - vibrato, what's the big deal'. But I come by the fascination honestly; there is a reason why that stands out for me so much.

Around about 1983-84, two things coincided. I was in my first year at University of Windsor and I started seriously getting into learning lead guitar technique. While those two things might not seem to have anything to do with each other, they actually do. I was a music major, but my instrument major was alto saxophone, not guitar. When I started that first year, I could see I had some catching up to do compared to the playing level of a lot of other first year students. Part of the music program included taking private lessons on your main instrument from one of the music school instructors. I had a great instructor who made the trek to Windsor a few times a week from across the river in Ypsilanti (Michigan). I guess he saw too that I had that catching up to do. So most of that first year consisted of a back-to-basics crash course. And what do you suppose he stressed over and over again as a good basic foundation? You got it. Tone. Vibrato. And lots and lots of scale exercises to practice them with. That year of tone and vibrato "boot camp" left a lasting impression. And since I was picking up lead guitar on my own at the time, those same principles transferred over to that.

Ever since that time, I've had the tone-vibrato fascination. It goes without saying, of course, that all guitarists try to have good tone and vibrato. But they're both pretty subjective things. A person might like a guitarist's vibrato or their tone, while another person might not hear anything special in them.

I guess for me, I heard those two elements combining perfectly in Kelly's playing, that cutting, super-mean Les Paul tone, contrasted with a very fluid, graceful, expressive vibrato. With all the other elements mentioned earlier factored in, as well. I've always said that, with that tone and vibrato, I could listen to Kelly Johnson play C scales and enjoy it. 

So I'll sign this post off with a little of that. (No, not C scales.) This is a tribute video done by (fellow Canuck) filmmaker Johnny Terris. A very nice piece of work, set to Girlschool's "A Love Too Far". Anyone who has taken the time to read this whole post has probably seen this video before, but it's well worth watching again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtN8wSG8wqU

The number of Girlschool songs that include any acoustic guitar in them are very few and far between. A handful come to mind. "A Love Too Far", of course. "I Told You So". "My Ambition". "Let Me Go". Since they use acoustic so sparingly, it can stand out to great effect when they do use it.

Today's riff is an Intro I like a lot, a nice mix of acoustic and electric.

GIRLSCHOOL - "Don't Walk Away"      (K.McAuliffe/C.Bonacci/D.Dufort/T.Lamb)

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/gsriffs.txt

The Intro can be heard here: http://fiesta.belmp3.com/preview/1520/5839/59851/ 

Even after all these years, in my opinion still the best pop music video ever made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWCHFj_QUiQ

Creative, attention getting, and artistically impressive.

And despite New Wave being years gone, even the song is still catchy.

Randy Bachman is a pretty amazing guitar player, and now and then with BTO he'd show off his jazz chops a bit on songs like "Lookin' Out For #1" and "Blue Collar", which today's riff comes from. I've always wanted to do a full tab of this song, but it would be a real project. What really stands out is the soft touch and subtlety of the playing, in comparison to the full-throttle attack of most of BTO's songs.

BACHMAN-TURNER OVERDRIVE - "Blue Collar"

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/canriffs.txt

I tabbed the Intro of the song and I couldn't find a sound clip of it, so I linked to the closest thing I could find. In the sound clip on this page, the guitar part between the verses is almost the same as the Intro, but for the lower staff guitar part only. The lead guitar part in the sound clip (single line lead) is different from the lead in the tabbed Intro (octaves).

http://www.amazon.com/Anthology-Bachman-Turner-Overdrive/dp/B000001DZ2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/002-1917792-7767241?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1189985301&sr=1-2

Mood:  not sure

Any time I do a tab of a particular artist or band for the first time, I generally add a link on the site to that act's official website. If they don't have an official website, I'll pick out the site with the best information on that band and link to that. The question is what to do when a band does have an official website, but it might not be the site that best represents them.

That's been my dilemma recently in regard to The Guess Who. Back at the beginning of September I added a Guess Who tab to the site for the first time. So I went looking for their official site to link up to it. But when I found it, I discovered the site in no way reflected the Guess Who that people are familiar with, with all of its history, or a band discography, photos through the years. Nothing like that.

The current line-up, of course, bears little resemblance to the classic line-up(s) of the band. It's not that they're not decent musicians (there are one or two original members, I think, and in researching, I discovered something I didn't know...the band's current singer/guitarist is Carl Dixon, formerly of Coney Hatch), it's just that without at least one of either Bachman or (particularly) Cummings, people don't relate to it as The Guess Who. And when the band doesn't even put a discography on their website, it's almost like they don't want you to even think about those former line-ups of the band.

So overall, if I'm tabbing classic older Guess Who hits like "Runnin' Back To Saskatoon", the band's official site doesn't seem like the best site to link to, because it doesn't even acknowledge that past. I still haven't decided what site I will link to, though.

I was asked about this one recently. I couldn't do the whole song because I don't own a copy of it. But I was able to manouvre my guitar into my small computer area long enough to work out the main riff from an online copy of the song. Great riff, too.

CRY OF LOVE - "Peace Pipe"

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/varriffs.txt

This is the Intro riff. The second half of the riff (the part that's repeated four times) carries on through the verse, as well.

You can hear the whole song here: http://www.myspace.com/cryoflovepeacepipe 

I thought I'd write an entry about the process each tab goes through before it's posted on the website. The idea, of course, is to try to catch as many playing errors and tabbing typos as possible -- and correct them -- before sending my tabs out into the big bad world. Here's a rundown of that process:

Step 1:
I tab the song out on paper first. I'll generally end up with scribblings that look much like this: https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/tortab.jpg
If you mouse over that "document", you'll get an icon that will allow you to enlarge it...if you really want to see it any closer.

Step 2:
I do the tab on computer using a tab generator. I use the Gootar Text Tab Generator: http://www.gootar.com/tabber.html It's low tech, easy to use, and it works great for me. And you don't have to buy it. It's an online generator that can be used by anyone.

Step 3:
I print the tab for final checking.

Step 4:
Final checking is a two step process, first without the recording, then with it. First I play through the above the staff chord changes of the song to make sure they're right. Then I play through the tab, checking for "tab typos", for example, a note that's on the right fret but I've mistakenly put the number on the wrong string (maybe one string up or down from where it should be). That happens all the time, it's a matter of trying to catch them before posting.

Then I go through the tab again with the recording, section by section, catching errors and correcting them, and trying to clean up bits that have been troublesome. I mark on the printed tab things that need changing or correcting. And I decide what needs to go into the end comments.

Step 5:
The marked corrections on the printed tab are made on the computer tab. I do a final proof read of all the written text (lyrics, credits, and end notes). Then I go over the music staff part of the tab visually one more time, playing through the song in my head, just to make sure everything's in order.

Step 6:
The completed tab is uploaded and posted on the website. 
The finished product of the example in Step 1: https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/cantab/toronto-lookinfortrouble.txt

 All in six easy () steps!
 

Mood:  lyrical

The first Girlschool riff in the Riff-In-A-Jiff section. Jackie seems to favour Drop D as an alternate tuning. I can't think of any songs on previous Girlschool albums that use Drop D. (Of course, I haven't worked them all out, so who knows?) But there are (I think) at least three songs on Believe that use Drop D. And this is one of them.

GIRLSCHOOL - "Let's Get Hard"    (J. Chambers/K. McAuliffe/E. Williams)

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/gsriffs.txt

An mp3 clip of the song can be found here: http://www.girlschool.co.uk/downloads.htm

Mood:  accident prone

Accident prone, as in...oops, squished again.  

I got a bit hooked on this game last night. http://www.popcap.com/games/free/mummymaze

You have to get your little explorer out of the cursed pyramid before the mummy gets him. The idea is you're supposed to get the mummy trapped behind walls. Well, I was playing for the first time last night, so I wasn't very good. I couldn't tell you how many times my explorer got squished.

But it's fun to get the mummy stuck behind walls and in cul-de-sacs, waving his arms to no avail. (He's kind of cute. Well, until he catches you.) The thing is, any self respecting horror movie mummy wouldn't get stuck behind a wall anyhow. When you least expected it, he'd come bursting right through it! And there he'd be right in front of you. Squash!

I've been playing the online version. I always play the online version of games rather than do the download. I don't think I've gotten beyond Chamber 6 yet, and I don't think I've yet cleared the rank of "Tomb Beetle". I think my unfortunate explorer will be squished many more times!

Listening to: Coney Hatch

This is the first riff for the "Various Artists" page. It could almost go on the Canadian page, since Heart were a Vancouver (BC) based band when they recorded this. But I think we all know Heart's a Seattle band. This one is off their first album. I wouldn't mind doing a full tab of this sometime.

HEART - "Sing Child"   (A.Wilson/N.Wilson/S.Fossen/R.Fisher)

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/varriffs.txt

In this video version, you can get a good look at exactly how Roger Fisher plays this riff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cOnTGNvhhw

(There was a typo in the riff from "Don't Push Me Around", the last note of the top staff. It's been corrected.)