Fret Filings - (Anne's Blog)

Sunday, March 14, 2010

YOU TUBIN'
Topic: Guitar

My most recent venture on YouTube, Girlschool's "Never Say Never":

Posted by planet/zerofret at 5:55 PM EST
Updated: Monday, March 15, 2010 12:36 AM EDT
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Friday, March 12, 2010

THE POPPY FAMILY - "WHERE EVIL GROWS"
Topic: New Chords Postings

Today's posting features some early 1970's pop psychedelia from the dark side. "Where Evil Grows" comes from The Poppy Family's second (and final) album, Poppy Seeds (1971). The album was the follow-up to their highly successful debut album, Which Way You Goin' Billy? (1969), with its #1 charting title song.

"Where Evil Grows", notable for its grim theme and dark undercurrent, was atypical of pop radio fare. The Terry and Susan Jacks-sung duet became a Top 10 hit in Canada. The Poppy Family disbanded in 1973 upon the breakup of the Jacks' marriage.

The chord chart:
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/crd/poppyfamily-whereevilgrows.txt

Audio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNg-GAnUxFQ

Posted by planet/zerofret at 1:25 AM EST
Updated: Friday, March 12, 2010 1:32 AM EST
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Friday, March 5, 2010

KANSAS
Topic: Riff-In-A-Jiff

Monolith was the seventh album for prog rockers Kansas. The album, released in 1979, didn't have the success of the band's previous two albums, nor did it produce a hit to rival the popularity of "Carry On Wayward Son" or "Dust In the Wind", but in my opinion the album is among their best. It stands up well right alongside Leftoverture and Point Of Know Return. I also always liked the concept artwork for the album, finding the picture on the inside of the gatefold cover to be particularly effective. (inside cover)

"On the Other Side" opens the album with a grand, majestic feel. The superb sound, feel and melodicism in Kerry Livgren's playing here start the song, and the album, in impressive style.

KANSAS - "On the Other Side" (K. Livgren)

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

Video:

Posted by planet/zerofret at 12:01 AM EST
Updated: Friday, March 5, 2010 1:11 AM EST
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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

FEBRUARY 2010 REVIEW
Topic: Tab Views

Most-viewed tabs for the month of February 2010:

37 - Max Webster - Let Go the Line
25 - Doucette - Mama Let Him Play
24 - Honeymoon Suite - Burning In Love
16 - Toronto - Your Daddy Don't Know
15 - Harlequin - Innocence
14 - Girlschool - Yeah Right (g)
13 - Honeymoon Suite - Stay In the Light
12 - Bachman-Turner Overdrive - Takin' Care Of Business
12 - Honeymoon Suite - New Girl Now
12 - Prism - Armageddon

Total Tab Views For February: 651

By section: Canadian-459 Girlschool-71 Various-68 Chords-53

Most-viewed tabs overall (up to Feb. 28/10):

399 - Honeymoon Suite - Burning In Love
385 - Harlequin - Thinking Of You
347 - Doucette - Mama Let Him Play
282 - The Kings - This Beat Goes On
244 - A Foot In Coldwater - (Make Me Do) Anything You Want
229 - April Wine - Cum Hear the Band
225 - The Kings - Switchin' To Glide
214 - Honeymoon Suite - Stay In the Light
212 - Harlequin - Innocence
206 - Kim Mitchell - Patio Lanterns
206 - Trooper - Raise A Little Hell

Tabs reaching 100 overall views mark this month:
We're Here For A Good Time, New Girl Now, Hollywood

Tabs reaching 200 overall views mark this month:
Innocence, Battle Scar, Patio Lanterns

*Only tab views made by people (excluding my own views) are counted here. Webcrawler/bot views are excluded.

Posted by planet/zerofret at 1:02 AM EST
Updated: Wednesday, March 3, 2010 1:08 AM EST
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Thursday, February 11, 2010

MAX WEBSTER - "LET GO THE LINE"
Topic: New Tab Postings

"Let Go the Line" has always been one of my favourite Max Webster songs. Where this song is posted at YouTube (see link below), the descriptive term that shows up in the comments repeatedly is "haunting", which is a very apt way of describing it. A couple of years ago I started working on a tab of the song, but I quickly encountered an obstacle; the tightly wound harmonies of the main guitar riff were difficult to sort out. I ended up having to shelf it, maybe to try it another time.

More recently (back in December), I was asked about doing a tab of the song, so the time had come to pull the tab back out and have another go at it. This time, though, I had an extra tool or two to rely on that I didn't have the first time. I used Audacity to slow the riff down, and a little digital voice recorder came in handy for dividing it into smaller parts and looping short phrases. With the main riff finally sorted out, the rest followed quickly.

The song is from A Million Vacations (1979), the most commercially successful Max album. Vacations is an interesting grab-bag of a record. Up until that point, the band had been almost exclusively a one-lead-singer act, that vocalist being Kim Mitchell, of course. But on this album the lead vocals were spread around more liberally. Mitchell did the bulk of the lead vocals, as always. But the album's title track was co-written and sung by drummer Gary McCracken. And keyboardist Terry Watkinson handled lead vocals on his compositions, "Let Go the Line" and "Charmonium". (I've always associated "Let Go the Line" with the Saga song "Scratching the Surface", as both are songs that were radio singles sung by the keyboard player -- Jim Gilmour, in the case of Saga -- who was somewhat softer-voiced than the regular lead singer. I also happen to really like both songs, and have tabbed both of them.) After A Million Vacations, Watkinson departed the band to turn his efforts to a solo career.

The tab:
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/cantab/maxwebster-letgotheline.txt

Audio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyz2hPe7zUo

Posted by planet/zerofret at 12:01 AM EST
Updated: Thursday, February 11, 2010 12:58 AM EST
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Thursday, February 4, 2010

MORE REVISIONS - "YOUR DADDY DON'T KNOW"
Topic: Website

Time for more repair work. A while back I did a post about revisions I had done to the tab of "Hollywood". That was just a bit of tinkering to make the main riff play better. This time it's the tab of "Your Daddy Don't Know", and it's a much bigger overhaul. Almost every staff in the tab has been altered.

Some parts were changed just because I noticed while watching the video that they were playing some chords in a different spot from where I had them tabbed. So for example, some changes are things like moving a Bb5 chord from the 6th fret to the 1st fret. I also changed the verses from being partial chords to single notes. I added in a Guitar 2 part for the Bridge, and a slight variation of that part is also the rhythm guitar part during the solo. I've added that variation at the end of the tab. Solo parts were mostly left untouched, except for the first two bars of the solo and Bars 3 & 4 of the Outro. Finally, some of the lyrics were in the wrong place timing-wise and had to be adjusted.

Glad I finally got that done, because I've been wanting to fix that one up for a while now since that tab gets viewed pretty frequently. The revised tab:

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/cantab/toronto-yourdaddydontknow.txt

Posted by planet/zerofret at 1:41 AM EST
Updated: Thursday, February 4, 2010 1:47 AM EST
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Tuesday, February 2, 2010

JANUARY 2010 REVIEW
Topic: Tab Views

Most-viewed tabs for the month of January 2010:

32 - Honeymoon Suite - Burning In Love
26 - Doucette - Mama Let Him Play
24 - Trooper - Boys In the Bright White Sports Car
21 - Harlequin - Sweet Things In Life
19 - April Wine - Just Between You And Me
17 - Girlschool - Yeah Right (g)
17 - Honeymoon Suite - New Girl Now
17 - Kim Mitchell - That's The Hold
16 - Coney Hatch - Devil's Deck
16 - Harlequin - Thinking Of You
16 - Loverboy - Working For the Weekend

Total Tab Views For January: 860

By section: Canadian-654 Girlschool-75 Various-72 Chords-59

Most-viewed tabs overall (up to Jan. 31/10):

375 - Honeymoon Suite - Burning In Love
374 - Harlequin - Thinking Of You
322 - Doucette - Mama Let Him Play
274 - The Kings - This Beat Goes On
239 - A Foot In Coldwater - (Make Me Do) Anything You Want
222 - April Wine - Cum Hear the Band
219 - The Kings - Switchin' To Glide
201 - Honeymoon Suite - Stay In the Light
200 - Trooper - Raise A Little Hell
197 - Harlequin - Innocence

Tabs reaching 100 overall views mark this month:
Tonite, General Hand Grenade, Runnin' Back To Saskatoon, Just Between You And Me, Baby Ran, Gravity

*Only tab views made by people (excluding my own views) are counted here. Webcrawler/bot views are excluded.

(Prior to this entry, Monthly Review entries appeared under the topic of "Website" in the blog.)

Posted by planet/zerofret at 8:04 PM EST
Updated: Tuesday, February 2, 2010 8:09 PM EST
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Friday, January 29, 2010

AGTA's 3RD ANNIVERSARY
Topic: Website

AGTA is three years old today! January 29 is the date I chose as Day 1 back in the beginning, the day I had all of the tabs loaded onto the site and decided it was pretty much ready for the world. It was a one page site then. It's evolved some since that time, although it's always served the same simple purpose...guitar tabs. The most recent addition has been the AGTA YouTube channel (such as it is

).

I thought the video below would be perfect to help celebrate this momentous occasion of being 3.

This should take some of you back to the Saturday morning cartoons of your childhood. I know it does for me. I distinctly remember this one, and apparently it was the very first Schoolhouse Rock video. I can even still remember them singing the "Multiplication Rock is brought to you by...your favourite General Foods" tag line that came at the end of these segments, although it's not included in this video.

3 is a magic number...yes, it is...

Posted by planet/zerofret at 12:01 AM EST
Updated: Friday, January 29, 2010 12:48 AM EST
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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

STEELY DAN
Topic: Riff-In-A-Jiff

"Any Major Dude Will Tell You" was the B-side of Steely Dan's most successful single, the #4 hit "Rikki Don't Lose That Number". While not officially released as a single itself, "Dude" also became well known and popular in its own right, and appears on many Dan best of/greatest hits compilation CDs.

The song originally appeared on the group's third album Pretzel Logic (1974). That album went platinum, climbed to #8 on the Billboard album chart, and was later (in 2003) included in Rolling Stone magazine's selection of the 500 greatest pop/rock albums of all time.

STEELY DAN - "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" (W. Becker/D. Fagen)

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

Audio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx-Oq9GdN1E

Posted by planet/zerofret at 12:01 AM EST
Updated: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 12:37 AM EST
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Saturday, January 23, 2010

AGTA GOES VISUAL
Topic: Website

The video age has arrived here at the Archive, with the posting of my first videos at YouTube. During the holiday season I kept seeing those TV commercials for Flip pocket camcorders ("Do you Flip?") and I thought they seemed pretty cool. It was the promise of their ease of use that appealed to me, since I had no particular wish to delve deeply into the technical aspects of videography (and my existing knowledge of it was nil).

I thought it might be fun to do some guitar videos as an addition to the site, just play some songs and riffs that I've tabbed. Or at least see if I could do some videos, since performing is sure not my strong point. With transcribing you can play parts as slow as necessary, and you don't have to get every note and chord right in a single take. Filming is a whole different story. Give me an audience or a little red recording light and I can all but forget which one is the E string...even though I have a 2 out of 6 chance of being right!

I did some research, compared specs of various pocket camcorders, and settled on a Flip Mino (SD). After a bit of practice with it on various subjects, I started to try some guitar video.

Drop by my YouTube page/channel, if you're interested in having a look. Here's a link to the page:

https://www.youtube.com/zerofretAnne

There's not much there yet, just a couple of videos. Feel free to leave a comment for any of the videos, either there or here...like "Don't give up your tab job" or "Why are you wearing a Penguins shirt when you're a Habs fan?"

or "What's that black blob in the foreground in the Chilliwack chords video?" (It's one of my cats.)

I've embedded one of the videos here, the riff from Toronto's "Delirious". Hopefully, I'll get better at this over time. And the guitars could use some intonation work. Meanwhile, on the tab front, I have a riff completed and a tab in the works. My computer was into the shop so I'm running a bit behind on getting them into the computer. But I hope to have them posted soon.

Posted by planet/zerofret at 6:23 PM EST
Updated: Saturday, January 23, 2010 7:45 PM EST
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