Antenna

Antenna

Friday 26 April 2013

ONE NOTE

working on a new song
the burning cliff
looking for a killer riff
one to give meister keith richards a run for his money
i begin by tinkering with one of my favourite bits of johnny marr
the opening to what difference does it make?
an A chord that shifts abruptly to C and then D
suddenly i find myself playing around with the paperback writer riff
(an all-time classic)
which never moves out of A but holds the attention like a magnet
finally i accidentally stumble upon a solution
instead of picking a seventh note a la paperback writer
i switch to a major seventh by raising the g a semitone to g#
not so obvious
kind of hidden
but oh so effective
this is much tougher to play
necessitating a deft repositioning of the fingers
midway through the pattern
it takes a bit of practice to get it right
never my strong point
but it grounds the song
and boy does it rock!
somehow this one little note takes the riff to another place
which also echoes the melody and chord structure of the song
but i shouldn't be surprised
for as mies van der rohe once said:
the beauty is in the detail

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