Just Jammin' - Cause we've ended as lovers (Jeff Beck) (Improvisation and song analysis)

in #music6 years ago (edited)

Hi Steemit!

In this post I'll be talking about my take over the Stevie Wonder song ¨Cause we've ended as lovers¨, popularized by the legendary guitarist Jeff Beck.

Harmony

Basically we got a ballad song in the key of C minor with a litte bit of modal exchanges.

The Intro part conisists of a I-bVI-IV-IV-VII (Cmin7- Abmaj - Fminor - F/A - Bb7 ), you can play everything in C minor if you want, but at the final two chords I liked the sound of the notes E over F(which makes a F maj chord) and Gb over Bb7 (Which makes a Bb7b13 chord), I approximated to this notes with the E minor pentatonic and F# minor pentatonic respectively.

Then the A part starts (min 0:32), the Harmony basically stays the same, but it simplifies a little bit (Cminor- Abmaj-F minor-Csus4-Cmaj), one bar later the main melody enters, which consist of every chords 9th resolving to its root, very pleaseant and beautiful effect, it simplistic but it really works.

The B part (1:23) gets interesting, it goes D/C - Abmaj - F min - Csus4- Cmaj.
I really like how the first chord generates an impact on the listener, basically is a C lydian chord, you can use E minor/ A minor pentatonic over this and, obviously, the C lydian scale.
Theres is no change at all until the solo at 2:50 the Harmony goes Cmin7- Abmaj- F minor- Gmaj7 (I love this final chord)
Then the song goes with A B A and it finishes

Improvisation

The idea here was to emulate Beck's style, by using the whammy bar for bending/vibrato and by using and repeating simple motifs to create tension and release.
When I say motifs Im refering for example at min 3:20, in that case I used an ascending sixths pattern over the G lydian scale, then it resolves in C minor and the motif appears again at 3:28 this time over Ab.
(Other exaple of repetition to create momentum can be found at 3:40 , just using the C minor pentatonic scale)
My thinking was to build the solo in a simplistic and more smooth way at first and ,as the bars continue, I wanted to play more agressive to get to a climax moment (4:25).

Gear

I used a Samick Guitar (I never knew the model, I bought it used), with all stock equipment
A Mooer chruncher distorion pedal, It goes very well with this guitar particularly, im not a fan of the pedal though
A Line 6 Echopark delay pedal.
A Hiwatt maxwatt amp, its solid state.
The audio was from the cellphone itself

I hope It was useful for you, tell what you think, Im open to recieve any kind of criticism.
If you liked the post please share, vote and comment.

Thanks for reading, see ya in my next post!

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Takes a brave man to tackle Jeff Beck, for the most part you did great. Some of the intonation could do with work but I have to say how impressed I am with the use of a floyd to emulate Jeff's inflections, much easier with a traditional strat style trem. Great cover and thank you for sharing.

Thanks for the comments man, Jeff style is unmatchable to me,I will try it with a strat in the future !

I especially love Jeff's playing on Roger Water's Amused To Death album - sublime.

Sweet my friend!, what guitar is that? sounds awesome :)

Thanks man, Its a Samick supestrat (I don't know the model exactly, I bought it used a long time ago) It was the first decent guitar I got and I love it

This post has been voted on from MSP3K courtesy of @Meno from the Minnow Support Project ( @minnowsupport ).

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Uff sabrosura!, muy bueno! :)

Gracias loco!