Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman"

This is the first post in a new project where I try to post some notation (or, failing that, some chords I've figured out) every Friday.  For this one, I have the guitar riff from Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman."  I heard it in a commercial recently, and I figured I should learn it because it's probably one of the most famous riffs.  I think it won an award recently.  Plus, the note values are pretty simple; nothing more complex than an eighth note.

I have a few comments about how I've notated this.  First, this is written an octave higher than it's played.  I didn't want to have to mess with a bunch of ledger lines.  Second, this is the riff as it's played at the very beginning; later in the song, the riff is played without the three introductory bars.  Third, at the beginning of the song, there's a measure of just drums, which I didn't include in my notation.

(click here for a larger image)

Notation! (An-other Musical Project)

I have over a dozen musical projects, but I'm adding an-other one, which in some ways is a combination of elements from two others.  For about four years now, I've been trying to learn every part to every song by the Zombies (although I know I never will), and recently I started posting some of the chord progressions and notation.  From late 2012 to early 2015, I recorded a hymn every week to try to familiarize myself with notation.*  I've gotten better at knowing where the notes go on the staff, but the note values still give me problems sometimes.  So in an attempt to get better at that aspect of notation, I'm going to try to write out the notation for a part of a song every week (on Fridays).  The other projects** I have in the same vein as my Zombies project (trying to figure out a band's entire catalogue) are excepted from this, although I should start doing this same thing within each of those projects.

I have only three parts planned so far***, and I know I won't be able to do this every week, so it's likely that I'll often just post chords (or maybe even a tab) instead.  When I first started learning to play guitar, I was dismayed by how often I lookt up the chords for a particular song I wanted to learn to play and either didn't find it or found a chord progression that had a lot of errors in it.****  I'm under no delusions about how much traffic my blog gets, but there's still a possibility that my posting something will be helpful.  If nothing else, it's a resource that I can use myself.

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*in January I revived and revised this project into Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals, which is about sacred music in general
**see this page for more on these
***of these three, two are bass parts, which is a trend I'll probably continue inadvertently; bass parts just seem easier to notate
****I can still remember finding something that said the chord progression for the Zombies' "The Way I Feel Inside" was the common group of I IV V vi chords in G major, but - after having figured it out myself - I know that it's in B major and a lot more complex than just I IV V vi

The Yardbirds' "For Your Love"

A couple months ago, while listening to Herman's Hermits' cover of the Yardbirds' "For Your Love," I realized that I'd misunderstood some lines.  However, the more I got thinking about it, I realized that how I'd originally understood it is also a valid reading.  I recently listened to the Yardbirds' original version for my Collection Audit project, and when I transcribed the lyrics, I discovered a third reading.

The line in question is the second line in the second verse.  I'd always understood it as "I'd give the stars and the sun 'fore I live," with the meaning that the singer/speaker would want to give the universe to the girl he loves before he'd allow himself to live and be with her.  (In explaining this, I've realized that it actually doesn't make that much sense, but this reading persists for me just because it's the only one I had for so long.)

When I recently heard the Herman's Hermits version, I realized that the line break might not interrupt the meaning.  Instead of two separate sentiments ("I'd give the stars and the sun 'fore I live" and "To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright"), it's just one thought divided by the line break ("I'd give the stars and the sun for I live / To thrill you with delight") and then the shorter promise that "I'd give you diamonds bright."  The "[be]fore" that I had thought was a temporal conjunction could be rendered as "for" and used as a causal conjunction.  (It could be rephrased as "I'd give the stars and sun because I live to thrill you with delight.")

I suspect that the first of those readings ("I'd give the stars and the sun 'fore I live" as a distinct thought from "To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright") made more sense to me because the same structure is present in the first verse:  "I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door / To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright."  Because of the line break, it's read more obviously as the two promises "I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door" and "To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright" rather than the uneven "I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door / To thrill you with delight" and "I'd give you diamond bright."

But if that weren't enough, when I transcribed the song, I found yet an-other reading.  I'd been thinking of just the lead vocals, but in between those two lines, the backing vocals add "For your love."  This addition multiplies the ways in which the lines can be understood.

In the first verse, there's now:

1. I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door / To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright
2. I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door / To thrill you with delight; I'd give you diamonds bright
3. I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door (For your love) / To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright

And for the second verse:

1. I'd give the stars and the sun 'fore I live / To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright
2. I'd give the stars and the sun for I live / To thrill you with delight; I'd give you diamonds bright
3. I'd give the stars and the sun for I live (For your love) / To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright

In the third reading of each, the "For your love" is given as a reason for the singer/speaker's bringing and giving certain items.  In the first verse, he says he'll "bring... diamond rings and things" for love, and in the second, he says he'll "give the stars and sun" as gifts because he lives for love.

There are so many ways in which the words can be understood, yet they still mean more or less the same thing.

Will Practice Scales for Employment

As of last month, I've been unemployed for two years (I graduated from university but haven't been able to find a job because I live in a cesspit devoid of occupational opportunity).  I routinely check job listings but haven't been able to find anything that 1) I'm qualified for and 2) wouldn't detest doing (it seems like everything is medical, heavily industrial, or truck driving).  My unemployment has become even more frustrating because a number of my former classmates are either continuing their education with more advanced degrees or already have really good positions.  For the last month or two, whenever I saw something someone posted about their amazing job, my reaction was to go check the job listings again.  And - of course - because I was already checking them almost everyday, nothing new (and certainly nothing good) came up.

Recently, I thought that I should redirect this impulse and make it productive.  I eventually came up with this: every time I see something that reminds me of my shameful unemployment, I'm going to practice a scale.  I already delineated a cycle of the twenty-four scales (I'm following the order in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, even though I've never heard it, much less played it) on five instruments (piano, bass, guitar in open D tuning, mandolin, and guitar in standard tuning).  For the fretted instruments, I'll start one fret higher every time I repeat the cycle of twenty-four scales.

Last week, I reviewed the left-hand finger positions for playing piano scales because - despite a semester of piano class - I didn't remember them (I did remember the right hand).  In doing this preliminary practice, I realized that I should actually give this project some more structure, so I'm going to practice a scale everyday regardless of unemployment woes.

I'm sure that relentlessly practicing my scales won't help me get a job, but music (in one form or an-other) is something I've been intensely interested in for the past few years, so drilling myself in one of its most basic structures surely can't be a waste of time (maybe I'll finally develop some more advanced keyboard skills too).  My chances of actually getting a job in music are astronomically minuscule (although that also seems to describe my chances of getting any sort of job), but I'm sure it'll always be a hobby for me.  In fact, if I do ever get a job, I'll still probably put more effort into my various musical endeavours than my professional work.

I'm not sure for how long, but I'll be documenting what scales I practice on my Twitter feed.