Time to grow up, and shed childhood piano lesson dogma

Yes, that's right. It's time to quit analyzing the key and changes and just accept the obvious; this piece starts off in the key of A, just as the composer says in his audio lesson. There are a variety of explanations of why the key signature is the key of D in the book. Maybe it reduces the number of accidentals, making the notation more readable? Maybe the book is wrong? It can happen...

Too, there are a few other places in my notes where I've been talking smack and spreading bad information on the Internet; a note which I've trained myself to play on an upstroke should actually be played on a downstroke. And there's a certain lick in the head which John plays in a different position than what is documented in the book. I'm fixing these places in my notes...

Recording and GarageBand project data available

I've just uploaded a link to my 3-part recording of this tune, as well as the GarageBand project file in case anyone is interested in how this recording was made.

Because of the way I play this song, sort of a marathon through the head and all three solos in one track, it kind of simplifies the other two tracks in a way that is not at all faithful to the original recording. Even in these simplified harmony tracks I'm able to find plenty of new ways to clam them up. I find the sections where counting nearly three bars of rests without a drummer to be quite a challenge. This is why there are a few trainwrecks and lots of fender benders. I need to get better at counting!

No editing was done, just the guitar, straight into GarageBand, and no effects. The effects are fun to play with, and I'm sure that it is possible to make the recording sound much better, but I haven't learned how to do this. I'm too busy trying to learn how to play the electric guitar!

Drats, someone beat me to it.

But wait! Maybe that's not so bad, because it was The Hellecasters themselves that beat me to it. So hooray!

Let me explain. While I'm in the middle of writing these pages, I pause to check some factoid on the seach engine, and turn up a gem of a lesson on something called TrueFire.com. It's a three-part series devoted to this tune. The brilliant thing is that JJ, JD, and WR all discuss the tune and their solos.

I wasn't a member of TrueFire.com, but I managed to buy the material and download it in minutes.

It was quite revealing, and I learned a several things. As so often happens, quite a few things I thought that I knew turned out to be incorrect.

You also get PDFs of the tablature of the Jesse Gress transcription as well, and PTB files which work with some software called PowerTab. The tablature transcription looks nearly identical to the Dave Whitehill version in content, although it's even uglier to look at. Unless you share my passion for old-time engraved sheet music, you probably don't care. The information is all there, so what's the difference?

I don't know why they only included the tablature in this version, since the original Guitar Player version of the Gress transcription contains both traditional staffs and tablature, so perhaps very few people care. I'm one of those few.


My thoughts now are leaning in the direction of wrapping up this little project quickly, and moving on to another tune which hasn't had as much attention as Highlander Boogie. Fortunately the Hellecasters have provided us with a generous catalogue of material to learn from.



The focus now will be on details which haven't been discussed already. I was planning to include phrase-by-phrase audio clips, but since they've already done that, and better than I could, and within the framework of what is clearly a commercial enterprise, I'll refrain from that, and recommend you to their version instead. However I've included a few crude little video clips which may help you get started with the solos.