Hello, world!
That’s how you’re supposed to start a web post, right? Whatever, it’s Sunday and that means it’s time for another guitar solo transcription! If you don’t know what this is all about, check out this post to see what I’m doing and why. This week I’m feeling the blues.
T-Bone Walker’s Call It Stormy Monday is a fantastic tune, that has been covered by pretty much everybody and some point. T-Bone himself recorded a few versions! The one I’ve transcribed is the studio recording from the T-Bone Blues album. Here’s a link to Youtube and Spotify for you to check it out.
This week was really difficult. The solo wasn’t technically challenging to play, unlike last week’s entry! It was, however, very tough to transcribe. T-Bone’s playing floats over the slow blues groove in an almost free-time feeling array of tasty blues licks. This means that there’s a lot of odd note groupings here and there just to fit the notes into the rhythmic space they have available. When you listen to the solo, it doesn’t feel like a deliberate choice to put in 4:3 groupings and septuplets in. Rather, it sounds like he has a feeling in his head that he’s trying to express through pushing and pulling the beat against the music.
Solo Structure
The song is a blues, and it conforms to the standard 12 bar blues form in the key of G. I’ve started the transcription at the turnaround before the solo starts. The lick from the quieter guitar part sounds so great I wanted to get it down! So in total we’ve got 14 bars of pure genius blues licks!
When you’re learning this solo, it’s a good idea to break the solo up into licks. this way you’ll get little reusable nuggets of T-Bone goodness to embellish your own solos with.
The Licks
Remember that the playing here sways in and out of time! You would do best to use a program like Transcribe! to slow the song down to say 80% while you nail the feel of each lick. You really need to play along to this one. Playing to a metronome and trying to get the septuplets super accurate won’t help you channel T-Bone’s superb feel. So, without further ado, here is the transcription!
Once again, thanks for checking out this transcription. I really hope it helps you! If it has, please let me know in the comments! Next week we’ve still got the blues with B.B. King’s The Thrill is Gone! Check back on Sunday 28th January to see it. Also, as I said earlier please do have a look at last week’s shred fest!
Do you have any suggestions of guitar solos I should transcribe? Or would you like to book a lesson to learn how to play your favourite shredder’s guitar licks? Get in touch with me using the contact page and I’ll do my best to help wherever I can.
Big love, and awesome licks.
Ed
This is awesome! Thank you