“GOSSIP”

Måneskin (feat. Tom Morello)

WITH A GUEST performance by guitar hero Tom Morello, this rousing new rock song by Måneskin showcases the popular Italian band’s knack for crafting catchy hooks and riffs.

Guitarist Thomas Raggi and bassist Victoria De Angelis, their instruments both tuned to drop-D, kick off the tune with a punchy eighth-note melodic line, doubled in octaves, that effectively outlines an implied chord progression with single notes and goes on to serve as the accompaniment for the song’s verses behind singer Damiano David’s vocals (see sections A and B).

Note the guitarist’s and bassist’s judicious use of rests, or “holes of silence,” during these parts of the song, as well as in the chorus (section C), where, in bars 13, 14 and 15, the entire rhythm section, including drummer Ethan Torchio, create a “stop time” effect that dramatically highlights the vocals. When playing these parts, be sure to completely silence your strings during the rests, using both hands.

Morello’s first solo (see section D), which is more of a post-chorus instrumental hook, features the guitarist playing a simple, lyrical melody that he greatly enhances via his signature use of a DigiTech Whammy pedal, set to seamlessly sweep, or glissando, up one octave when pressed forward, creating a series of soaring portamentos, enhanced by the guitarist’s use of a shimmering finger vibrato on each held half note.

If you don’t own a Whammy pedal or similar device, you can sort of emulate the glissando effect by sliding into each note from one or more fret below. Just be careful to “stick the landing” on each note and not under- or overshoot it. The same suggestion applies to the last four bars of the guitarist’s second solo (bars 51-54), which are also Whammy-inflected.

It’s interesting to point out how, in the song’s final outro chorus, Raggi breaks down and simplifies his rhythm guitar accompaniment, resorting to strumming straight power chords in a nearly unbroken stream of eighth notes, with De Angelis following suit with her bass line. This is a fine example of power pop songcraft.

“JUMPIN’ JACK FLASH”

The Rolling Stones

THIS LATE-SIXTIES Rolling Stones classic was built around a few simple, iconic chord riffs crafted by a young Keith Richards, which he and the band’s producer Jimmy Miller cleverly recorded using the novel approach of internally miking his acoustic guitar and intentionally overdriving the microphone’s preamplifier, which was in a portable cassette tape recorder. As the guitarist told GW back in 2005, “On the record, I played a Gibson Hummingbird [acoustic] tuned to either open E or open D with a capo [at the 2nd fret]. And then I added another [acoustic] guitar over the top, but tuned to Nashville tuning [restrung and tuned like a 12-string guitar without the lower octave strings] to get that high ring.”

For live performance, Richards eventually reworked his guitar parts in this song for his preferred open G tuning, using similar, albeit less shimmering, chord voicings. Our transcription offers a time-capsule chronicle of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash’s” original iteration, but with the practical accommodation of arranging the Nashville-tuned parts (see Gtr. 3 at sections D, E and F) for a conventionally-strung guitar in open E tuning, or open D with a capo, with some of the chord-melody figures transposed up an octave and played on higher strings.

When playing the intro, notice the X’s on the 2nd and 3rd strings. These strings are to be intentionally muted with the fret hand’s 2nd or 1st finger, by lightly laying it across them while fretting the other notes and strumming.

If you choose to play the song in open D tuning with a capo at the 2nd fret, which alleviates the added string tension and resulting stiffness that open E tuning creates on an acoustic, everything would need to be played two frets higher. Whichever tuning you use, note that the recording sounds a quarter tone, or 50 cents, flat of concert pitch, which is most likely the result of an intentional slowing down of the tape speed in the mastering process, a practice called “vari-speeding.” So, to play along, you’ll need to tune all your strings accordingly (50 cents flat).

“FEAR OF THE DAWN”

Jack White

JACK WHITE MAKES great use of fuzz distortion and octave-down and -up doubling effects on this new psychedelic rock shuffle. The guitarist begins the song with a haunting single-note riff that he plays with a swing-eighths, or triplet-based, feel and entirely on the low E string, mostly pedaling on the open note. Notice how he demarcates each bar with a simple melodic fill on beat 4, using fretted C and B notes, which, together with the low E note, imply a dark E minor tonality (E natural minor scale: E, F# , G, A, B, C, D). Also note how White slightly varies the fill in each of the first four bars, so as to create four different “endings” to the simple onebar idea, transforming it into a longer and more interesting four-bar phrase, which then serves as the accompaniment for his vocals during the verses (see section B).

White ends each verse with a two-bar fill, using denser triplet rhythms that create heightened momentary tension. In the first ending (bars 17 and 18), the guitarist employs double pull-offs, which, with the halfstep and perfect 5th intervals (between C and B and B and E, respectively), creates an angular and interesting melodic contour. At the end of the second verse, he simply rides out on the 12th-fret E note, which creates its own tension, due to both the aforementioned triplet rhythm and the “woofy” tone produced by playing high up the fretboard on the low E string.

Both of White’s solos (sections C and D) feature the guitarist wailing away in the upper register and on the top three strings with a searing, wah-inflected fuzz tone, playing notes from the E minor pentatonic scale (E, G, A, B, D) and relying mostly on the scale’s stock “box” shapes and adding lots of bends. In bars 37 and 38, White plays whole-step pre-bends at the B string’s 14th fret to sound a dissonant D# pitch, which musically works in this psychedelic setting, as an ear-catching “outside” note. To perform these bends and the ones on the G string in these bars, lay your 3rd finger across both strings and push them upward, using your 2nd finger to assist with the push, similarly laid flat across the strings.