Tabs
From: [email protected] (Marc Bennett Hirsh) Subject: TAB: "O My Soul" (Big Star) And now for the piece de resistance, Alex Chilton's guitar spotlight from _Radio_City_. I have no idea why this was recorded in mono. Anyway, this godlike slab of pop-funk kicks off a great album and is a phenomenal amount of fun to play. And I tried my absolute damnedest to get as complete and accurate a transcription as I could possibly get without asking Chilton himself (he refuses to return my calls). Notes: 1) You've got it easy on this one. One guitar. No more, no less. The entire instrumentation for this is: one guitar, one bass, drums, and an organ. That's it. I'm killing the organ for this transcription. 2) Chilton's tone in this song is clean but wet. I don't know how else to describe it, just... wet. It sounds like it may have been drenched in slap- back echo (which aids in the almost percussive-like nature of the guitar), but that's a fairly uninformed guess. But it sure sounds great, whatever it is. 3) This is a song that you kinda have to work at. Sliding up to anA augmentedA on the
E MajorE string and then playing the open
A major 6A6 chords aren't too easy to get every time if you're not used to it. If you've played Buddy Holly's "Heartbeat" or the Ren & Stimpy theme, this is the same chord: x07675. If you have problems with this chord, try an open A6, which looks like this: x02222. It will give you a close approximation of the chord (the only major difference is that you won't hit that high A, which is kinda important but not earth- shatteringly so). In any case, it's what the organ's playing, so you'll at least be doing something correctly. Still, try to get the 5th position
"O My Soul" (Alex Chilton) Performed by Big Star From the album _Radio_City_ (together as one CD with _#1_Record_) Transcribed without permission by Marc Hirsh, but I'm only trying to get more people interested in and influenced by Big Star, so I'm sure Chilton wouldn't mind, though I've never asked him, but I'd really like to, because he's such a big hero of mine and everything and I sure wish I'd been able to see that reunion concert at the University of Missouri, but oh well Notation: s : sixteenth note e : eighth note q : quarter note h : half note w : whole note . : play note for one and a half times the value before it (just like a dot in standard notation) ^ : ties two note lengths together - : staccato note (play *really* short) NOTE LENGTHS IN CAPITAL LETTERS MEAN REST FOR THAT VALUE OF TIME! / : slide up : slide down h : hammer-on p : pull-offD6D6 E---5-5-5-5---5-|---6---7----8---9-|----10-10-10-10---|-10---x-10-10---10-| B---7-7-7-7---7-|---8---9---10--11-|----12-12-12-12---|-12---x-12-12---12-| G---6-6-6-6---6-|---7---8----9--10-|----11-11-11-11---|-11---x-11-11---11-| D---7-7-7-7---7-|---8---9---10--11-|----12-12-12-12---|-12---x-12-12---12-| A-0-------------|------------------|------------------|-------------------| E---------------|------------------|-10---------------|-------------------| q e e e e
D MajorD
B minorBm
F# minorF#m E---2-----2-|-----2-----------|---------------|---------2---------------| B-----3-----|-3-----2h3-------|---------------|-------2-----------------| G-------4---|---4-------4-----|---------2-2-4-|-(4)b6-----(4)b6r4-2-----| D-----------|-------------4-2-|-4-4-2-4-4-----|---------------------4---| A-2---------|-----------------|-4-4-4-4-------|-----------------------4-| E-----------|-----------------|---------------|-------------------------| h e e e e e e e e e e e e q e e e e e e e e e e e e e e Oh, my near old eye (???)
