“…which I’ll hopefully get finished later this week.” – March 8th, 2010
Well that clearly didn’t happen, and then continued to not happen for an extended period of time. That’s my bad, but sometimes life just gets in the way, and whatnot, but at least I’m finishing this, right?
Anyway, last time I covered the rhythm under the second solo and the transition into the last chorus, which continues to use the same rhythm established with the first chorus and continued through the second solo. Being only 8 16th notes long, it’s repeated twice each bar and fits perfectly, which is relatively un-Meshuggah-like. Just to be difficult though, most of the notes are syncopated, they fall off the count, like this:
. . . .
xx-x-x-xxx-x-x-x
The melody follows a similar structure to the first chorus, but instead of being two bars long and repeated four times, it’s now four bars long, and repeated only twice. This is quite a shame, in my opinion, as between this passage and the rhythm under the first solo; they’re the parts that make the song so awesome.
The melody for this section poses a problem for the notation I’ve used until now, in that it goes as high as the 10th and 11th frets. Where each dash represented the interval of a 16th note, they’re now 32nd notes, so the rhythm looks like this:
x-x---x---x---x-x-x---x---x---x- x-x---x---x---x-x-x---x---x---x-
The first half of the melody starts the way it did in the first chorus, but progresses further afield than it did the first time:
-5---4--10---11- -8---7--4---5- -1--
---------------- -------------- ----
--2-3-----9-8--- --5-6----3-2-- --0-
The second half pretty much reverses the patterns in the first half.
--5-4----10-11-- --8-7----4-5-- -----5---4-
---------------- -------------- --6--------
-2---3--9-----8- -5---6--3---2- -0----2-3-
In the first chorus, we had two groups of four, followed by a group of two, whereas this time we have four groups of four followed by a group of two. This means that one repetition of the second chorus ends up being slightly shorter than two repetitions of the first one. As you can see, there is an addition group of four at the end, which happens to be the same as the first group of four. Once these notes are imposed over the rhythm, you end up with this:
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
5---------4---10------11--8----- --7---4---------5-1-----------5-
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
--2---3---------9-8-----------5- 6---------3---2-------0---2-----
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
4---------10--11------8---7----- --4---5-----------5-----------4-
-------------------------------- ----------------6---------------
--3---9---------8-5-----------6- 3---------2---0-------2---3-----
As with the first chorus, I found the easiest way to learn this was to separate it into the ‘long notes’ and the ‘short notes’, playing one half of the melody only and then the other, substituting muted notes for the part of the melody I was skipping over, like this:
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
x-x-------4---x-x-x---11--8---x- x-x---4-------x-x-x-----------x-
x-x-----------x-x-x-----------x- x-x-----------x-x-x-----------x-
x-x---3-------x-x-x-----------x- x-x-------3---x-x-x---0---2---x-
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
x-x-------10--x-x-x---8---7---x- x-x---5-------x-x-x-----------x-
x-x-----------x-x-x-----------x- x-x-----------x-x-x-----------x-
x-x---9-------x-x-x-----------x- x-x-------2---x-x-x---2---3---x-
And then this:
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
5-----x---x---10------x---x----- --7---x---x-----5-1---x---x---5-
------x---x-----------x---x----- ------x---x-----------x---x-----
--2---x---x-----9-8---x---x---5- 6-----x---x---2-------x---x-----
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
4-----x---x---11------x---x----- --4---x---x-------5---x---x---4-
------x---x-----------x---x----- ------x---x-----6-----x---x-----
--3---x---x-----8-5---x---x---6- 3-----x---x---0-------x---x-----
However, once you’ve got this sorted, you also need to factor in when to slide your hand to the next part of the fretboard. If you just play the parts above as they’re notated, you’d be playing the 11-8 in the first part (the second two notes) with your pinky finger, then your index finger. Similarly, when you’re playing the second part, the 11-8-5 might seem a little daunting, until you realise you’ll be sliding your index finger from the 8th to the 5th fret. Even though you’re sliding, I think it’s best to pick the note at either end of the slide, but that’s purely up to you, and probably won’t make much difference if your amp’s up loud enough. Here is the entire riff with finger notations above.
1 = index
2 = middle
3 = ring
4 = pinky
(0)= open
/ = slide up
\ = slide down
4 1 2 3 /(3)2 1 4 \(4) 1 2 3 \(3) 2 1 4 1 (0) 1 4
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
5---------4---10------11--8----- --7---4---------5-1-----------5-
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
--2---3---------9-8-----------5- 6---------3---2-------0---2-----
3 2 /(2) 3 4 1\(1) 4 3 2\(2)3 4 1 (0)4 3 1 2 3
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
4---------10--11------8---7----- --4---5-----------5-----------4-
-------------------------------- ----------------6---------------
--3---9---------8-5-----------6- 3---------2---0-------2---3-----
The only part where I’ve deviated from the expected pattern is near the end of the second half, where you play a quick 0-6-5 where you’d expect to play a quick 0-1-5. As with the first chorus, this is to make it easier to dampen the open low string with your index and middle fingers as you fret the 6 with your pinky. If you play it as a 1, you’d have to fret that with your index finger, and use one of your other fingers to dampen the lower string, curved over so as not to dampen the string you’re actually trying to play. And before any of you suggest it, I’ve found palm muting the open low string insufficient for completely choking it off. Your results may differ, but the louder you’ve got your amp turned up, the harder it will be to completely stop that note with your picking hand. The downside to fretting it as a 6 is you’re then stretching from the 5 with your ring finger back to the 2 with your index, which can be slightly uncomfortable, but isn’t the end of the world. Additionally, any time you’re fretting a note on the higher string with your ring finger, you can get away with using your pinky. I usually do, which probably means I won’t grow up to be Steve Vai or Yngwie Malmsteen, but whatever.
Surprisingly, the picking style established over the majority of this song is relatively light and smooth, so the first time you go to transition into the outro, you’ll find yourself probably losing your grip on the pick, or sounding like some kind of un-Heavy Metal wuss who can’t play fast notes. As you near the end of the second repetition of the section above, it pays to consciously tighten your grip on the pick.
The outro is quite unlike the rest of the song, and not just because of the picking style, it also moves away from being 4/4 to being the equivalent of 9/4. Ordinarily this could make it feel like the pacing is suddenly dragging, but in this case, it just kinda throws you off your count. The riff is basically the open low string, and the complimentary ‘outside octave’ (the note one above the octave). It would be easier to play this on the 8th fret of the second string, but I suspect it’s actually played on the 3rd fret of the third string, so that it sounds brighter tonally. (Or just to be difficult, who knows?) The rhythm can be divided into sections based on how many times you play the higher note, as follows. Remember we’re breaking it down to 32nd note intervals now, not 16ths like we have in the previous parts of this series.
A
------------
--------3---
------------
0---000---0-
B
----------------
--------3---3---
----------------
0---000---0---0-
A
------------
--------3---
------------
0---000---0-
C
--------------------
--------3---3---3---
--------------------
0---000---0---0-----
A
------------
--------3---
------------
0---000---0-
So as you can see, it breaks down into A-B-A-C-A. The ‘A’s are 3/8, ‘B’ is 4/8 and ‘C’ is 5/8, combining to a grand total of 18/8, and because the 8 in this case is 8th notes, it’s actually 9/4. Or two bars of 9/8, whatever floats your boat. While I could notate the outro as two bars of 9/8, I think you’re better off just counting it as above. Where you’ll trip up is that last segment in the repetition, often heading on to the ‘B’ instead of playing a second ‘A’.
That’s it, that’s the whole song – well, the rhythm part, anyway – broken down purely for my own edification, and shared partly because it might be useful to someone somewhere, partly because it seems a waste not to, and entirely because I am an attention whore. Also, because I’m such a massive Meshuggah fanboy enthusiast, I’ll be doing this again with other Meshuggah songs, and while I know which songs I want to do, I’m certainly open to suggestions if anyone else wants me to tackle a Meshuggah song of their liking. No, I won’t be doing non-Meshuggah songs unless another band happens to catch my ear the same way as they have, but I rate that as reasonably unlikely in the short term.