here is a transcription of Dick McIntire's 'Night of Tropic Love'. I've included the original C#min (its tagged as F#9 in tab key, but only strings 1-4 are used).
**note the timing in this tune, its critical to get it right. every other measure is played on the 1 and upbeat alternating with the 1 on the downbeat. won't work if you don't get that tip. so it goes 1 measure 1 and > next measure get the 1 beat > 1 and > etc, etc thru the piece.
what i like about this is its simple, yet very rhythmically interesting - listen to the original cut for reference. i don't have a way yet to post mp3 files, if someone has a link that would be helpful.
original C#min - interesting to note the differences between the tunings. i haven't played C#min very long, so this is as close to what / how i think Dick played it as i can get. these are old recordings and its hard to tell sometimes, plus Dick played a cranked low watt amp and the overtones make it hard to hear 2 vs 3 notes - they could be overtones i'm hearing. anyway - let me know on this and have fun.
i agree mike - i'm certainly hearing something there. I remember from the old Dick McIntire course books someone scanned in a few years ago, he seemed to favor 3 string vamps.
the one main reason i decided to go with 2 notes is i can plainly hear the 3 note grip at the end. not quite hearing it as clearly on the others, though there may be spots were he did use 3.
anyway, its academic, anyone trying this can certainly use 2 or 3, either sounds fine to my ear - its just difficult to hear what he actually did.
play over this and let me know and i'll make some necessary revisions - i did this in about 20mins, so i probably missed some detail.
I'm definitely hearing 3 notes, but the only possible way of playing the voicings I'm hearing is extremely difficult. It sounds to me like Dick has a G# as his first string. It is the only way I can fathom playing bar 2 (after the pickup). On C#m7, this is how to play those voicings, which I find near impossible to execute, and I highly doubt he did:
I'm going to see if I can find any other tunes from that 1941 session and listen for a high G# string. My guess is that it is an F#9 tuning with the 9 on top. G# E C# G# E ? ?
Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links
As a matter of fact, follow my link to the Soundcloud page and listen to the fifth selection, At Waikiki I Met Her, and you can absolutely hear that his tuning is different with the high G#. Listen to the chord he strums at 12:22.
Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links
As a matter of fact, follow my link to the Soundcloud page and listen to the fifth selection, At Waikiki I Met Her, and you can absolutely hear that his tuning is different with the high G#. Listen to the chord he strums at 12:22.
I don't think his 7 string F#9 tuning has ever been correctly spelled out before:
G#
E
C#
G#
E
A#
F#
Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links
yes, i can clearly hear that mike - interesting.
you're right, i haven't seen that 7 string tuning - i have my 7 string frypan tuned E C# G# E C# A# F#
damn i just strung it up last week...
btw - i was somehow under the impression you couldn't get thin gauge strings back in the 30's - how do you think he got that G# tuned up???
much appreciation for the help here mike - i was hearing something but nothing i tried on C#min seemed to fit. i just figured i was hearing some overtones or artifact from old 1930's recording technology
So is the recording session mention here with Dick playing in F#9 with a G# on top-is that something he was doing later in his career? Iv seen pictures of his frypans, he had several and not all 7 strings. Is there anyone here who can chronologically break down what instrument Dick was playing and in what tuning?
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