Help with a Belew/Bowie masterclass

Gassage

One of the finest pieces of pure chordal accompaniment I've ever heard is the great Adrian Belew completely  changing up China Girl - I can hear loads of 9ths and add2 in there.

It’s a masterclass in textural chord playing....not flashy, but deeply musical and atmospheric.

I've never been able to totally work it all out- loads of chromatic and harmonic runs, some finger picking- it's immense.

Now if anyone wants to assist me in working it all out, please do!

Keefy

That video is from 1990 so it’s the Sound + Vision tour, basically the greatest hits with a very stripped-down band. Adrian Belew is having to fill as much space as 2 or more guitarists.

I play 2nd guitar in a Bowie tribute called Rebel Heroes and I almost always transcribe the parts for myself and the other guitarist. I think I’ll have a go at that one!

Gassage

Keefy said:

That video is from 1990 so it’s the Sound + Vision tour, basically the greatest hits with a very stripped-down band. Adrian Belew is having to fill as much space as 2 or more guitarists.

I play 2nd guitar in a Bowie tribute called Rebel Heroes and I almost always transcribe the parts for myself and the other guitarist. I think I’ll have a go at that one!

Will you let me know if you nail it? There's loads of single line runs between arpeggios and stuff, that I know....

I went to that show. Belew was mesmerising- absolutely bloody brilliant.

maw4neu

Genius . . . . Adrian Belew is such an amazing guitar player . . . 

Brio

Adrian Belew is also funny as fuck. I was seeing Crimson on what became the Beat tour and they were playing Dora Cohen Hall, Wheatley.
I was sat in a quiet corner of the King and Queen in the village when in walk the band post soundcheck.
To be sat chatting with Fripp and Bruford plus these two weird yanks blew my mind.
And then the gig was remarkable. The album wasn’t out yet but it was stunning.

Littlejonny

Brio said:

Adrian Belew is also funny as fuck. I was seeing Crimson on what became the Beat tour and they were playing Dora Cohen Hall, Wheatley.
I was sat in a quiet corner of the King and Queen in the village when in walk the band post soundcheck.
To be sat chatting with Fripp and Bruford plus these two weird yanks blew my mind.
And then the gig was remarkable. The album wasn’t out yet but it was stunning.

Crimson played in Wheatley, Oxfordshire?

Keefy

Well that's defeated me! I got 2 minutes through the track transcribing parts of it, but a good 60% of the time the guitar is buried under the keys in the mushy TV-broadcast mix. It then ends up as guesswork, which doesn't help the OP. If I could hear what AB was playing then I could work out the notes and rhythms, and then notate and TAB it. But most of the time I can't.

Sorry!

Grangousier

Ha! I was at that Wheatley gig! It was a warm-up before they went into the studio to record Beat the following week. I'd seen them at Aylesbury Friars the previous year (one of the formative gigs of my life - completely mind-blowing), and was stood right in front of Fripp (which was also mind-blowing). Tricky gig to get back from if you lived, as I did, in Chinnor.